Bug: USB port designations keep incrementing (Fossapup64 9.5)

[Governor]

The drive letters keep incrementing.
And I must use pMount on a continuous basis in order to find out which drives my files are on.
This makes bookmarking useless. The worst part is that I must manually go folder by folder until I reach the desired folder with the file I need to work with.
/mnt/sdv1/folder1/folder2/folder3/folder4/folder5/folder6

In addition to the 5 internal drive partitions, the valid USB drives are:
sr0, sdc1, sdv1, sdw1, sdw2 (the last 2 did not appear in the listing, and are not in my screenshot)

Since every drive is unique, why are the drives not recognized when disconnected and reconnected?
Why do the drive letters keep incrementing?

Thanks!

USB port bug.png (121.97 KiB) Viewed 1186 times

[geo_c]

The drive letters keep incrementing.
And I must use pMount on a continuous basis in order to find out which drives my files are on.
This makes bookmarking useless. The worst part is that I must manually go folder by folder until I reach the desired folder with the file I need to work with.
/mnt/sdv1/folder1/folder2/folder3/folder4/folder5/folder6

In addition to the 5 internal drive partitions, the valid USB drives are:
sr0, sdc1, sdv1, sdw1, sdw2 (the last 2 did not appear in the listing, and are not in my screenshot)

Since every drive is unique, why are the drives not recognized when disconnected and reconnected?
Why do the drive letters keep incrementing?

Thanks!

USB port bug.png

I'm willing to bet money it's your hardware causing this. How much money you want to throw down on this bet?

EDIT Although, if you're using the savefile with 0bytes available, that might have something to do with it, or not, that's beyond my current knowledge.

[bigpup]

What is /mnt+T?

I am not seeing anything like that under /mnt

Are you unplugging and plugging in USB connected drives at random order?

[Keef]

I have a dodgy external USB drive, that loses connection occasionally. As it was not unmounted, when it reconnects, it uses a new mount point. This will increment each time it happens. I usually just delete the unwanted mount points (when unmounted of course). This does look like a hardware issue.

[geo_c]

This does look like a hardware issue.

For reference see: viewtopic.php?p=99456#p99456

[geo_c]

@Governor

I believe there are a lot of people here who want to help you use puppy successfully, so I'm going to sum up a few things out my from memory of posts over the last year or so.

1) I remember you mentioning that this particular machine had issues when puppy wasn't involved at all, and that eventually windows failed to boot or be recoverable. What could have caused that to happen?

2) There has always seemed to be an issue with identifying what persistent save you are booting into, and where it is located. (These are some puppy basics that have to be mastered in order to use it properly)

3) Forum members have pointed out that Fossapup64_9.5 may have issues with certain nvme drives, which is apparently why you are booting from external USB/CD, instead of the internal nvme drive.

4) Forum members have suggested that your internal nvme drive may be going bad. Maybe that's why windows eventually crashed and became FUBAR.

5) All of this time, using savefiles that fill up and have 0bytes of write space is exacerbating the problems you experience. (savefile routines are located in the menus and have instructions which if followed might shed some light on how to use them)

6) The recent issue of external USB drives being assigned incremental mount points suggests that your machine, or connections, or motherboard, or some combination have fatal issues that need to be addressed.

Just recounting so that others who jump on the topic have some context.

[williwaw]

why are the drives not recognized when disconnected and reconnected

how many times do you disconnect and reconect between reboots?

[geo_c]

Wait a minute,

Let's see if I have this right.

You are disonnecting drives and reconnecting, so is it possible that you are pulling usb drives out without running pmount to unmount them? Running pmount and clicking unmount will delete the mount point (drive letter directory) automatically. If you disconnect without unmounting then you might get a new drive letter when you plug in the next time.

Mounts in a terminal work like this: A device is specified to mount, and a directory in which to access the drive is specified. It can be located pretty much anywhere, but the directory must be created first. Pmount gui will do this automatically. We use /mnt as the location to create these mount points for consistency.

In a terminal mounting a plugged in usb drive looks like this:

Code: Select all

mkdir /mnt/sdb1                    ##creates the mount point directory /mnt/sdb1##
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdb1         ##mounts the device in found in /dev called sdb1 to /mnt/sdb1##

Unmounting is similar, and if the created mount point directory is not removed it will remain in /mnt as an empty directory. Which is not a problem per se. But Pmount gui will automatically remove the mount point directory for you if you use the unmount button.

