special device /dev/uba1 does not exist

phil.d.g · 07-23-2005, 05:25 AM

Hi,

I have installed the 2.6.10 kernel from /testing from the slackware 10.1 CD2.

When I come to mount my pendrive I get this error

Quote:

mount: special device /dev/uba1 does not exist

the relevant output of dmesg is

Code:

usb 1-5: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
usb 1-5: device descriptor read/64, error -71
uba: device 3 capacity nsec 250880 bsize 512
uba: device 3 capacity nsec 250880 bsize 512
 uba: uba1

the relevant output of `cat /proc/diskstats` is

Code:

 180    0 uba 1 0 8 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1
 180    1 uba1 0 0 0 0

The funny thing is this was working correctly a while ago. The other thing that may be of use is that my other pendrive used to be recognised as /dev/uba1 as well, but now is recognised as /dev/sda1. I can mount this pendrive on /dev/sda1 fine. The only things I have done since they were working is install ulogd and put `modprobe ipt_ULOG` in rc.modules and have installed NUT for my UPS, though I can't see NUT causing a problem because thats nothing to do with the kernel.

I don't really know where to start, I haven't had much experience with the configuring and troubleshooting the kernel. I suspect it could possibly be due to something wrong with udev? I have read this was a bug in one release of the kernel and was fixed by the next, though I don't think that applies to me as I have had it working

I don't know if this is relevant but there is no uba or uba1 in /dev

cheers

Phil

keefaz · 07-23-2005, 05:31 AM

Are /etc/rc.d/rc.hotplug and /etc/rc.d/rc.udev executable ?

Also what does ' cat /proc/partitions ' say after you plug the USB device ?

phil.d.g · 07-23-2005, 06:38 AM

thanks for the reply

Code:

philip@newcastle:/etc/rc.d$ ls -l /etc/rc.d/rc.hotplug /etc/rc.d/rc.udev 
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 1523 2004-11-04 06:48 /etc/rc.d/rc.hotplug*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 1396 2005-01-15 00:30 /etc/rc.d/rc.udev*
philip@newcastle:/etc/rc.d$ cat /proc/partitions 
major minor  #blocks  name

   3     0   80418240 hda
   3     1     497983 hda1
   3     2    2000092 hda2
   3     3          1 hda3
   3     5     497983 hda5
   3     6     248976 hda6
   3     7    4000153 hda7
   3     8   10000431 hda8
   3    64  160836480 hdb
   3    65  160834716 hdb1
 180     0     125440 uba
 180     1     125168 uba1

As you can see both rc.hotplug and rc.udev are executable, I still have no idea what it could be.

EDIT:
Is it worth upgrading to the 2.6.12.3 kernel out of /testing from slackware-current

I am also using udev-050

phil.d.g · 07-23-2005, 07:57 AM

Right, I've done a few things since, but still haven't got it working. As I say I don't know what I'm looking for but if I tell you you might be able to pin the problem down for me a bit better.

I booted my old 2.4.29 kernel and the pendrive won't mount under that either. dmesg said that sba1 was assigned to the pendrive but when I tried to mount /dev/sba1 it complained that the device didn't exist.

I have updated udev to the one out of slackware-current (udev-062)

I have reinstalled the 2.6.10 kernel

I have tried this pendrive on my other computer running Ubuntu and that saw it fine and automounted it.

I booted up with udev disabled, udev removes and creates devices in /dev to represent the actual devices present right? So I wondered if all devices would be listed if udev wasn't running regardless of whether or not the actual device was present, didn't help.

I have a few niggles with this pendrive before, sometimes it doesn't recognise the file system correctly and reverts to using old DOS style names eg: DIRECT~1 rather than the long name: directory.

Thats about all I've got for now

EDIT: more:-

I plugged in my digital camera which is recognised as a mass storage device and works in the same way as pendrives and that was assigned /dev/uba1 in the same way as the pendrive but when I come to mount it I get the same error 'mount: special device /dev/uba1 does not exist'. So I know its not the pendrive with the problem.

keefaz · 07-23-2005, 09:44 AM

For my part, I always see my USB camera and a friend's USB pen
mounted as /dev/sda1 (camera) and /dev/sda (pen)

Both are shown as scsi disk in dmesg after I plug them, I don't see
any reference to scsi from your output, I dunno if that matter

Do you use a personal compiled kernel or the slackware stock one ?
If you compiled the kernel, did you enable sd_mod (scsi disk) ?

phil.d.g · 07-23-2005, 09:46 AM

No, I am using the stock 2.6.10 kernel from /testing off Slackware 10.1 CD2 and the old kernel I referred to was bare.i from Slackware 10.1 CD1

keefaz · 07-23-2005, 09:57 AM

It is weird, cat /proc/partitions shows uba1 and you can 't see it in /dev ?

Does fdisk /dev/uba work ?

phil.d.g · 07-23-2005, 02:12 PM

It is wierd, I did a bit of looking up on it before asking the question and not much came up, except there was one particular version of the kernel that had this bug and had been fixed in the next release.

Anyway not to worry, I've solved it.

I went a bit too far and broke the whole system "good 'un proper" and have spent the rest of the afternoon reinstalling which I'm not best pleased about, but nevermind.

thanks for your help anyway

phil.d.g · 07-23-2005, 02:15 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by keefaz
Does fdisk /dev/uba work ?

I would expect not, when I did `ls -l /dev/uba*` it returned nothing, the problem was that the device was not being put into /dev when I plugged it in though I don't know what was causing it

keefaz · 07-23-2005, 02:28 PM

Maybe the next time you have problem with device not
populated in /dev, look closely at your udev install
(is this udev version known to have problem etc...)
There was another usb device issue today which was
solved by downgrading udev to 054 version

phil.d.g · 07-23-2005, 05:25 PM

I've just done a default install and installed kernel 2.6.20 from /testing, the version of udev is 050, so everything is how I had it initially and it still doesn't work, I'm stumped.

At least it know works in kernel 2.4.29. I shall be sticking with that for now. I've had enough!!

Rick485 · 07-23-2005, 06:14 PM

I am probably way over my head in even trying to comment on this question, but here goes. His original error message said that "special device /dev/uba1 does not exist." Is that is a device file that should actually exist in the /dev directory? Perhaps it should have been automatically detected and added but, I wonder what would happen if he tried to recreate that device file using the the mknod command. To use that command he would need to know what the correct type, major, and minor numbers are for that device file. I have never used a pendrive and do not really know much about the kernel or how Linux handles devices so what I said might be totally wrong. Perhaps someone more experienced could comment. Basically, I am wondering if he could just manually create the device file as a test. The manually created device file would most likely just go away after he reboots.

phil.d.g · 07-25-2005, 02:11 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Rick485
I am probably way over my head in even trying to comment on this question

Not at all mate, I'm thankful for your input.

It indeed was that the actual file was never put into /dev, If I understand right its udev that is supposed to do this. I never got to try your idea because I decided I'd had enough of slackware and have gone walkabouts (trying other distros), anyway I'll keep that in mind, looking at my track record I'll probably be back with slackware within 6 months anyway.

What got me was it worked once with this specific kernel I was using but when I did a clean install and upgraded the kernel straight away it didn't start working even then. I know for certain it just worked without me having to do anything when I first upgraded to this kernel.