Problem with USB Mass Storage

I have this problem too, with my 4th gen 40GB ipod though.

It usually works for some time while copying data, dut then suddenly it seems to give up. That's when the "Buffer I/O error on device sda2, logical block blabla" errors begin. Also, /dev/sd* disappear, which causes umount to not function at all.

Google told me to rmmod ehci_hcd, but that makes the kernel crash. A hard reset is needed.

Did you rmmod it before or after the disk failed? Please try doing it from a clean boot before even plugging in the ipod.

I tried both. steps to reproduce:

1) before it failed:
boot up, log in to gnome, rmmod ehci_hcd, plug in the ipod, system seems to work fine but freezes when I try to access the ipod (actually, it was enough to open nautilus with computer:/// as the location)

2) after it failed:
boot up, log into gnome, plug in the ipod, access it (this works fine for some time), see it fail (after a certain amount of read/write operations), system still works fine now, rmmod ehci_hcd, system freezes immediately.

I have the same problem with the w810i as marduk above. I also tried to make a new vfat-filesystem on /dev/sda1 or to remove module ehci_hcd, both with no success.

Sometimes it helps to do a umount /dev/sda1 and using the eject-dialog of gnome only when this is done (takes a while, depends on the size of the copied files).

Thanks and best regards,
mechko

I'm not seeing the kernel crash any longer with the latest edgy kernel (2.6.17.1-10.34 generic). I have to rmmod ehci-hcd however to get usb working more or less. Otherwise it still fails after copying some data.

I have the same or a similar problem with a brand new Verbatim Store'n'go 1 GB USB stick. When writing a lot of files (say 4000 files of 80MB) to the stick, I got an error message and it got unmounted. After that, all data and even the partition table was lost! Because of a possible manufacturing error I returned the stick and had it replaced with another one (same model). The first thing I did on the new one was
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb
then I created a FAT32 partition. I still get lots of write errors on that one, but at least the partition table stays intact (maybe due to the "dd..."?).

I have the problem on Edgy (all updates installed) and tested with a live CD of Feisty Beta as well. Same error on both (on a IBM Thinkpad R52). Here's the log on Feisty Beta:

Mar 31 19:54:03 ubuntu kernel: [ 9.752000] scsi 2:0:0:0: Direct-Access VBTM Store'n'go Pro 6.50 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
Mar 31 19:54:03 ubuntu kernel: [ 9.752000] SCSI device sdb: 1989631 512-byte hdwr sectors (1019 MB)
Mar 31 19:54:03 ubuntu kernel: [ 9.752000] sdb: Write Protect is off
Mar 31 19:54:03 ubuntu kernel: [ 9.752000] SCSI device sdb: 1989631 512-byte hdwr sectors (1019 MB)
Mar 31 19:54:03 ubuntu kernel: [ 9.756000] sdb: Write Protect is off
Mar 31 19:54:03 ubuntu kernel: [ 9.756000] sdb: sdb1
Mar 31 19:54:03 ubuntu kernel: [ 9.756000] sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sdb
Mar 31 19:54:03 ubuntu kernel: [ 9.756000] sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0

Here's where the error occurs (while copying files to the stick):

Mar 31 19:58:58 ubuntu kernel: [ 497.428000] usb 5-3.2: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
Mar 31 19:59:17 ubuntu kernel: [ 515.852000] usb 5-3.2: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
Mar 31 19:59:35 ubuntu kernel: [ 534.276000] usb 5-3.2: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
Mar 31 19:59:45 ubuntu kernel: [ 544.592000] usb 5-3.2: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
Mar 31 19:59:56 ubuntu kernel: [ 554.836000] sd 2:0:0:0: scsi: Device offlined - not ready after error recovery
Mar 31 19:59:56 ubuntu kernel: [ 554.836000] sd 2:0:0:0: SCSI error: return code = 0x00050000
Mar 31 19:59:56 ubuntu kernel: [ 554.836000] end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 1854531
Mar 31 19:59:56 ubuntu kernel: [ 554.836000] lost page write due to I/O error on sdb1
Mar 31 19:59:56 ubuntu last message repeated 9 times
Mar 31 19:59:56 ubuntu kernel: [ 554.836000] sd 2:0:0:0: SCSI error: return code = 0x00010000
Mar 31 19:59:56 ubuntu kernel: [ 554.836000] end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 1855891
Mar 31 19:59:56 ubuntu kernel: [ 555.268000] usb 5-3.2: USB disconnect, address 3
Mar 31 19:59:56 ubuntu kernel: [ 555.496000] usb 5-3.2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 6

After that, the stick is not mounted anymore. The light on the stick is always on after the error occured (usually it's off or it's blinking when the stick is accessed).

lsusb -v of the stick:

Bus 005 Device 006: ID 08ec:0020 M-Systems Flash Disk Pioneers
Device Descriptor:
  bLength 18
  bDescriptorType 1
  bcdUSB ...

