usb gigabit ethernet adaptor failing

[tkgafs]

Hello,

hopefully someone can help with this issue

I have a USB3 gigabit adaptor which has been working well for about 3 or 4 months

it is plugged into a usb2 socket on an old motherboard

but for the last couple of weeks it has only worked for about 24 hours at a time

[62824.191041] NETDEV WATCHDOG: enx00e04c6b4fd8 (r8152): transmit queue 0 timed out

[62824.191095] WARNING: CPU: 2 PID: 1501 at net/sched/sch_generic.c:448 dev_watchdog+0x264/0x270

[62824.191097] Modules linked in: md4(E) cmac(E) nls_utf8(E) cifs(E) libarc4(E) fscache(E) libdes(E) tcp_diag(E) inet_diag(E) ebtable_filter(E) ebtables(E) ip_set(E) ip6table_raw(E) iptable_raw(E) ip6table_filter(E) ip6_tables(E) iptable_filter(E) bpfilter(E) softdog(E) nfnetlink_log(E) nfnetlink(E) snd_hda_codec_hdmi(E) radeon(E) snd_hda_intel(E) snd_emu10k1(E) snd_intel_dspcfg(E) snd_util_mem(E) snd_ac97_codec(E) snd_hda_codec(E) ttm(E) snd_hda_core(E) snd_rawmidi(E) edac_mce_amd(E) snd_seq_device(E) ac97_bus(E) snd_hwdep(E) cdc_ether(E) snd_pcm(E) drm_kms_helper(E) usbnet(E) kvm_amd(E) snd_timer(E) ccp(E) drm(E) r8152(E) zfs(POE) snd(E) i2c_algo_bit(E) fb_sys_fops(E) syscopyarea(E) sysfillrect(E) soundcore(E) sysimgblt(E) emu10k1_gp(E) mii(E) joydev(E) gameport(E) k10temp(E) input_leds(E) zunicode(POE) kvm(E) zlua(POE) ppdev(E) irqbypass(E) zavl(POE) wmi_bmof(E) icp(POE) parport_pc(E) parport(E) serio_raw(E) mac_hid(E) pcspkr(E) zcommon(POE) znvpair(POE) spl(OE) vhost_net(E) vhost(E)

[62824.191178] tap(E) ib_iser(E) rdma_cm(E) iw_cm(E) ib_cm(E) ib_core(E) iscsi_tcp(E) libiscsi_tcp(E) libiscsi(E) scsi_transport_iscsi(E) sunrpc(E) it87(E) hwmon_vid(E) ip_tables(E) x_tables(E) autofs4(E) hid_generic(E) usbkbd(E) usbhid(E) hid(E) ohci_pci(E) pata_acpi(E) pata_atiixp(E) i2c_piix4(E) r8169(E) ehci_pci(E) realtek(E) ohci_hcd(E) ahci(E) ehci_hcd(E) libahci(E) wmi(E) floppy(E)

[62824.191219] CPU: 2 PID: 1501 Comm: kvm Tainted: P OE 5.4.41-1-pve #1

[62824.191221] Hardware name: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. GA-MA78LMT-US2H/GA-MA78LMT-US2H, BIOS F10 03/10/2011

[62824.191229] RIP: 0010:dev_watchdog+0x264/0x270

full details of failure in attached txt file

thanks

 

[H4R0]

Buy a new one, usb dongles wont last long. They are not intended for 24/7 use. They are really cheap made for consumers not enterprise..

Why not go with a pci ethernet card ?

 

[tkgafs]

Its actually really hard now to find a actual PCI gigabit ethernet card, the motherboard only has 1 pci express slot which already has an ethernet card in it the other slots are original PCI ones

I obtained a card for one of these slots in January but could not get it working under proxmox although it worked in windows, linux mint and ubuntu, it kept trying to load the rl8186 driver and stopping the other two cards which were using the rl8169 driver, so I gave up and obtained the usb dongle

I have since tried this card again this morning and it is now working and using the expected rl8169 driver the same as the other two cards.

I think the usb has stopped working reliably since the upgrade to proxmox 6.2.4 but I can't be certain

this isnt an enterprise system but a small home virtual environment, although it is on 24x7. which primarily runs a firewall and a nextcloud instance

 

[H4R0]

Its actually really hard now to find a actual PCI gigabit ethernet card, the motherboard only has 1 pci express slot which already has an ethernet card in it the other slots are original PCI ones

I obtained a card for one of these slots in January but could not get it working under proxmox although it worked in windows, linux mint and ubuntu, it kept trying to load the rl8186 driver and stopping the other two cards which were using the rl8169 driver, so I gave up and obtained the usb dongle

I have since tried this card again this morning and it is now working and using the expected rl8169 driver the same as the other two cards.

