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 2248 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 2077 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

[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. 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-2.png

[Clarity]

@Governor I had asked a question earlier and you haven't answered. Is there a problem with that question?
In addition, I ask these additional 4 questions...5 total including the original one I asked:

• Is this USB directly connected to a PC port on front or back or on a laptop; namely where are they connected?

• If not connected to the PC via a KVM switch, is it connected via a USB hub to the PC?

• I see you have a 'toshiba external usb 3.0' drive desginated as "sdac" how did you format that and do you read/write to it?

• It appears you have 3 external drives. If there is auto-disconnecting occurring, which of the 3 drives is disconnecting (the NTFS or the ExFat or the VFAT)?

If you answer my earlier question along with these, I'll answer-explain the current questions I see from you.

[Governor]

@Governor I had asked a question earlier and you haven't answered. Is there a problem with that question?
In addition, I ask these additional 4 questions...5 total including the original one I asked:

• Is this USB directly connected to a PC port on front or back or on a laptop; namely where are they connected?

• If not connected to the PC via a KVM switch, is it connected via a USB hub to the PC?

• I see you have a 'toshiba external usb 3.0' drive desginated as "sdac" how did you format that and do you read/write to it?

• It appears you have 3 external drives. If there is auto-disconnecting occurring, which of the 3 drives is disconnecting (the NTFS or the ExFat or the VFAT)?

If you answer my earlier question along with these, I'll answer-explain the current questions I see from you.

I am currently on fossapup64_9.5.
My hardware setup for USB:
viewtopic.php?p=121189#p121189
LogiLink USB 3.2 Gen 1 hub 7-port + 1x Fast Charging port [powered with individual on/off buttons for each slot]
Deltaco UH-475 - Hub - 4 x SuperSpeed USB 3.0 [non-powered]

I normally use the Deltaco hub only for my keyboard and mouse. For reasons unknown, my keyboard and mouse do not work in the Logilink hub.
I have a broadband connection (over a telephone line), and I connect to the router with USB Ethernet.
My laptop has two USB-3.2 gen 1 port, and one USB-2.0 port. I sometimes use one of the laptop USB ports for an external USB drive.

I usually use a USB-2 port on my laptop for the Ethernet. But I sometimes plug the Ethernet into the LogiLink USB 3.2 hub which is connected to a USB 3.2 port on my Laptop. Which internet connection would be faster, does it make any difference as far as internet access speed in concerned?

I always unmount a USB drive before unplugging it (or turning it off). When using the LogiLink hub, there is no need to unplug a drive since all the slots have an on/off button, I can leave the drive plugged in and just turn off power to the drive after unmounting.

I have several external USB drives, and have various drives active at various times. I still don't get why the USB drives sometimes have a lock symbol in pMount. And I do not understand why there is sometimes a Puppy symbol on the boot drive, and other times not. (?)

I revisited the post below, and installed Udev_Rules-1.1-noarch.pet, and the program is functional.
viewtopic.php?p=100458#p100458

This is my blkid:

