USB items work randomly

[Andrew Jorgensen]

On 1/13/06, Dave M G <martin at autotelic.com> wrote:
> I am reasonably certain at this point that the fact that all these
> devices are USB has significance.

I'm comforted to find that I'm not the only one!  I've had various
mysterious problems with USB, though they show themselves differently.
 My setup is similar to yours in that I have many devices, several of
them connected by a powered hub.  My problems kept showing up in the
form of my computer locking up when I try to do something (like print,
for instance) and then coming back to life when I disconnect the
offending device.

I researching what was really going on I found mention in a few bug
reports of the notion that USB 2.0 support is basically broken.  This
may or may not be your problem, of course, but it's probably worth
looking into.  To try it out do

sudo modprobe -r ehci_hcd

And see if things seem to work better.  This will, of course, make
everything slower, but at least it may prove to be reliable.  Either
way it sounds like you probably found a bug and if you're willing to
help the engineers figure out why it's broken you should definitely
report it.

https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+filebug

Good luck!