USB issues (continued)

[qpkorr]

Hi Sam,

You suggested splitting this topic up, which is no doubt a good idea as there were 3 different problems contained within it: Vero V remote not pairing or working - #45 by qpkorr

Recapping my parts of it - on my 14 month old Vero V:

• my remote is not responding at all - repairing has the blue light on for 30 seconds
• my external USB2 port seems to be working fine
• my USB3 port has power, but loses it if I jiggle my USB power meter in it a bit

I may have had my longish TV tuner plugged into the USB3 port at times, so perhaps that has applied too much torque to it.

Would it be appropriate to open up the Vero V, resolder the USB3 port, and inspect the board under a microscope looking for cracks/dry joints etc? If so, are there any guides to disassembling the V, or any tips?

Thanks

[sam_nazarko]

@qpkorr

Would it be appropriate to open up the Vero V, resolder the USB3 port, and inspect the board under a microscope looking for cracks/dry joints etc? If so, are there any guides to disassembling the V, or any tips?

No, I don’t think this is a good idea unless you have some reason to suspect cracks on the board…

If you were to open the device the first thing I would do is see if the dongle is simply somewhat detached / needs reseating.

[qpkorr]

Thank you. In the other thread you wrote:

@sam_nazarko

I’m not sure what could have caused this. The hub would be a quick and dirty solution for sure, but I’m interested in working out what’s happened here and see what we can do.

Do you have any USB equipment that has a light on it, like a flash drive? I would be interested if there is power coming from the USB3 port.

So I was answering your question and saying yes, the USB3 does have power - but it appeared to be intermittent. That it went away when I moved the USB power meter made me suspect cracks on the board…? And yes, reseating the remote dongle might indeed be the fix for that (not that I recall any rough treatment of the V that could have dislodged the dongle) - but presumably it wouldn’t explain the tenuous power connection for the USB3 port.

Given the above, my best idea was to open things up and have a look - but if you’ve better ideas on how to proceed, trust me I’m all ears thanks!

[sam_nazarko]

If you want to open and have a look go for it. Just mind the antennas when opening

[CistiC]

Hi guys,

same problem. USB2 working, USB3 port not working. I tried USB dongle for my remote controller and also USB flash drive.

[qpkorr]

Hi Sam,

Updates:

• I opened it up, and had a friend who designs PCBs etc look at it under a microscope. He poked at each pad on the USB connectors but saw no movement/signs of cracked joints - nor any fried chips, so we didn’t bother reflowing the solder. There was nothing obviously wrong inside.

• the remote dongle was very solidly seated in the internal USB2 port. I removed it, and it works fine in the outer USB2 port.

• the USB3 power drop outs I saw when wiggling my power meter appear to be simply because the USB3 port is a bit recessed, the power meter is deep from top to bottom, and the case overhangs somewhat at the top. So twisting the power meter upwards simply levers it out from the socket.

So - here’s logs with the remote dongle in the USB2 slot: https://paste.osmc.tv/fototululu
and here with it in the USB3: https://paste.osmc.tv/obekoxanah
I doubt there’s anything new there - the remote doesn’t work at all in the USB3 socket.

Unless you’ve a better idea I guess I’ll just buy a powered USB2 hub and use that in the one remaining USB2 port. Unless, perhaps, the white 4 pin connector on the circuit board is another USB port I could possibly connect up and put a lead out of the case?

Thanks,
John

[sam_nazarko]

Hi John

Will get back to you about this tomorrow

Sam

[sam_nazarko]

I don’t have an idea what the issue could be at the moment, but I did receive a unit back with a similar problem and we will take a look at it.

@qpkorr

Unless, perhaps, the white 4 pin connector on the circuit board is another USB port I could possibly connect up and put a lead out of the case?

Unfortunately this isn’t a USB connector. It’s a UART for debugging. We left it populated on retail boards to make testing things easier.

[qpkorr]

Thanks Sam. If that yields little, I could resurrect my 4K+ and send my V back for inspection too - I guess I’d lose access to some more recent AV1 media, and postage from Australia won’t be cheap, but sating curiosity has plenty of value too. (Truth be told it’s not like I needed the V, it was mainly about supporting you guys, whilst getting some slightly snappier menus)

[sam_nazarko]

I’ll keep you posted and appreciate your offer. For now, we need to do some more analysis.

Best

Sam

[oliver.annau]

I think I might have the same problem: Vero V bought ~18 months ago. USB3.0 port had an external HDD plugged in permanently, mount disappeared a couple of days ago. Output of lsusb wouldn’t show the disk anymore. Plugging the HDD in the USB2 port - disk shows up again. Other devices also don’t show up when connected to USB3.0, but when connected to USB2 port.

[sam_nazarko]

Hi

We had a few reports of this as you have possibly seen.

I have met our manufacturing partners and am looking in to this issue. It doesn’t seem to be widespread. I want to get to the bottom of this.