Code: Select all

/dev/loop0: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop1: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop2: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/loop3: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/nvme0n1p1: UUID="0444-3DB8" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="Primary_boot" PARTUUID="b6d29dd8-b4e8-494d-9c93-67f6b7c99557"
/dev/nvme0n1p2: LABEL="ext4rootMX23" UUID="492a310a-74af-4127-9159-afa17b6702e9" TYPE="ext4" PARTLABEL="puppyinstall" PARTUUID="e9b97f54-0ba4-4ff9-9e06-730900b8f08b"
/dev/nvme0n1p3: LABEL="ext3boot" UUID="b242c9da-fe12-440c-9ba8-10b581c2fe61" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3" PARTLABEL="nvme-ext3" PARTUUID="8a791e82-a418-40ed-8e44-bddbb957a440"
/dev/nvme0n1p4: LABEL="ext4-backup" UUID="52d8efaf-bdf6-4281-aeea-871217161d5c" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="385429a0-db55-4ce2-a8b9-88650005821f"
/dev/nvme0n1p5: LABEL="ext4-downloads2" UUID="774e807b-c247-4c3f-8181-164459de7173" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="e64ee91d-a089-4142-ac88-f24dc8e105b2"
/dev/nvme0n1p6: LABEL="ext3downloads" UUID="96415f7e-7b92-43fd-9f57-fcf09523fb6e" TYPE="ext3" PARTLABEL="ext3 downloads" PARTUUID="0325422a-00fd-4c7e-a04c-6d8762622dd2"
/dev/sda1: LABEL_FATBOOT="dosd992288c" LABEL="dosd992288c" UUID="8FB0-0686" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="d992288c-01"
/dev/sda2: LABEL="lind992288c" UUID="bb0ff474-57ff-4e7a-84b3-17c2ffb8a21e" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3" PARTUUID="d992288c-02"
/dev/sdb1: LABEL="T7" UUID="F00F-1D48" TYPE="exfat" PARTUUID="ea6d421c-01"
/dev/sde1: LABEL="MAIN_USB" UUID="18E1-1E2B" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="ed86c620-01"
/dev/sdh1: LABEL="c-drv+I-bak" UUID="F67A373A7A36F6C9" TYPE="ntfs" PTTYPE="atari" PARTUUID="b4871312-01"
/dev/sdh2: LABEL="Win+Linux_bak" UUID="0840718640717B70" TYPE="ntfs" PARTUUID="b4871312-02"

I usually don't know which drive has which files, before first checking Pmount.(!) Do you have suggestions on how I might best utilize the udev_rules program in a logical manner?

I have several external USB drives and use various drives periodically. I still don't get why the external drives sometimes have a locked icon in Pmount. I also don't know if hardware could be a factor in the USB drives changing designations. I read somewhere there can be issues with some hubs when the manufacturer daisy chains two 4 port hubs together to create an 8 port hub.
Pmount looks like this, at the moment:

Pmount 2024-06-11.png (347.52 KiB) Viewed 955 times

All non NVMe partitions are external USB drives.
Please let me know if you need more info.
Thanks!

[geo_c]

@Clarity will probably weigh in since he uses hubs extensively for booting.

But just to give him more info, you say you're currently on fossapup64_9.5. Are there any fossapup64_9.5 system files (pup sfs files or saveffiles) on those external drives? I ask because if I'm interpreting correctly that your USB is the boot location and it's not locked, then system files appear to be loaded from somehwere else.

I always unmount a USB drive before unplugging it (or turning it off). When using the LogiLink hub, there is no need to unplug a drive since all the slots have an on/off button, I can leave the drive plugged in and just turn off power to the drive after unmounting.

I have several external USB drives, and have various drives active at various times. I still don't get why the USB drives sometimes have a lock symbol in pMount. And I do not understand why there is sometimes a Puppy symbol on the boot drive, and other times not. (?)

Do you ever plug these drives into another machine, in particular a windows machine between boots?

[Clarity]

As I suspected: Your laptop system is rather complex and newer than what the majority of users on the forum have. The complexity is in the use of the externals. No problem as we should be able to help you knowing the info you share. Thx!

Questions

1. Are drives disconnecting on their own without you manually doing something?

2. Which drive(s) connected to which USB hub is frequently losing and reconnecting on their own without your intervention? Is it on the hub with the ethernet port or the other hub?

3. Why did the 'toshiba external usb 3.0 drive that had designation of "sdac" change to "sdh"???

In your opening post (OP - the very first one) you said

why are the drives not recognized when disconnected and reconnected?

Explain: Is this being done manually or is it happening without you doing anything?

Reasons for these questions is to be sure I clearly understand what is happening with your externals in conjunction with the built-in facilities of your laptop.

