[SOLVED] USB passtrough with 2 identical USB devices

[Wouter]

I'm running into the following problem.
I have two ZBT-2s for Home Assistant.
Home Assistant runs as a VM on Proxmox.
Using the GUI, I first created one USB port based on the device ID.
When I received the second device, I wanted to do the same, but discovered they had the same device ID.

In the GUI, I see both devices and can transfer them both.
Unfortunately, this works fine for a few hours, and then Proxmox no longer recognizes these two devices.

The LSUSB command also doesn't show the devices anymore.

The only thing that helps is restarting the entire server.

Then I see all the devices again with LSUSB, and Home Assistant works fine again.

But after a few hours, it fails again.

Is there a solution for this?

The problem isn't that I can't transfer two devices with the same name.

The problem is that Proxmox is failing at this point.

If the VM no longer sees them, but Proxmox itself does with LSUSB, you could try to pass the devices on by USB port number.

But since that's not the case, and Proxmox has simply lost them entirely, I'm at a loss.

 

[fstrankowski]

Could you try passing through the whole port (which should be static):



That way you dont really need to care about the identical ids.

 

[Impact]

You can also try to connect the devices to a USB hub and pass that instead.

 

[Wouter]

I've tried both suggestions above.
When I forward a hub to the VM, it sees the hub but nothing I connect to it.

If I forward the ports, it works for an hour, after which they're no longer recognized by Proxmox.

So it doesn't seem to matter whether I forward them based on ID or as a port.

Does anyone have another suggestion?

I just don't understand how Proxmox can initially see both devices and then after a while throw them both out.

A restart fixes the problem in 50% of cases. But after an hour, things go wrong again.

When I connect 1 of the 2 devices, there is no problem.

 

[Impact]

I'd probably check journalctl -k on the node and VM for clues. It might be power related.

 

[Wouter]

For now, it seems to be resolved by merging the comments above.

It's been running for over 24 hours without any problems.
The only thing I've changed is that the two ports I forwarded are behind a different USB controller on the physical server.
This was previously the same USB controller (though it had two physical ports).

 

[fstrankowski]

For now, it seems to be resolved by merging the comments above.

It's been running for over 24 hours without any problems.
The only thing I've changed is that the two ports I forwarded are behind a different USB controller on the physical server.
This was previously the same USB controller (though it had two physical ports).

Glad it worked now Please mark the thread as [SOLVED] by editing the thread.

 

[jaminmc]

I’ve accidentally passed the same USB port more than once.

Sometimes it works, but other times the keyboard was acting a bit strange. Then it hit me—I had the same USB port passed in the same VM twice!

There really should be a check in the GUI and the API for duplicate devices when you add a USB or PCI device.