My advice is still to contact support@osmc.tv

Cheers

Sam

[oliver.annau]

Interesting update: I tried with an Intenso USB3 stick, and this one is recognized. So I am wondering if this is a hardware issue still (maybe slight tolerances in the stick that allow for better electrical connection / differences in the power demand of the devices), or a software issue (recent kernel updates for example).

[sam_nazarko]

An HDD will use more power than an USB thumb drive.
If the stick is working, the port should be OK

I suggest checking power requirements of the USB drive. The USB3 port will only provide 0.9A of output.

[oliver.annau]

The HDD is externally powered, so I don’t think it’s that. (Verified that the disk is running on external power: unplugged power supply > hdd disappears from USB2 port).

I tried several devices now on the external USB3 port to varying degrees of success:

• usb3 thumbdrives - working
• yubikey - not detected
• micro SD card confirmed to be working in SD card slot - but not in USB3 SD card adapter

I am at a loss here on the cause, but I would rule out an electrical issue (as thumbdrives are working). I would like to try an earlier kernel if that is supported? (I only know how to do it with grub2, but that doesnt seem to be present here).

osmc@osmc:~$ uname -a
Linux osmc 4.9.269-80-osmc #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun Mar 2 14:02:42 UTC 2025 aarch64 GNU/Linux
osmc@osmc:~$ ls -l /boot/
total 33372
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 5196135 Oct 17 2024 System.map-4.9.269-70-osmc
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 5197301 Mar 2 15:03 System.map-4.9.269-80-osmc
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 259272 Aug 10 2023 bootup.bmp
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 313 Aug 10 2023 bootup.bmp.README
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 155162 Oct 17 2024 config-4.9.269-70-osmc
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 155151 Mar 2 15:03 config-4.9.269-80-osmc
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 94976 Oct 17 2024 dtb-4.9.269-70-osmc.img
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 94976 Mar 2 15:03 dtb-4.9.269-80-osmc.img
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 11500288 Oct 17 2024 kernel-4.9.269-70-osmc.img
-rw-r–r-- 1 root root 11500288 Mar 2 15:03 kernel-4.9.269-80-osmc.img

[sam_nazarko]

I can’t think of any regressions or even recent changes to USB in the kernel.

Can you try insert these drives after boot?

Sam

[oliver.annau]

I tried, it makes no difference being inserted at boot time / plugged in afterwards.

What I need to correct: the offending HDD is USB2.0, not USB3 as I originally stated. Which makes sense if you read the following:

I did some further testing with a powered USB3 hub connected to the external USB3 port of the Vero V. When connecting various devices to that port, I consistently get a connection with USB3 type devices like USB3 thumbdrive, USB3 SDcard adapter. I fail to get a connection with USB2 type devices like the aforementioned externally powered USB2 hdd, USB2 SDcard adapter, Microsoft mouse dongle… (no listing with lsusb --tree -v, nothing in dmesg output).

So to me it’s that that the xhci-hcd driver somehow stopped supporting USB2 devices on my device for an unknown reason. From my limited understanding of USB, I don’t think it points to a hardware issue: in the scenario of partially broken data lines, usb2 connections would be fine, while usb3 wouldn’t work (as it is using additional data lines, on top of using what USB2 is using). Which is the opposite of what we have here.

I couldn’t find anything related to xhci-hcd blocking USB2 devices, there is little to nothing to configure on that module.

[sam_nazarko]

OK this changes things,

I need to think about this

[qpkorr]

Interesting. I figured I should try testing a range of devices to see how my results compare - and it’s a little interesting - especially the differing results for two different USB3 thumb drives. One claims to be 3.0 while the other claims to be 3.2, but both appear to report 3.2 in dmesg output.

Note - all testing done only by watching dmesg output - a result of “no” means dmesg didn’t print anything at all, “yes” means the drive connected normally.

Toshiba USB Drive - “high-speed”
USB2 port - yes
USB3 port - no

OSMC Remote USB Dongle - “full-speed”
USB2 port - yes
USB3 port - no

Sandisk Ultra USB 3.0 - (product reported as 3.2Gen1) eg SanDisk Ultra USB 32GB 3.0 Flash Drive (Red) - JB Hi-Fi
USB2 port - yes (as high-speed)
USB3 port - yes (as SuperSpeed)

Sandisk Ultra USB 3.2 - “SuperSpeed” (product reported as 3.2Gen1) eg SanDisck Ultra Shift 32GB USB 3.2 (Primrose Green) - JB Hi-Fi
USB2 port - no, but if half inserted (disengaging USB3 pins? but there are none in this port??) it reported a high-speed USB device
USB3 port - yes (as SuperSpeed)

The USB ports in the V seem to be somewhat buried in the (sloping walled) side of the box, and the Sandisk Ultra USB 3.0 device has a significant plastic cover around it - so it’s possible that it’s effectively only ‘half inserted’ - which might explain why it appears to work the same as the Sandisk Ultra USB 3.2 device when the latter (which has no obstructing cover) is half inserted.

[JimKnopf]

If the OSMC remote dongle is not detected on the USB 3 port but the USB 2 one, some hw issue seems to be present. I suggest to follow Sam’s offer to contact the support mail contact.