[williwaw]

, I can leave the drive plugged in and just turn off power to the drive after unmounting.

of course it is good pratice to umount before unplugging or switching off, but there is a difference between a partition being mounted to your filesystem, and a device being visible to the OS, so I would assume switiching off and on should have the same effect as pluggung and unplugging

your laptop has an empty internal 2.5" sata hd bay and a wireless card, yet you prefer USB hubs? crazy
you could get a huge sata ssd to go alongside a reformatted nvme and never have to plug anything in.
have you ever considered a desktop if you want to utilize an external monitor, keyboard, and lots of USB ports?

[bigpup]

Puppy Linux for many years, has always UN-mounted any drive that is mounted, before doing the complete normal shutdown process.
Actually what is mounted is the drives partition(s) if any are mounted.

Any drives. Internal or external, still plugged in.

All the newest Puppy versions do a good job of this.

Bionicpup versions and ones older than it, are still a little messy at doing this completely 100% perfect.
But they do get it done as part of normal shutdown.

I have partitions on an external USB drive auto mount, when it boots up.
Normal shutdown process takes care of UN-mounting them in completing the shutdown.

But for sure, any drive plugged into the computer and the operating system is still running the computer and powered on.
Needs to be UN-mounted before you unplug it.

[Governor]

, I can leave the drive plugged in and just turn off power to the drive after unmounting.

of course it is good pratice to unmount before unplugging or switching off, but there is a difference between a partition being mounted to your file system, and a device being visible to the OS, so I would assume switching off and on should have the same effect as plugging and unplugging

Your laptop has an empty internal 2.5" sata hd bay and a wireless card, yet you prefer USB hubs? crazy
you could get a huge sata ssd to go alongside a reformatted nvme and never have to plug anything in.
have you ever considered a desktop if you want to utilize an external monitor, keyboard, and lots of USB ports?

It is a big deal to open my laptop, but I could do it, of course. I have had a few rather unpleasant experiences in the past. Once, I was using my internal drive for file storage when the drive had a physical failure. Ok, it happens. A few times, the OS (most likely), or possibly firmware (not Linux) crapped out, and I was therefore unable to access my files on the internal drive. I have never found a reliable backup method, and I prefer to have important files on external drives, so they can be easily accessed from another computer if required. I do not use WIFI at home, and I otherwise avoid using it whenever possible. It is a health detriment, which I know from personal experience. I also avoid Bluetooth.

If I can find a reliable backup method with Linux, I will definitely consider using an extra internal SDD drive.

I have a 2G phone without internet, e-mail, GPS, WIFI, or Bluetooth. I can make and receive calls and text messages. If I go on the internet, it is with a real computer with a real screen, a real mouse and a real keyboard, and using Ethernet.

As I remember it, when laptops first came out, they had less power and fewer features than desktops, and they were more expensive.
Now it is the opposite, and desktops have less power and fewer features. Laptops are small, they take little space. I only use the little screen when booting or in an emergency situation when the monitor is not recognized by the OS or the monitor (or connection) fails. I can take the laptop other places and use it. It is highly impractical to carry around a desktop computer.

When I got my first computer, it had a 13" screen. That was the norm at the time. Then, 14" screens appeared, but when 15" screens came out, it became the new norm. Obviously, a bigger desktop screen is better than a smaller one. The next big thing was 75Hz refresh rate which everyone immediately wanted, and for good reason! Eye strain and brain fatigue also come to mind.

BTW, I'm not a "gamer". The last computer games I tried were Donkey Kong and Space Invaders at an amusement arcade, and Pong on a Commodore 64 with cassette drive. There is good info at link below and a video that shows the difference between different refresh rates.
https://cybersided.com/75hz-monitors-fo ... mparisons/

In the nineties, people wanted larger screens and a higher refresh rate. Nowadays, it is completely the opposite: most people want a tiny screen and don't care at all about refresh rate. "We" have gone backwards.

A funny situation with mobile phones too. When mobile phones (they were not called cell phones then) first came out, they were a large "box" with an attached handset. The idea then, was to make them as small as possible. Now, the idea is to make them as large as possible.

And still, virtually no one cares about refresh rate. I am glad someone cared enough about refresh rate to give me a 74.91 refresh rate in fossapup (just short of the nineties ideal). At least we are "almost" keeping up with the nineties!