In a terminal the unmount looks like this:

Code: Select all

umount /mnt/sdb1            ##unmounts the device mounted to the directory /mnt/sdb1##
rm /mnt/sdb1                    ##deletes the now empty directory /mnt/sdb1##

Pmount gui works consistently to achieve these terminal commands and has no bugs that I've encountered or heard of.

So I can't say for sure but if for some reason your drive is disconnecting without running the umount command either manually in a terminal or using Pmount gui, then when the device is reconnected it's likely assigned a new letter.

As others have said, I can attest. A bad usb cable will do this, as the drive will disconnect and reconnect intermittently. A bad usb port will also do this. A faulty usb bus on the mother board might also do the same thing. A usb hub that is buggy could also cause it. Anything in the chain that is not functioning correctly. I'm sure there are other possibilities on the motherboard that would cause similar problems accessing drives and dropping connections.

NOTE: If the above is too much information, here's your take away. To start, use PMOUNT to mount and unmount drives everytime you plug in.

[Governor]

I have a dodgy external USB drive, that loses connection occasionally. As it was not unmounted, when it reconnects, it uses a new mount point. This will increment each time it happens. I usually just delete the unwanted mount points (when unmounted of course). This does look like a hardware issue.

I am normally careful about un-mounting a USB drive before I remove it.... but now that you mention it, I have been so frustrated with incrementing drives that I gave up unmounting my external USB drives a couple of days ago, and the incrementing has in fact, gotten worse. So I will return to unmounting the external drives. I presume the internal drives do not need to be unmounted, is that correct? They have not incremented.

What is the difference between a mount point and a folder?
I have a bunch of apparent empty folders under /mnt. Why? Can they be safely deleted?

It is very confusing that almost all 'mount points' look as if they are filled with actual files, but most of the drives listed in mount points do not exist in pMount or Partview: can they be safely deleted?

What about: cdrom, data, dvd, flash, floppy, msdos, ram1, sdd2, sde1, sdm, swap, zip? What are they doing there?

Is there a command that will remove all invalid drives/folders/mount points from the file listing?

Pmount and Partview beside partial file listing

Pmount and Partview-2.png (322.35 KiB) Viewed 1002 times

[mikewalsh]

@Governor / @geo_c :-

Geo_c:-

I concur that there may be hardware issues involved, although user error is probably playing a large part in all of this. Be that as it may, we DO have a fool-proof method for at least "fixing" this particular issue. One of our senior members - a guy I have a LOT of respect for - came up with this a few years back.......and I used it for a while on the old Compaq desktop.

At the time my secondary 'data' drive was an external USB 3.0 Seagate HDD. Matters were complicated by the fact that the rig had a multi-card 'reader' installed, which occupied at least 4 standard mountpoints on a permanent basis. I believe something was wrong with it internally; it never worked as it should, and mountpoints in the rest of the system that were 'above' this device used to change & increment upwards constantly and totally at random. Made it almost impossible to create any permanent sym-links!

Jafa (jafadmin) came up with a solution; I'd been asking about 'fixes' for this in the old forum. Wasn't just me, either; I distinctly remember at least 2, if not 3 other members had ongoing threads about similar issues around then. Jafa's solution couldn't have come at a better time.

Jafadmin's 'Udev_rules' solution for 'wandering' mount-points

Essentially, it lets you set up permanent, UUID-based mount-points anywhere in the system that you want, using a "friendly", easy-to-remember name. I created mine under /, since it's the most 'permanent' location I could think of. Once created, you then use THIS for any interaction with that drive.......you ignore whatever Puppy shows you in the desktop drive icons, 'cos at this point you know it's telling you 'porkies' anyway..!

------------------------

@Governor :-

Jafadmin originally supplied this as a bunch of scripts, with instructions as to where to manually locate everything. I re-packed it in .pet format to make things a wee bit easier all round. Once installed, make sure to read the "README" file you will find in your /root folder. All you need to do is to follow the very simple instructions, which just involves typing a simple command into the terminal. This step can be repeated as often as required.......one iteration per drive.

Attached below.

Mike.

[Governor]

@Governor / @geo_c :-

Geo_c:-

I concur that there may be hardware issues involved, although user error is probably playing a large part in all of this. Be that as it may, we DO have a fool-proof method for at least "fixing" this particular issue. One of our senior members - a guy I have a LOT of respect for - came up with this a few years back.......and I used it for a while on the old Compaq desktop.

