Rear USB port no longer working after April 1st update

Omnia hardware Omnia HW help
1

Hi folks,

This may not be the right category, because I am not sure if it is a hardware or software issue. It is most certainly a Turris Omnia, so I am confident I have that detail correct. :wink:

I have an external hard drive which I was able to set up in the Mount Points settings menu in LuCI. It was working great, I had it set up as an SSHFS mount for a couple small servers on my LAN and was using it as a Borgmatic backup target. The drive was connected to the USB port in the back of the device (the side with the RJ45 ports and the WiFi antennas).

Last week I got an email that there was an update, and my device would restart on April 1st:

Restart is needed
=================
The system was updated, but some changes will take effect only after reboot. Please reboot the device.

The device will be restarted automatically on Saturday, April 1 at 03:30 AM EDT.

I should say: I have no idea if my issue is related to this update–it could be just a coincidence.

I allowed the system to restart automatically on April 1st. Since then, the hard drive is no longer detected from the USB port in the back. I did not actually notice until today when I went to check on the backups, but the drive has been down the whole time (there are backups scheduled to run on systemd timers, which failed).

The drive does not show up as a detected block device on lsblk output, nor did it output anything on lsusb. On LuCI it does not show up under mounted filesystems. It does still have the mount point saved, but it indicates that the device is not connected.

When the router is rebooted or the hard drive is unplugged/plugged back in, the light on the hard drive comes on and I can hear the drive spinning up. Eventually, it blinks (idle indication) and finally spins back down. It never comes up on lsblk, nor becomes accessible in any way.

At some point in my troubleshooting, I plugged the drive into the USB port on the front of the Omnia (the side with the lights) and it came up immediately. The drive was automatically mounted, the filesystem on the drive is good and the archives on the disk are all intact. The drive is accessible from the network devices through the SSHFS mounts.

I tested a couple other devices on the rear port (thumb drives, one USB 3.1 and one USB 2.0) and they are not detected either. I also plugged in a mobile phone and it started charging. :man_shrugging:

I saw this other thread in the forum where USB devices are not getting properly detected:

I decided not to chime in on that thread because my issue seems different enough that I suspect it is unrelated. The affected devices in that thread appear to be primarily MOX, and also that thread goes all the way back to October (where mine only started this past weekend). Also, there is the fact that only one of my two USB ports is affected.

Please let me know if you have any ideas, or if there is any additional information I can pass along to help fascilitate troubleshooting.

Kernel Version：5.15.96
Model：Turris Omnia
Architecture：ARMv7 Processor rev 1 (v7l)
Firmware Version：TurrisOS 6.3.0 23c86d44bcfa00255c32196458b0a47dfa6732d5
2

Mmmh, just as a data point, I have a USB2 hard disk connected to the rear USB port and that continues to work, albeit in my case it is a 3.5" hard disk with its own power supply…
My gut feeling is that your rear USB port might have partially fried itself*, it does seem to still supply power though…

*) Could be something like corrosion on one of the data lines, so maybe get contact cleaner spray and replug that port a few dozen times (preferably with unplugged router and usb device) to remove the potential for bad contacts… this is a long shot bnot guaranteed to do more than cost you time and effort.

3

Today I got another email that the Omnia had taken an update and needed a reboot. Somewhat hopeful the update might fix the issue with the drive, I rebooted when I got home.

After the update, the drive (which was still plugged into the front port) disappeared again! I tested the port with USB thumb drives as well (one 3.1, one 2.0) but the port was not detecting block devices of any kind.

I plugged the drive into the back port again (the one that originally stopped working), and it was immediately mounted! The back port had started working again. :thinking:

Finally, I unmounted the drive, unplugged the drive from the USB port, and rebooted with nothing plugged in. After that, both USB ports are working normally–detecting block devices normally, and the drives are all up and working fine.

I have tested this a few times now, rebooting both with the drive plugged in and without, and the issue can be reliably reproduced:

  • If the drive is plugged in while the Omnia reboots, the USB port does not work–even if the drive is later disconnected, and another device connected. No devices will be detected
  • If the drive is not plugged in while the Omnia reboots, the port works as expected; devices can be plugged or unplugged normally, and block devices are detected.

It turns out the update was a red herring; it seems the reboot was the catalyst for the issue (this was the first time I have rebooted the device with the drive plugged in).

If anyone wishes to know, the drive is a Toshiba Canvio 2TB USB 3.0 external hard drive, model HDTB420XK3AA.

TL/DR:

It looks like I need to unmount the drive and disconnect it before rebooting the Omnia.

4

I have had the same experience. I suspect that this is a power issue. When the Omnia boots up, the processor, ram and other devices are in a high power state. HDD spinup is also something that consumes a lot of power…

The same was happenning for a couple of older HDDs in a NAS box, it was a lottery, whether the HDDs will be visibleafter bootup or not…

I’d recommend a using a powered USB hub or a powered HDD enclosure.