[williwaw]

most would use a USB HD for the bakups. Pmirror or rsync wil do. only plug the USB in on occasion
to each their own with the hardware preferences.
To be honest, I dont think anyone is fixing bugs in fossapup, but F96-CE sems to be a fossa based replacement still in development. you might see if your problem is fixed there.

[Governor]

As I suspected: Your laptop system is rather complex and newer than what the majority of users on the forum have. The complexity is in the use of the externals. No problem as we should be able to help you knowing the info you share. Thx!

Questions

1. Are drives disconnecting on their own without you manually doing something?

2. Which drive(s) connected to which USB hub is frequently losing and reconnecting on their own without your intervention? Is it on the hub with the ethernet port or the other hub?

3. Why did the 'toshiba external usb 3.0 drive that had designation of "sdac" change to "sdh"???

In your opening post (OP - the very first one) you said

why are the drives not recognized when disconnected and reconnected?

Explain: Is this being done manually or is it happening without you doing anything?

Reasons for these questions is to be sure I clearly understand what is happening with your externals in conjunction with the built-in facilities of your laptop.

The drive designations often change "by themselves", when I disconnect or reconnect one of the USB external drives in the Logilink hub. I just tried it and sdd1 and sdd2 changed to sde1 and sde2. I unmounted the drive and disconnected it from the hub. I then reconnected the drive and I can see in Pmount that the designation has changed. This appears to be a known issue, and I could use a suggestion or two on using Udev_Rules-1.1-noarch to solve it.
A peculiarity is the arrangement in the Pmount window which I hadn't seen before. I still don't know why the lock symbol is showing for that drive.
I thought I saw a setting (besides the one in Pmount) where I could choose whether or not to mount drives on boot. I hope I was not imagining it?
Addendum:
Tried it again, this time I used the USB slot on the laptop, and I got the same result. sde1 changed to sdf1 and sde2 changed to sdf2, and it still has the lock symbol.

Pmount-unusual window arrangement.png (337.76 KiB) Viewed 833 times

[Governor]

@Clarity will probably weigh in since he uses hubs extensively for booting.

But just to give him more info, you say you're currently on fossapup64_9.5. Are there any fossapup64_9.5 system files (pup sfs files or saveffiles) on those external drives? I ask because if I'm interpreting correctly that your USB is the boot location and it's not locked, then system files appear to be loaded from somehwere else.

I always unmount a USB drive before unplugging it (or turning it off). When using the LogiLink hub, there is no need to unplug a drive since all the slots have an on/off button, I can leave the drive plugged in and just turn off power to the drive after unmounting.

I have several external USB drives, and have various drives active at various times. I still don't get why the USB drives sometimes have a lock symbol in pMount. And I do not understand why there is sometimes a Puppy symbol on the boot drive, and other times not. (?)

Do you ever plug these drives into another machine, in particular a windows machine between boots?

I can't find any .sfs files on the drives in question. I occasionally use an external drive on a window 10 computer. I am using fossapup now, and it is running in PUPMODE=13.

[geo_c]

I can't find any .sfs files on the drives in question. I occasionally use an external drive on a window 10 computer. I am using fossapup now, and it is running in PUPMODE=13.

You said in a previous post that running a checkdisk in windows unlocked at least one of the drives if not both, but at that time you were running bookworm.

I would try and rule out that the external drives are getting locked somehow by using windows, and/or whether they are being locked when fossapup boots up with the drives plugged in after boot, or when the drives are plugged in during boot.

This means, depending on it how it goes, you might have to use the checkdisk method 2 or 3 times to rule out what's happening or not.

I would see what happens if you:

1) shutdown, remove the drives, run checkdisk on them in windows, boot up fossapup without the drives plugged in, then plug them in after fossapup is booted and see if they are locked or unlocked.

2) shutdown, remove the drives, run checkdisk on them in windows, boot up fossapup with the drives plugged in, and see if they are locked or unlocked.