Jens, are you on feisty?

I tested again yesterday, copying 300+ songs to my ipod, and the bug was gone. Maybe it's fixed for you too?

The log I posted above is from Feisty Beta, which I started from CD as a LIVE system on my laptop in order to test the stick. However, I get the same behaviour on my installed Edgy (same machine and stick). What I haven't tried so far is testing it from an *installed* Feisty (I won't be able to do that before the end of April).

What I found out as well is that the error depends on a combination of the amount of files and the size of these files. Copying one big file of 200MB doesn't cause any problems, copying 6000 files of 80MB will produce the error, however, splitting these 6000 files into chunks and doing a "sync" after each chunk it works fine. Example:

~/Folder/Subfolder1 contains 2000 files of 20MB
~/Folder/Subfolder2 contains 2000 files of 20MB
~/Folder/Subfolder3 contains 1000 files of 20MB
~/Folder/Subfolder4 contains 1000 files of 20MB

Copying ~/Folder do the stick will cause the crash. Copying each subfolder separately with a "sync" after each subfolder runs fine.

Seems like there's a limit of the amount of files and/or file size which defines if the error occurs or not.

That might just be a hardware issue then. Weird but possible.

Have upgraded from Edgy to Feisty about a week ago and just tested the problem I reported above. It's gone and so far it seems to work fine :-)

For those who are still having this problem, can they please test to see if this problem is fixed in gutsy. If they are still having the problem can you please attach the output of cat /proc/usb/devices. Please attach it as device-name-output.txt.

Thanks
chuck

i have an similar problem. when i try to copy larger files(>500mb) the device is removed unsafe etc...
i have attached my /proc/devices, i have no /proc/usb/device

i hope this bug gets fixed, i am now on gutsy an live with the bug until dapper...

my syslog

my syslog

I have a new Freecom Classic SL 80GB USB hard drive connected to
Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake Linux 2.6.15-29-386 on old (2001) hardware
also tried with Mac PowerBook G4 MacOS 10.3.9.

After playing with the VFAT filesystem on the disk as it came, using both computers,
I used GNU Parted 1.6.25.1 to put a single-partition EXT2 filesystem on it.
However, fdisk v2.12r thinks that it's still VFAT, whilst (after doing the copies below)
the Mac still sees the old VFAT files, but not the new EXT2 ones.

I started trying to copy the partitions of the 20GB disk on the Linux machine,
using GNU cpio v2.6. The two smallest ones (/=168MB and /var=316MB) were
copied corrrectly, as verified using md5sums.

When I tried the bigger ones (/usr=2168MB and /home=1754MB), the copy failed
after some time (after almost 1GB on one occasion) and the disk was disconnected.

STDERR said: cpio: write error: Input/output error

dmesg said: Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block 8587112
and (repeatedly) rejecting I/O to dead device

/var/log/messages contained lines like the following
usb 1-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
scsi1 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Vendor: HDS72808 Model: 0PLAT20 Rev: 0 0
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 00
SCSI device sdb: 160836480 512-byte hdwr sectors (82348 MB)
sd 1:0:0:0: Attached scsi disk sdb
Driver 'sd' needs updating - please use bus_type methods
printk: 17347 messages suppressed.
lost page write due to I/O error on sda1

After this, /dev/sda1 no longer appeared in the output of "df",
and both mount and umount denied the existence of /dev/sda1.
However, usbview said that the usb device was still there.
After turning the disk power off/on, it appeared as /dev/sdb1.

A subsequent e2fsck found numerous errors with free block counts,
unattached inodes, inode ref counts, directory counts, etc.

This happened four times, including once using tar instead of cpio.

I tried using "e2fsck -c" to check for bad blocks. The first 3% of the disk
was ok, but took ages, so I went away to do something else. When I
came back, the disk had been disconnected as before, but I couldn't
see how far the bad block check had gone, as the screen saver wouldn't
restore the text of that terminal window. Subsequent e2fsck was clean.

I have no idea whether this is a Linux bug or faulty hardware. I am posting
this report here because the comments above were the closest that I could
find in a web search to the symptoms that I have.

Hi, I've also had problems with the USB mass storage.

I'm running 7.10 with all latest updates.