I think the usb has stopped working reliably since the upgrade to proxmox 6.2.4 but I can't be certain

this isnt an enterprise system but a small home virtual environment, although it is on 24x7. which primarily runs a firewall and a nextcloud instance

is the usb dongle configured with "allow-hotplug" in /etc/network/interfaces ?
If yes it should automatically recover, in theory. If it is just set to auto it will probably not.

if you take a look at other forums e.g reddit you will find a lot of hatred against realtek chips
they often fail or are unreliable and need much more hardware resources (intel is offloading a lot more cpu stuff to the nic)

if its a homelab go with a used intel nic, you can get them at 20$+ on ebay. Used enterprise hardware is often better then new consumer hardware and a lot cheaper.

 

[tkgafs]

It didnt allow-hotplug so I've just added it to the interfaces file

what is puzzling me it seems to loading two drivers both the r8152 and cdc_ether

[14742.152035] usb 2-1: new high-speed USB device number 5 using ehci-pci
[14742.309637] usb 2-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0bda, idProduct=8153, bcdDevice=30.00
[14742.309645] usb 2-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=6
[14742.309650] usb 2-1: Product: USB 10/100/1000 LAN
[14742.309654] usb 2-1: Manufacturer: Realtek
[14742.309657] usb 2-1: SerialNumber: 000001
[14742.318070] usbcore: registered new interface driver r8152
[14742.318896] usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_ether
[14742.452052] usb 2-1: reset high-speed USB device number 5 using ehci-pci
[14742.649769] r8152 2-1:1.0 eth0: v1.10.11
[14742.656585] r8152 2-1:1.0 enx00e04c6b4fd8: renamed from eth0


if I blacklist the cdc_ether driver the device still loads and appears to work using the r8152 driver only, but I'm not sure of the ramifications of doing that although nothing else seems to be using it.

I have tried creating an alias file in the /etc/modprobe.d directory

cat rtl_usb.conf
alias usb:v0bdap8153d30.00dc*dsc*dp*ic*isc*ip*in* r8152

and running depmod -a but the cdc_ether driver is still being loaded

its all bit academic now as I have another pci card working, but I'd like to get to the bottom of it

 

[H4R0]

It didnt allow-hotplug so I've just added it to the interfaces file

what is puzzling me it seems to loading two drivers both the r8152 and cdc_ether

[14742.152035] usb 2-1: new high-speed USB device number 5 using ehci-pci
[14742.309637] usb 2-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0bda, idProduct=8153, bcdDevice=30.00
[14742.309645] usb 2-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=6
[14742.309650] usb 2-1: Product: USB 10/100/1000 LAN
[14742.309654] usb 2-1: Manufacturer: Realtek
[14742.309657] usb 2-1: SerialNumber: 000001
[14742.318070] usbcore: registered new interface driver r8152
[14742.318896] usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_ether
[14742.452052] usb 2-1: reset high-speed USB device number 5 using ehci-pci
[14742.649769] r8152 2-1:1.0 eth0: v1.10.11
[14742.656585] r8152 2-1:1.0 enx00e04c6b4fd8: renamed from eth0


if I blacklist the cdc_ether driver the device still loads and appears to work using the r8152 driver only, but I'm not sure of the ramifications of doing that although nothing else seems to be using it.

I have tried creating an alias file in the /etc/modprobe.d directory

cat rtl_usb.conf
alias usb:v0bdap8153d30.00dc*dsc*dp*ic*isc*ip*in* r8152

and running depmod -a but the cdc_ether driver is still being loaded

its all bit academic now as I have another pci card working, but I'd like to get to the bottom of it

cdc_ether is a lan over usb driver, the actual lan driver used is r8152, both are needed.

The kernel trace looks like a hardware problem (hardware is not responding), not like a driver issue.

allow-hotplug might fix it but it will still randomly fail and recover, i would not recommend to use the dongle any longer.

tcp traffic would not be bothered by it (retransmission), but udp and others will.

 

[tkgafs]

I've ordered a quad port intel one from ebay and will replace my existing pci ones with that when it arrives