The lsusb listing attached by apport above seems to not list the card reader at all. This did happen on some sessions, IIRC there were no panics or ”disabled ep” messages then either but naturally, the reader also wouldn’t read any cards, it was as if disconnected.

I’m attaching output of `sudo lsusb -v` here, with the card reader (004:002) detected and showing.

There’s a definite pattern here, and it’s definitely tied to xhci_hcd, usb-storage and the Akasa/Genesys card reader. Here’s what I’ve done since reporting this:

1) Set ”Legacy USB 3.0” in the BIOS from ”Enabled” to ”Disabled”, and ”Intel xHCI Mode” from ”Smart Auto” to ”Enabled”. I tested briefly with latter set to ”Disabled” and Legacy 3.0 ”Enabled”, but then the card reader wasn’t detected at all and I’d prefer a working XHCI anyway.

2) Switched to mainline kernel 3.8.0-030800rc2-generic #201301022235. With the earlier kernels (3.5 and 3.2 from Precise repo) things have seemed similar to my findings below with mainline, but data with 3.2 and 3.5 are too few to say conclusively there’s no difference at all. I’ve concentrated my testing to mainline just to keep things simpler.

Here’s the pattern with mainline:

1) Cold boot. Early in the boot, the card reader in USB #4 is asked to reset. This results in a flood of ”xHCI xhci_drop_endpoint called with disabled ep ffff880403c8d500”:

Jan 8 10:32:12 saegusa kernel: [ 721.015249] usb 4-4: reset SuperSpeed USB device number 2 using xhci_hcd
Jan 8 10:32:12 saegusa kernel: [ 721.032596] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: xHCI xhci_drop_endpoint called with disabled ep ffff880403c8d500
Jan 8 10:32:12 saegusa kernel: [ 721.032599] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: xHCI xhci_drop_endpoint called with disabled ep ffff880403c8d540

When these messages are there, the session will crash (panic/freeze) at some point; using the card reader isn’t necessary (panics without it eventually too), but it’s easy enough to trigger just by sticking an SD card into the reader. The reader reports buffer errors on the card and then boom.

Jan 8 10:32:13 saegusa kernel: [ 721.713295] sd 8:0:0:2: [sdf] Unhandled error code
Jan 8 10:32:13 saegusa kernel: [ 721.713299] sd 8:0:0:2: [sdf]
Jan 8 10:32:13 saegusa kernel: [ 721.713300] Result: hostbyte=DID_ERROR driverbyte=DRIVER_OK
Jan 8 10:32:13 saegusa kernel: [ 721.713303] sd 8:0:0:2: [sdf] CDB:
Jan 8 10:32:13 saegusa kernel: [ 721.713304] Read(10): 28 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 08 00
Jan 8 10:32:13 saegusa kernel: [ 721.713314] end_request: I/O error, dev sdf, sector 8192
Jan 8 10:32:13 saegusa kernel: [ 721.713318] Buffer I/O error on device sdf1, logical block 0

Another USB #4 -related message often preceding a panic in syslog is this:
Jan 8 17:38:21 saegusa kernel: [ 148.282256] usb 4-4: Disable of device-initiated U1 failed.
Jan 8 17:38:21 saegusa kernel: [ 148.285747] usb 4-4: Disable of device-initiated U2 failed.

The panics, when visible, are always in Pid: usb-storage, and mostly of the ”ring_doorbell_for_active_rings” type (above), but I did have at least one ”warn_slowpath_common” too (will attach a picture if requested).

2) Reboot after the panic, USB #4 doesn’t get reset and no ”disabled ep” or ”Disable of device-initiated …” messages appear in syslog. The card reader works perfectly (i.e. SD card can be inserted and read/written without problems).

3) The panic isn’t necessary to get the card reader working: it’s enough to reboot after one cold boot and the reset signal being sent in that session. Just don’t stay in that cold boot session, because it’ll panic eventually.

I’ll attach a complete syslog from yesterday and today to give context to what I’ve quoted above.

Minä taas luen tuota niin, että sinut on huomattu tiiminvetäjänä niin hyväksi, että projektin on katsottu hyötyvän siitä, että jatkat siinä roolissa. Se, että päätös tehtiin sanellen ja annettiin sinulle aiemman vetäjän välityksellä, on kyllä hieman tökeröä, enkä itsekään tykkäisi tuosta roolista, mutta ottaisin sen silti leuhkasti johtajuuskykyjeni tunnustuksena.

I don’t see the syslog I mentioned attached above, so I’m attaching it here. Also, the USB-related stuff just preceding the panic starts slightly earlier than what I claimed above, with this reset attempt:

Jan 7 10:45:01 saegusa kernel: [ 413.991127] usb 4-4: reset SuperSpeed USB device number 2 using xhci_hcd

Last week I replaced the internals of my desktop computer with a new ASUS P8H77-M PRO, Intel G2120 and 16 GB RAM. With one round of Memtest passed, I booted into my old Precise install and got bit hard by what appears to be Bug #993187: frequent hard lockups (multiple within a few hours of use). I installed linux-image-generic-lts-quantal (currently 3.5.0.22.29) and that seemed to resolve the lockups: I got more than two days of uptime (ending with an intended shutdown), half of which I was actively using the computer.

This morning, soon (half an hour?) after login, the kernel paniced with a reference to usb-storage (I’ll attach a picture). This was different from the lockups with the stock Precise (3.2) kernel: with them I never had any panics shown (only the frozen desktop) and the system had to be powered off to reboot, whereas with the panic here I could reboot using the chassis reset button.

There’s some USB activity in syslog just prior to the panic (Jan 7 at around 10:50), but I wasn’t using any USB devices at the time. I have used them with this kernel previously though, without issues, and currently am too (to transfer the panic picture from my phone). There’s a memory card reader/USB port panel (Akasa AK-ICR-17) permanently plugged into internal USB 2 and 3.

Lukkeepi aina kun päivittyypi, ja tilaus päivittyy Readerissa aina tuoreeltaan. En juurikaan poista tilauksia vaikka niiden päivitystahti olisi hidastunut glasiaaliseksi, sieltähän ne päivitykset sitten taas aikanaan popsahtavat luettaviksi.

Kiitoksia mielenkiintoisesta joulukalenterista. Vinkkinä tulevia sarjoja varten: 7 sekuntia on liian pitkä aika otsakkeille parin minuutin YouTube-videoissa. Houstonin eläintarhan (Houston Zoo) kanava näyttää tässä hyvää esimerkkiä: tunnarista siirrytään videon sisältöön sekunnissa ilman pitkiä häivytyksiä.

Suoraan isojen nimien joukkoon:

”Follow pni, Big Boi, 50 Cent and others on SoundCloud.”

Rolling release oli muistaakseni… juu, Arch kuten muistelinkin.

Trying to format a partition to btrfs in palimpsest results in this (untranslated) error:

Error creating file system: Cannot run mkfs: cannot spawn ’mkfs.btrfs -L ”WD30” /dev/dm-5’: Failed to execute child process ”mkfs.btrfs” (No such file or directory)

This seems to be due to btrfs-tools package not being installed currently as gnome-disk-utility doesn’t depend on it, though apparently it should.