~10:20 restarted machine
10:25:33 Plugged in LG Viewity (in USB mass storage mode)
~10:26 Nautilus browser appears and LG SD card drive mounted
10:28 select folder to navigate to on SD card using nautilus
~10:28:30 folder contents displayed
10:29:30 Start to copy file to local drive
10:29:45 Pop up displaying 'I/O error while copying message' - copy cancelled
10:30:45 unmounted LG drive

Like etezmart I don't have a /proc/usb/devices; I've enclosed an extract from my syslog

Additional note:
- After navigating to a folder using nautilus I have received a 'unsafe device removal' pop-up and the SD drive has been unmounted (nautilus crashes at this point) around this time I was getting following messages in syslog
Dec 27 09:53:12 brownie kernel: [ 408.970882] FAT: Directory bread(block 668) failed
Dec 27 09:53:12 brownie kernel: [ 408.970951] scsi 1:0:0:0: rejecting I/O to dead device

I used gparted to repartition my 80Gb disk with several ext3 partitions (and one for the Mac), and gparted, fdisk, cfdisk and the Mac agreed on the new partition table.

Using cpio under Ubuntu Dapper / Linux 2.6.15, I then tried to copy the largest partition of my old disk (10Gb) on to it. This failed in the same way as before, but now after 3Gb. However, since I was now using the ext3 "journaling" filesystem, fsck now said that the disk was clean.

But whereas it had originally been mounted as /dev/sda, it was remounted after the failure as /dev/sdb.

Then I tried out Knoppix version 5.1.1 (www.knoppix.net), which is a year old; it includes the Linux kernel version 2.6.19.
This successfully copied all of my smaller partitions. Since I had already spent time on the partial copy of the big partition, I didn't scrub it and start again, but copied the rest in bits by listing the missing files. Maybe I wasn't doing a big enough transfer to provoke it, but the previous failure DID NOT happen.

So maybe this bug was fixed in Linux 2.6.19. However, it would be nice to hear from Chuck Short or anyone else with inside knowledge of the relevant code and its potential failure whether my report and the others pertain to something that is identifiable.

The Hardy Heron Alpha series is currently under development and contains an updated version of the kernel. You can download and try the new Hardy Heron Alpha release from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/hardy/ . You should be able to test the new kernel using the LiveCD. If you can, please verify if this bug still exists or not and report back your results. General information regarding the release can also be found here: http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/ . Thanks.

I'm having the same problem using Hardy Heron:

[411703.142574] end_request: I/O error, dev sdh, sector 749840
[411703.142616] usb 6-2.3: USB disconnect, address 22
[411703.168328] sd 19:0:0:0: [sdh] Result: hostbyte=DID_NO_CONNECT driverbyte=DRIVER_OK,SUGGEST_OK
[411703.168341] end_request: I/O error, dev sdh, sector 750080
[411703.171615] sd 19:0:0:0: [sdh] Result: hostbyte=DID_NO_CONNECT driverbyte=DRIVER_OK,SUGGEST_OK
[411703.171625] end_request: I/O error, dev sdh, sector 750320
[411703.172443] printk: 48 messages suppressed.
[411703.172450] Buffer I/O error on device sdh1, logical block 131
[411703.172457] lost page write due to I/O error on sdh1
[411703.172464] Buffer I/O error on device sdh1, logical block 132
[411703.172469] lost page write due to I/O error on sdh1

I'm using a Sony Ericsson W810i with a 4GB memory stick duo.

Linux dilemma 2.6.22-14-generic #1 SMP Tue Feb 12 02:46:46 UTC 2008 x86_64 GNU/Linux

This was confirmed in hardy, setting to triaged, wontfixing the 2.6.15/2.6.17 bugs as described on https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuBugDay/20080425.

My USB disk problem is probably unrelated. I am new to Linux and installed Ubuntu 8.04 ( irritatingly called "hardy") on a Dell Inspiron 1100. As soon as it was working, with unreasonable optimism I launched straight into installing Windows XP in a VirtualBox. After considerable blundering it all now works except that....

My external USB hard drive operates fine from the Ubuntu file browser under my personal login but I cannot set its folders to share. The sharing dialog tells me I don't own those folders and have no business trying to share them. It then suggests:
       "Ask the administrator to add the line "usershare owner only = False"
 to the [global] section of the smb.conf to allow this."
I guess that means me, so eventually I found out how to get gksudo priviledges and change the file as suggested. No effect. Checked with gedit that the /usr/share/samba/smb.conf file is indeed changed. With all this priviledge going to my head I even tried commenting out the line: " invalid = root" just in case. Stalemate.

Meanwhile,another USB drive (a 1GB memory stick) works AND shares fine.
Any suggestions?

The Ubuntu Kernel Team is planning to move to the 2.6.27 kernel for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. As a result, the kernel team would appreciate it if you could please test this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. There are one of two ways you should be able to test:

1) If you are comfortable installing packages on your own, the linux-image-2.6.27-* package is currently available for you to install and test.