If they are locked both times, you can rule out that plugging it into the windows machine is locking them, and focus soley on the fossapup machine.

[Governor]

I can't find any .sfs files on the drives in question. I occasionally use an external drive on a window 10 computer. I am using fossapup now, and it is running in PUPMODE=13.

You said in a previous post that running a checkdisk in windows unlocked at least one of the drives if not both, but at that time you were running bookworm.

I would try and rule out that the external drives are getting locked somehow by using windows, and/or whether they are being locked when fossapup boots up with the drives plugged in after boot, or when the drives are plugged in during boot.

This means, depending on it how it goes, you might have to use the checkdisk method 2 or 3 times to rule out what's happening or not.

I would see what happens if you:

1) shutdown, remove the drives, run checkdisk on them in windows, boot up fossapup without the drives plugged in, then plug them in after fossapup is booted and see if they are locked or unlocked.

2) shutdown, remove the drives, run checkdisk on them in windows, boot up fossapup with the drives plugged in, and see if they are locked or unlocked.

If they are locked both times, you can rule out that plugging it into the windows machine is locking them, and focus soley on the fossapup machine.

Cancel PUPMODE=13.
I was running puppy from a TD (thumb drive). I soft re-booted the computer to try the bookworm TD. It would not boot.
I tried booting again from the fossapup TD, and it would not boot either.
I tried booting from my CD, and it would not boot at first, but finally did.
I don't know what PUPMODE I am in now.

Boot sequence on thumb drive was the same with bookworm and fossapup:
0) Press power button
1) Unable to get to BIOS menu.
2) Boot screen stuck on black screen with blinking cursor. No on-screen message.
3) Wait over one minute, nothing happens.
4) Pull TD out of the laptop USB slot.
5) BIOS menu shows up.
6) Cannot see a choice to boot from the TD, but see menu item 'Puppy Linux Grub2' and choose that, but there is no clue where it is located.
7) Now, the software is trying to make an internet connection(!). I can't even boot, and it is trying to connect to the internet.
8) I wait 67 seconds for this IMO, 'programming misstep' to finish.
9) Message appears on screen; "no boot filename received".
10) The BIOS menu shows up again.

This same scenario played out with both bookworm and fosapup TD boot attempts. It is strange to me that on my second boot attempt using fossapup, I got that "internet connection' thing happening when that was never a part of fossapup at any time in the past.

So, next I try my boot CD.
First attempt I get a message.

Code: Select all

error: invalid sector size 0.
error: you need to load the kernel first.

I had tried RAM only and it failed.
I tried booting again and the boot finally suceeded, but I do not know which mode I am in now, although some of the files were copied to RAM, according to the on-screen message.

Just when I thought things were shaping up, it all went south.

[Governor]

I can't find any .sfs files on the drives in question. I occasionally use an external drive on a window 10 computer. I am using fossapup now, and it is running in PUPMODE=13.

You said in a previous post that running a checkdisk in windows unlocked at least one of the drives if not both, but at that time you were running bookworm.

I would try and rule out that the external drives are getting locked somehow by using windows, and/or whether they are being locked when fossapup boots up with the drives plugged in after boot, or when the drives are plugged in during boot.

This means, depending on it how it goes, you might have to use the checkdisk method 2 or 3 times to rule out what's happening or not.

I would see what happens if you:

1) shutdown, remove the drives, run checkdisk on them in windows, boot up fossapup without the drives plugged in, then plug them in after fossapup is booted and see if they are locked or unlocked.

2) shutdown, remove the drives, run checkdisk on them in windows, boot up fossapup with the drives plugged in, and see if they are locked or unlocked.

If they are locked both times, you can rule out that plugging it into the windows machine is locking them, and focus soley on the fossapup machine.

Ok, I removed the USB hub and tried booting from the fossapup thumb drive and it booted! But there were no drives plugged into it the hub at boot. What could that possibly mean? I had a choice of two different saves to use, and I am guessing #2 is the newest, so I chose that.

So all is not lost, and there is still hope for the future.