Tiny Core Linux

General TC => General TC Talk => Topic started by: thane on March 11, 2025, 07:22:36 PM

Title: USB stick being dismounted
Post by: thane on March 11, 2025, 07:22:36 PM

I'm running TC x86_64 version 15 on a lenovo X201 laptop, booting off a USB stick (no hard drive). Doing this pretty much daily. Every now and then (say once a month) when I check apps for updates before I shut down I find that the USB stick has been dismounted and the TCE directory is not writeable.

99% sure this is some sort of hardware issue specific to my setup (e.g. flaky connector or USB stick) but just wondering if anyone else ever encountered this. Nothing I can't live with -- I mainly use this box for websurfing when I want a screen that's bigger than my phone's.

Thane

Title: Re: USB stick being dismounted
Post by: CNK on March 11, 2025, 08:01:57 PM

If there's a hardware or filesystem problem that causes an error, the default in TC is "remount-ro" (which I've seen before with faulty drives and USB connections), so the filesystem becomes read-only but is still mounted. You can change this behaviour in /etc/fstab or with the mount command so the errors are ignored ("errors=continue"), but I wouldn't recommend it since the filesystem might get so messed up that TC won't boot anymore (although that might also happen eventually with the default setting).

Title: Re: USB stick being dismounted
Post by: curaga on March 12, 2025, 01:51:36 AM

Check dmesg when that happens.

Title: Re: USB stick being dismounted
Post by: patrikg on March 12, 2025, 03:02:16 AM

Maybe powersave mode, check bios for powersave to save battery-power it's shutdowns the usb ports.

Title: Re: USB stick being dismounted
Post by: thane on March 17, 2025, 05:03:14 PM

Belated thanks for the replies. The issue hasn't reoccurred since I posted but if/when it does I'll try the suggestions.

Title: Re: USB stick being dismounted
Post by: thane on March 19, 2025, 05:15:24 PM

Got the problem again yesterday. dmesg showed an error when trying to journal (I'm using EXT4 format on USB) and suggested a bad USB cable as a possible cause. Reinforces my belief that it's a hardware problem I'll probably just have to live with. Might try using a different brand of USB stick. Thanks again for your suggestions!

Thane

Title: Re: USB stick being dismounted
Post by: PDP-8 on June 24, 2025, 06:34:58 PM

patrikg has a point.  I had a similar issue with a flaky usb mouse that drove me nuts.  External ssd's too on usb once in awhile.  Usually spammed the logs and dmesg seeing it power down and wake up.

One cure may be to disable usb-port power saving with this kernel parameter:

Code: [Select]

usbcore.autosuspend=-1
In most kernels this is set at 2, but the -1 (negative 1) shuts it off.  There is no space between the = and the -1 in the above.