lsusb not responding with anything--not even a list of open ports!

greenphreak · 09-27-2007, 10:29 PM

Greetings:

I'm running Mandriva 2006 with the 2.6.12-31 kernel on a Microspace PCX48 computer (1GB RAM, 1GHz Celeron373, 512K L2 Cache, 16GB flash disk). I'm having strange behavior with the USB interface. Some USB devices seem to work OK, some not OK, but the strangest thing is that I cannot get any output from the 'lsusb' command. It doesn't even respond that I have open ports, it returns no stdout whatsoever!

Code:

# lsusb
#

I figured some hints to my solution might lie in the dmesg output, so I plugged a few usb devices into the computer, booted her up, and then looked through dmesg output for any mention of usb. The output seems to be OK, with no errors. So why is it that lsusb would have no real output? Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks to all who read this!

Cameron

Code:

usbcore: registered new driver usbfs
usbcore: registered new driver hub
USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v2.2
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1d.0[A] -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1d.0 to 64
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.0: UHCI Host Controller
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.0: irq 16, io base 0x00001820
hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 1-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1d.1[B] -> GSI 19 (level, low) -> IRQ 19
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1d.1 to 64
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.1: UHCI Host Controller
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.1: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.1: irq 19, io base 0x00001840
hub 2-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 2-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1d.2[C] -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 18
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1d.2 to 64
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.2: UHCI Host Controller
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.2: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 3
uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.2: irq 18, io base 0x00001860
hub 3-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 3-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1d.7[D] -> GSI 23 (level, low) -> IRQ 23
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1d.7 to 64
ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: EHCI Host Controller
ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: debug port 1
ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 4
ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: irq 23, io mem 0xe0100000
PCI: cache line size of 32 is not supported by device 0000:00:1d.7
ehci_hcd 0000:00:1d.7: USB 2.0 initialized, EHCI 1.00, driver 10 Dec 2004
hub 4-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 4-0:1.0: 6 ports detected
usbcore: registered new driver hiddev
usbcore: registered new driver usbhid
drivers/usb/input/hid-core.c: v2.01:USB HID core driver
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
usb 2-1: new low speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
input: USB HID v1.10 Mouse [Logitech Optical USB Mouse] on usb-0000:00:1d.1-1
usb 2-2: new low speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
input: USB HID v1.10 Keyboard [Dell Dell USB Keyboard] on usb-0000:00:1d.1-2
usbcore: registered new driver usbmouse
drivers/usb/input/usbmouse.c: v1.6:USB HID Boot Protocol mouse driver
ts: Compaq touchscreen protocol output
usbcore: registered new driver usbkbd
drivers/usb/input/usbkbd.c: :USB HID Boot Protocol keyboard driver
usb 4-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
SCSI subsystem initialized
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
scsi0 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 4
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
usbcore: registered new driver usb-storage
USB Mass Storage support registered.
  Vendor: SanDisk   Model: U3 Cruzer Micro   Rev: 2.18
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
  Vendor: SanDisk   Model: U3 Cruzer Micro   Rev: 2.18
  Type:   CD-ROM                             ANSI SCSI revision: 02
usb-storage: device scan complete
SCSI device sda: 1994385 512-byte hdwr sectors (1021 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
SCSI device sda: 1994385 512-byte hdwr sectors (1021 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
 /dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0: p4
Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 8x/40x writer xa/form2 cdda tray
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20
Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 1
cdrom: This disc doesn't have any tracks I recognize!

macemoneta · 09-27-2007, 11:29 PM

Do you have the /proc and /sys pseudo-filesystems mounted? Look in /etc/fstab for two entries like:

Code:

proc     /proc   proc    defaults     0 0
sysfs    /sys    sysfs   defaults     0 0

greenphreak · 09-28-2007, 12:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by macemoneta

Do you have the /proc and /sys pseudo-filesystems mounted? Look in /etc/fstab for two entries like:

Code:

proc     /proc   proc    defaults     0 0
sysfs    /sys    sysfs   defaults     0 0

It appears that I have the /proc pseudo-filesystem mounted, but not the /sys. Should I make a sysfs line in my fstab? Here is my /etc/fstab:

Code:

/dev/hda5 / ext3 defaults 1 1
/dev/hda1 /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/sda4               /mnt/RIPLinuX           vfat    pamconsole,exec,noauto,noatime,codepage=850,iocharset=iso8859-1,managed 0 0

It is strange, I don't have any files in my /proc/bus/usb directory, but I do have some in my /sys/bus/usb directory---a devices and a drivers folder. Is this related to that?

It also appears that all of the kernel modules associated with usb are properly loaded in the kernel. The output of my lsmod shows (among others) these lines:

Code:

usb_storage            81220  1
scsi_mod              121224  3 sr_mod,sd_mod,usb_storage
usbkbd                  5760  0
usbmouse                4160  0
usbhid                 44544  0
ohci_hcd               19172  0
ehci_hcd               29160  0
uhci_hcd               29296  0
usbcore               108476  9 ohci_hcd,usb_storage,nikal,usbkbd,usbmouse,usbhid,ehci_hcd,uhci_hcd

macemoneta · 09-28-2007, 12:14 AM

Your kernel may not be optioned correctly to support the lsusb command, or it may have some distribution specific patches applied.

greenphreak · 09-28-2007, 12:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by macemoneta

Your kernel may not be optioned correctly to support the lsusb command, or it may have some distribution specific patches applied.

That is a good suggestion, but I don't think this is the problem. In the process of installing Mandriva and installing software on this machine, I've been setting up another computer with identical install steps. However, the two machines are not identical in hardware. The other computer has no problems using its USB interface, so that seems to rule out the kernel hypothesis, since they are using the same kernel and distro.

This seems to point the finger at the hardware being bad in this machine; however, only a few weeks ago I had Mandriva 2007 running on this very computer, and it had no problems accessing its USB interface with lsusb or anything else like that.

Honestly, I don't know where to turn. I've done a lot of google/forum searching for something about why lsusb would not respond with *any* kind of output (whether or not USB devices were plugged in), and I've found nothing. I've been trying to read about how lsusb works, and it seems to just be searching the /proc/bus/usb directory for information, but of course, since I don't have any data in my /proc/bus/usb directory, nothing is found. So what is it that populates this directory with information? I imagine it is something with the kernel modules specific to usb (eg ehci, ohci, uhci), but I'm not sure this is true.

Would it pay for me to make another line in my /etc/fstab for a /sym filesystem? What purpose does such a line server?

Thanks for the help so far!

macemoneta · 09-29-2007, 10:07 PM

The /proc and /sys filesystem entries are created by the kernel / kernel modules. If they are not there, either the kernel is not correct, or the kernel is having a problem getting the information from the hardware.

Does your other (working) machine have /proc and /sys entries in /etc/fstab?

Try booting a rescue CD/DVD, and see if lsusb is working. If so, the installation on the non-working machine may have been corrupted in some manner.