Using flash drives with hubs

btyson · Post by **btyson** » Sun Jun 24, 2007 7:20 pm

On one of my systems, I have tried two different usb2 hubs. In both cases, when plugging a flash drive into the hub, nothing happens, However, if I plug the flash drive into the hub, then unplug and replug the hub, the flash drive is recognized. But with a third hub, which happens to be usb1 (I don't know if that is significant), the flash drive is recognized immediately when plugged into the hub. The two "nonworking" hubs work great when used with flash drives on a different system.

My reason for not using the usb1 hub is that I have a DVD burner on the hub and usb1 is too slow.

Do you have any thoughts on why this is happening and what I can do to get this working properly?

Thank you.

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Sun Jun 24, 2007 8:19 pm

USB hubs are almost always problematic in some way or another IME, regardless of OS. That being said, we'll need some specifics to really give any help. First, what distro are you running on each machine? Second, tail /var/log/messages and see what happens when you plug these devices in in each case - feel free to post this output. Third, do you have these issues when you take the hubs out of the equation? Fourth, have you compared bios settings on both machines? Some stuff gets hidden there sometimes.

btyson · Post by **btyson** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 11:49 pm

Snarkout wrote:USB hubs are almost always problematic in some way or another IME, regardless of OS.

A surprising solution occurred tonight. Here in Greenville SC we had an intense thunderstorm and hail which knocked out the power. Shortly after I brought my system back up, I began to use the flash drive. Just as I was reaching for the hub's usb cable to unplug/replug it, up popped the flash drive in Konqueror!

Like many Linux systems, this one has been running for so long I can't remember when it was last booted. I have disconnected/reconnected the hub's ac adapter and usb cable many times, but it never entered my mind to try rebooting the computer itself. I would not have thought that rebooting would have any effect on this problem. So it took a power failure for me to discover this!

So everyone out there add "reboot the system" to your list of things to try if you have a funky behaving usb hub.