Intermittent USB port failure

Captain Brillo · 11-19-2018, 11:15 AM

This is the 3rd box here that has had this problem - keyboard will be dead or mouse will freeze.
Sometimes unplugging/replugging fixes it, most often requires a full shutdown.

In Windows there's a default function that suspends USB ports; sometimes this fails and it must be turned off to fix the issue.
This issue has been both box and device independent and is really getting troublesome.

Is there possibly something similar going on in Linux?

berndbausch · 11-19-2018, 11:43 AM

To get to the bottom of the problem, look at the system log and/or kernel log when this happens, and use the lsusb command.

I am not aware of something that suspends USB ports by default, neither Windows nor Linux.

Captain Brillo · 11-19-2018, 02:20 PM

I'll try that next time. Thanks.

And when I was searching this I found Windows has a power setting called "USB Selective Suspend" that basically puts the port to sleep if not active. Of course, it seems it malfunctions a lot, so I was wondering if our Linux now had something similar going on. Glad it's not that.