What do these messages in syslog mean (stops my trackball working)?

[Colin Law]

On 12 October 2013 10:39, Chris Green <cl at isbd.net> wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 12, 2013 at 08:44:59AM +0100, Colin Law wrote:
>> On 11 October 2013 11:32, Chris Green <cl at isbd.net> wrote:
>> > I have a Logitech wireless trackball that I use with my Acer Aspire
>> > netbook running Xubuntu 12.10.  It works for quite a while (random
>> > amounts of time) and then stops, the following messages appear in syslog
>> > when it stops:-
>> >
>> > Oct 11 11:24:06 acer-aspire kernel: [ 7812.377726] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.1:
>> >host controller process error, something bad happened!
>> > Oct 11 11:24:06 acer-aspire kernel: [ 7812.377751] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.1:
>> >host controller halted, very bad!
>> > Oct 11 11:24:06 acer-aspire kernel: [ 7812.377781] uhci_hcd 0000:00:1d.1:
>> >HC died; cleaning up
>> >     Oct 11 11:24:06 acer-aspire kernel: [ 7812.378030] usb 3-1: >USB disconnect, device number 2
>> >
>> > An identical Logical trackball works perfectly with Xubuntu 12.10 on my
>> > desktop machine.
>>
>> I would initially suspect a hardware fault.  Swap the trackballs
>> between the machines (including the receivers).  That will tell you
>> whether it is the machine or the trackball that is faulty.  Also try
>> different USB ports to see if it is a fault with one of the ports.
>>
> I originally saw the fault when I used the trackball from my desktop
> machine on the laptop, so both trackballs do it on the laptop and
> neither does on the desktop.
>
> The trackball will work again if I plug the 'dongle' into the other port
> on the laptop but it fails again after a similar random period and then
> the only way to restore working is to reboot.

It could be the hardware on the laptop of course.  Do you have other
usb equipment you could try on it? Alternatively if the laptop is new
I wonder whether the usb hardware is not fully supported by the 12.10
kernel. It would interesting to try running it on the Saucy live image
to see if it fails then.  If it runs for hours before failing (on
12.10) then that could be tricky.

Colin