At the time my secondary 'data' drive was an external USB 3.0 Seagate HDD. Matters were complicated by the fact that the rig had a multi-card 'reader' installed, which occupied at least 4 standard mountpoints on a permanent basis. I believe something was wrong with it internally; it never worked as it should, and mountpoints in the rest of the system that were 'above' this device used to change & increment upwards constantly and totally at random. Made it almost impossible to create any permanent sym-links!

Jafa (jafadmin) came up with a solution; I'd been asking about 'fixes' for this in the old forum. Wasn't just me, either; I distinctly remember at least 2, if not 3 other members had ongoing threads about similar issues around then. Jafa's solution couldn't have come at a better time.

Jafadmin's 'Udev_rules' solution for 'wandering' mount-points

Essentially, it lets you set up permanent, UUID-based mount-points anywhere in the system that you want, using a "friendly", easy-to-remember name. I created mine under /, since it's the most 'permanent' location I could think of. Once created, you then use THIS for any interaction with that drive.......you ignore whatever Puppy shows you in the desktop drive icons, 'cos at this point you know it's telling you 'porkies' anyway..!

------------------------

@Governor :-

Jafadmin originally supplied this as a bunch of scripts, with instructions as to where to manually locate everything. I re-packed it in .pet format to make things a wee bit easier all round. Once installed, make sure to read the "README" file you will find in your /root folder. All you need to do is to follow the very simple instructions, which just involves typing a simple command into the terminal. This step can be repeated as often as required.......one iteration per drive.

Attached below.

Mike.

This looks promising. I am glad to hear I was not the only one having this problem!
I downloaded and installed the .pet package.

So far, I am getting this response.
root# "/root/udev/mkrule /dev/sdz1 MAIN_USB"
bash: /root/udev/mkrule /dev/sdz1 MAIN_USB: No such file or directory

Tried without the quotes, and something happened, but I don't know what.
root# /root/udev/mkrule /dev/sdz1 MAIN_USB

I re-mounted the USB drive and it went from sdz1 to sdab1
Thanks!

[mikewalsh]

@Governor :-

You haven't done that properly. And I can tell you where you've gone wrong, too. You've named your drive

Code: Select all

MAIN_USB

.....and the mkrule script very clearly tells you NOT to "use spaces, slashes, asterisks or other weird characters". So you immediately ignore the instructions!

As for sdz1 to sdab1? That's just gone UP another mount-point. You're NOT following instructions.......and then you wonder why things don't work?

Mike.

[Clarity]

@Governor

Question
Are you using a KVM switch for keyboard-mouse-video to multiple PCs?

If so, I 'may' have an explanation for you. This is NOT just a forum distro OS problem.

[some1]

What is /mnt+T?

Furthermore - judging from the titlebar in the pic -
the ROX-path seem to contain a space /mnt +T
@Governor: Could/would you explain?

It is very confusing that almost all 'mount points' look as if they are filled with actual files

@Governor: Are the non-actual mountpoints empty or what?

[wiak]

Yes, you shouldn't just unplug an already mounted usb stick without umounting it somehow first. Otherwise, if you just plug the device back in again the poor system doesn't realise it is the same device so allocates you a new drive letter for it.

Since you didn't cleanly umount the first time, the folder that was automatically created to attach/mount the actual usb drive won't have been deleted so if you keep doing that then of course you have many 'dead' empty folders being left behind.

Yes, if they are no longer being used on subsequent reboots you can simply delete them (though as a precaution I would avoid plugging usb stick in at all when doing that empty folder deletion and for safety I'd do the deletion from the commandline with simple rmdir command since it will refuse to delete any folder with anything actually stored inside it, which is safer here).

A mount point is indeed simply a directory that has been specially created as a place to attach the contents/directory_hierarchy of the device you wish to mount. Once the mount command has been done (maybe automatically or via some mount utility), that previously empty directory will 'appear' to then contain lots of files, which are actually stored on the usb stick in your example. Once you umount the usb stick that mount point returns to be a normal empty directory again, but if using a Puppy utility like Pmount to do the umounting that utility then automatically deletes the resultant empty directory. So if you bypass that pmount mechanism and simply unplug the usb stick the directory clean-up will not happen.

[williwaw]

What is /mnt+T?

Furthermore - judging from the titlebar in the pic -
the ROX-path seem to contain a space /mnt +T
@Governor: Could/would you explain?

the OP could explain /mnt +T or /mnt+T if he created the directory, or otherwise chose to use different mount points

it would be nice if he posted a screenshot of / and /mnt