USB drives still don't work correctly

[Donald Allen]

On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 2:34 AM, Hans Petter Selasky <hselasky at c2i.net> wrote:
> On Wednesday 22 September 2010 18:03:11 Donald Allen wrote:
>> I have tried periodically to use FreeBSD -- a couple of the 7.x
>> releases, 8.0 and now 8.1. I do my backups on Seagate SATA drives in
>> USB shoeboxes with ext2 filesystems. These drives work fine with Linux
>> (Slackware) and OpenBSD. But with FreeBSD, absolutely no luck. The 7.x
>> releases would freeze or crash. The much-needed reimplementation of
>> the USB layer in 8.x gave me new hope, but I'm still experiencing
>> problems.
>>
>> I have 8.1 RELEASE installed on a Thinkpad G41, an old system I use
>> for experimenting. When I plug in one of the USB drives directly to
>> the machine, I get  the following in /var/log/messages:
>>
>> Sep 22 09:53:10 elektra kernel: ugen3.2: <Sunplus Technology Inc.> at
>> usbus3 Sep 22 09:53:10 elektra kernel: umass0: <Bulk Only Interface> on
>> usbus3 Sep 22 09:53:10 elektra kernel: umass0:  SCSI over Bulk-Only;
>> quirks = 0x4000 Sep 22 09:53:10 elektra root: Unknown USB device: vendor
>> 0x04fc
>> product 0x0c15 bus uhub3
>> Sep 22 09:53:12 elektra kernel: umass0:0:0:-1: Attached to scbus0
>> Sep 22 09:53:37 elektra kernel: (da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): AutoSense failed
>> Sep 22 09:53:37 elektra kernel: (da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): got CAM status 0x10
>> Sep 22 09:53:37 elektra kernel: (da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): fatal error,
>> failed to attach to device
>> Sep 22 09:53:37 elektra kernel: (da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): lost device
>> Sep 22 09:53:47 elektra kernel: (da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): AutoSense failed
>> Sep 22 09:53:47 elektra kernel: (da0:umass-sim0:0:0:0): removing device
>> entry
>>
>> After the above, if I remove the USB connector and plug it back in, X
>> freezes (the cursor moves with the mouse, but no response to clicks,
>> or to keyboard gestures) until I remove the connector.
>>
>> Interestingly, if I plug the drive in prior to booting the system, the
>> system recognizes it properly and I can mount it and display its root
>> directory. So there is a workaround. But after all this time that I've
>> been trying to use FreeBSD and all the effort that's gone into getting
>> the USB layer right, it's discouraging to still be running into issues
>> like this. Hopefully, one of you will have a bright (configuration?)
>> idea that will allow me to use the USB drives as I do on other
>> systems, without the need for the reboot workaround.
>>
>> Thanks --
>>
>
> Hi,
>
> Maybe your drive needs an USB quirk to work properly. See:
>
> usbconfig -h
>
> Look for "quirk".

There are 48 supported quirks. Do you have suggestions as to which I might try?

I would add that I'm not sure if you are suggesting this as a solution
to my problem, or as a step toward improving the USB driver. If the
latter, I'm happy to help. If the former, I'd argue that's not
sufficient. These drives (I have three identical ones) work
flawlessly, with no user intervention, with Linux (Slackware), and
OpenBSD. FreeBSD ought to do the same. And if a "quirk" is needed with
FreeBSD, it seems odd that the drives work correctly and without added
quirks with FreeBSD when plugged in at boot-time (as I said in the
message to which you replied). but not when hot-plugged. This suggests
to me that there's a bug, or, at the very least, a missing feature.
I'm happy to work with you to try to understand this better, since I
can reproduce it at will. Let me know what you'd like me to do.

/Don

>
> --HPS
>