--or--

2) The upcoming Alpha5 for Intrepid Ibex 8.10 will contain this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. Alpha5 is set to be released Thursday Sept 4. Please watch http://www.ubuntu.com/testing for Alpha5 to be announced. You should then be able to test via a LiveCD.

Please let us know immediately if this newer 2.6.27 kernel resolves the bug reported here or if the issue remains. More importantly, please open a new bug report for each new bug/regression introduced by the 2.6.27 kernel and tag the bug report with 'linux-2.6.27'. Also, please specifically note if the issue does or does not appear in the 2.6.26 kernel. Thanks again, we really appreicate your help and feedback.

This affects Ubuntu 8.10 (2.6.27-9-server), with an ext3 IDE Western Digital hard drive in an USB enclosure. The WD diagnostic tool (extended test) reported no errors at all, so not a hardware issue. I was scared real good, thinking the hard drive was dying. I guess this is the kernel doing stupid stuff with USB again.

I don't know how to mark this bug as affecting 2.6.27 too.

Running Ubuntu desktop 8.04.2 (LTS), updated to latest packages.

I had a bad server crash, and picked up a backup from one of my virtual machines from the previous day (lucky me). I moved the vm (which happens to be a file server) to a USB drive, fresh-installed ubuntu and vmware server 2.0, and to my shock and horror, the USB disconnects after a random amount of time, crashing the VM in the process.

worse still, the directory where it was mounted previously (/media/disk) hangs with an IO error, I can't move it or otrhewise do anything with it. The device is remounted on a different directory (/media/disk-1).

VMWare does not like it at all, so I have to restart the whole system to bring back the VM.

----------
output of uname -a:
Linux fileserver 2.6.24-23-generic #1 SMP Mon Jan 26 00:13:11 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux
---------
tail of dmesg:
[ 1164.424147] usb 4-1: USB disconnect, address 3
[ 1164.424363] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_ERROR driverbyte=DRIVER_OK,SUGGEST_OK
[ 1164.424369] end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 680117055
[ 1164.424375] Buffer I/O error on device sdb1, logical block 85014624
[ 1164.424379] lost page write due to I/O error on sdb1
[ 1164.424387] Buffer I/O error on device sdb1, logical block 85014625
[ 1164.424390] lost page write due to I/O error on sdb1
[ 1164.424393] Buffer I/O error on device sdb1, logical block 85014626
[ 1164.424396] lost page write due to I/O error on sdb1
[ 1164.424400] Buffer I/O error on device sdb1, logical block 85014627
[ 1164.424403] lost page write due to I/O error on sdb1
[ 1164.424406] Buffer I/O error on device sdb1, logical block 85014628
[ 1164.424409] lost page write due to I/O error on sdb1
[ 1164.424413] Buffer I/O error on device sdb1, logical block 85014629
[ 1164.424415] lost page write due to I/O error on sdb1
[ 1164.424419] Buffer I/O error on device sdb1, logical block 85014630
[ 1164.424422] lost page write due to I/O error on sdb1
[ 1164.424425] Buffer I/O error on device sdb1, logical block 85014631
[ 1164.424428] lost page write due to I/O error on sdb1
[ 1164.424431] Buffer I/O error on device sdb1, logical block 85014632
[ 1164.424434] lost page write due to I/O error on sdb1
[ 1164.424437] Buffer I/O error on device sdb1, logical block 85014633
[ 1164.424440] lost page write due to I/O error on sdb1
[ 1164.425094] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_NO_CONNECT driverbyte=DRIVER_OK,SUGGEST_OK
[ 1164.425099] end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 680117295
[ 1164.426041] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdb] Result: hostbyte=DID_NO_CONNECT driverbyte=DRIVER_OK,SUGGEST_OK
[ 1164.426045] end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 680117535
[ 1164.442854] Aborting journal on device sdb1.
[ 1164.442887] journal commit I/O error
[ 1164.442991] ext3_abort called.
[ 1164.442993] EXT3-fs error (device sdb1): ext3_journal_start_sb: Detected aborted journal
[ 1164.442997] Remounting filesystem read-only
[ 1864.510439] usb 4-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4
[ 2331.229034] usb 4-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 2331.240690] scsi3 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[ 2331.242566] usb-storage: device found at 4
[ 2331.242574] usb-storage: w...

Actually, ignore my previous comment about 8.10 being affected. It was just my hard drive enclosure's power cable being loose.

There are a number of different USB storage devices listed in this bug. There have been a number of special
case (quirk) additions to the driver to handle some of these devices in kernels later than reported here. Please
test with the latest Jaunty kernel. Using a Live CD image should be sufficient to test the USB device so long as the CD/DVD device is not also a USB.

If your USB device still does not work with the Jaunty (9.04) kernel, file a new bug including the error log and
an 'lsusb' listing along with your symptoms.