Leap 42.2 kernel 4.4.87-18.29 stuck on start job

I’m currently on Leap 42.2 and just under a month ago my kernel must have been updated to 4.4.87-18.29. Today my machine rebooted for the first time since that update went in and during bootup it got stuck on a startup job which appeared to be trying to connect to a USB drive. There was just on message showing the timeout but it never moved.

I tried rebooting with the drive disconnected, which looked as though it was going to do better as the timeout message at least showed some progress but when it got to about 10 seconds left it stuck as well.

In order to get going again I reverted to the previous kernel - 4.4.79-18.23 and that loaded up without any issue.

I have been unable to find anything on the forum which looks anything like this so would be interested to know if anybody else has a similar problem and if there is any advice about how to fix it, that is apart from sticking with the previous kernel.

What happens if you re-install the 4.4.87-18.29 kernel package with your USB drive disconnected? Also, does your /etc/fstab try to automount a filesystem on your USB drive?

The USB drive has been on this machine for a long time from much earlier versions of OpenSuse. All that time it has been automounted and it works fine with the previous kernel. I’'m not entirely sure I understand why compiling the kernel with the drive not connected would change anything.

I did try simply reinstalling/recompiling the kernel and this time I couldn’t even use ESC to get to the log screen. Eventually it did get to emergency mode with a message about device not accepting address.

I’ve managed to isolate the error message: usb 1-6: device descriptor read/64, error -110.

I know that sounds like a possible hardware error but why this kernel? The older kernel happily finds usb 1-6 and identifies the drive attached to it without any problem.

Having looked around further at this error I am completely stumped. According to everything I read error -100 means that there isn’t enough power for the usb device. However, if that were the case then I would expect it to fail on both kernels and yet on the working one there is no error at all. Additionally, would it be unreasonable to expect that the system would continue to load even after getting this error?

On Tue 10 Oct 2017 10:16:02 PM CDT, davidlwilcox wrote:

Having looked around further at this error I am completely stumped.
According to everything I read error -100 means that there isn’t enough
power for the usb device. However, if that were the case then I would
expect it to fail on both kernels and yet on the working one there is no
error at all. Additionally, would it be unreasonable to expect that the
system would continue to load even after getting this error?

Hi
More robust kernel module so it doesn’t blow up the USB port, sounds
like it’s an actual hard drive? If it needs more than 500mA, then
should use a dual power dongle or power the device? Maybe the port is
failing power wise?

If it’s in your /etc/fstab look at removing and let it automount?


Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
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Not quite sure what you mean by the kernel module being more robust. The device works fine with the previous kernel, no errors at all so in my book that would make the kernel module less robust, especially as it stops the system from loading.

Yes, the device is an external hard drive but I’ve been using it without any problem at all for a long time and it’s only with this kernel that a problem has shown up. I guess I could try doubling up the power feed, I presume there is a cable to do this.

However, I did try booting with the drive disconnected and the same problem occurred so if it is something usb then why still the same problem with the drive not there.

Hi
More robust in not taking out the USB port… seems a good thing?

Yes, you can get a “USB Y power cable” specifically for this job.

So do you have an /etc/fstab entry for the USB device, if so either rem it out or add the nofail mount option, it should then skip if it’s not present.

If in the fstab then the boot will fail if the drive is not found. New kernel may be more aggressive in protecting the USB port from overload. So plugged or unplugged the boot will fail if because the fstab entry.

So, I went out and bought a powered USB hub, connected my two external drives, mouse and keyboard to it and … exactly the same problem.

I see that kernel 4.12 is now available and I’m wondering if it would be worth trying it out to see if it has any effect. Has anybody put this kernel into a Leap 42 system?