What's the deal with USB?
What is making it so increadibly hard to make this work, both in hardware and software?

I've just had both my MP3-player and my USB-stick trashed by stupid lockups of various kinds (sometimes complete lockup with buzzing sound, sometimes only keyboard/mouse stops working) during transfers from my A1/OS4. The directory I was copying to got turned into a massive pile of junk (viewed with C:List) and junk (viewed with ls). I could still read from and copy to other driectories of the devices but that was of course a mistake.

Put them in a PC and run chkdsk on them and there were tons of cross-linked files and stuff. On the MP3-player it had to remove over 200MB to fix it. Now most files are truncated. Is there any FAT32 checkdisk utility for Amiga?

Why does it lock up like this all the time?!

How can I configure the USB stack to not write Amiga attributes to the files, if that is a problem?

What are the file name restrictions for a FAT32 USB device? Does OS4/CrossDOS, or whatever is driving these things, enforce these restrictions?

I'd like to get a Sam to get rid of these problem but from what I've heard, it's not any better?, which would indicate the problem is with the USB stack of CrossDOS?

Any comments on this?

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@Deniil715

I stopped using USB drives on both my AmigaOne and SAM because file transfers and disk formatting would freeze. However, USB does seem better on the SAM and I have zero problems with USB Mice and Keyboards on it.

For file transfers I mostly use SMBFS. It will mounts as a network drive and works great, but has a file size limitation of 4 GB.

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@Deniil715

It's a bug in CrossDOS, there's lots of discussion about it over at amigans.net. IIRC the problem appears to be caused by invalid filenames (put two dots in a filename for example and the whole thing will get trashed).

However, CrossDOS hasn't changed, only the USB stack has, so why this problem only started with 4.1 I don't know.

The SAM is no better btw, in fact it's worse as it doesn't recognise USB flash drives that the AmigaOne has no trouble with.

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@Chris_Y

USB support on the PegII running OS4.1 is also frustrating. Most USB memory sticks aren't recognized at all. And transferring data is at barely tolerable at USB 1.1 speeds even though the hardware is USB 2.0.

I was hoping the Quickfix would address these USB issues but unfortunately it didn't. I hope Hyperion is listening....reading.

@ALL

I can confirm my USB has been trashed 1 (once) and once only when using it on SAM440EP and PC

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@ferrels

Quote:

ferrels wrote: @Chris_Y USB support on the PegII running OS4.1 is also frustrating. Most USB memory sticks aren't recognized at all. And transferring data is at barely tolerable at USB 1.1 speeds even though the hardware is USB 2.0. I was hoping the Quickfix would address these USB issues but unfortunately it didn't. I hope Hyperion is listening....reading.

There are no USB 2.0 drivers, which is why you're stuck at USB 1.1 speeds, just like everyone else. Hopefully USB 2.0 drivers aren't too far off.

Hans

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@Hans

Yes, I was hoping the Quickfix would include a USB 2.0 driver and eliminate the USB 1.1 issues as well. But I'll have to be patient. Maybe Hyperion can borrow from the Poseidon stack that AROS developers are working on now?

@logicalheart
Quote:

However, USB does seem better on the SAM and I have zero problems with USB Mice and Keyboards on it.

So far USB seems stable on my SAM Flex. My only complaint about USB mouse is that it eats memory every time I move the pointer. Hopefully that will be fixed eventually.

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@Chris_Y

So CrossDOS *is* buggy! I so hoped someone would tell me that
I have lots of dot in many of my files Think mp3: "01.Artist - Title (whatever.special.mix).mp3" - 4 dots.

I have always hatetd CrossDOS. Back in the days it destroyed files I tried to transfer to/from my 720k floppys. Fortunately I could then remove it and it would work without trouble Now we seem stuck.

But what about replacing it with fat95 from Aminet?
Btw, how do I configure the USB stack to use fat95 instead of CrossDOS?
How do I configure the USB stack in any way..?!

Poseidon anyone

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> Amiga Classic and OS4 developer for OnyxSoft.

@Deniil715

Well, Strangely enough, rthe Kingston and Astone range of usb flash drives seem to work flawlessly. ALl the USB keys Ive used though have not worked, most of them have however.

By memory even Toshiba brand worked.

I forget the website now, but there is a site on the web, whereby someone has tested a lot of gear with the sam board and USB, to find out what works and what doesnt in the current package.

Cheers.

P.S. I believe my Epson printer still is not working, it only gets recognized that Ive plugged it in, but does not allow me to print or scan, and that is with the drivers.

Even Hypex had a look at it. Maybe I need to sell the current one, and get a new one thats been tested to work with my hardware and OS4.1?

While Im at it, a Webcam would be nice also.

ANd perhaps a usb card reader that works, for all my camera needs, as my FujiFilm died, I now have a samsung, but with no cable, hence, need to go into linux distro, then copy to usb, then copy from usb to amiga os4.1 on the same machine (not exactly luxury here)

Cheers again.

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@all

I'm happy, I'm not the only one. See this old thread on amigans:

USB problems

For all my USB hardwares, just the cowon x2 work (and sure crash is I try to copy a file with 2 dots inside). the A2, I7, usb stick jumpdrive and my 3 HD lacie external harddrive 2.5" not work on the SAM (not recognized).

On the SAM, just the USB->PS2 adapter work and a 16go rally2 work in FAT32 but be carefull when copying something on for not founding again the crossDOS problem.

BTW, othet things than the 2 dots on files ?????

I was sad when the quickfix arrive to not have enhanced USB 1.1 drivers inside but I know that the USB1 developper have made lots of improvements on the USB1.1 driver for AOS4. Thanks a lot to him

I'm waiting the release by useing my AOS3.x amiga with spider2 for copying stuff on all the USB hardware I have, without problems, with poseidon registered. Yes, It's the truth, I haven't a PC at home


byeQuote:

For file transfers I mostly use SMBFS. It will mounts as a network drive and works great, but has a file size limitation of 4 GB.

EDIT: What is SMBFS ??? (For few months AOS4.1 users)

Last edited by Mrodfr on 30-Jun-2009 at 05:46 AM.

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@Gebrochen

I have a SanDisk 8GB USB-stick and a Denver 1GB crap MP3-player. Both "work" in the sense that I can read and write to/from them, but once in a while I get lockups.

I did the USB fix (the pullup resistors) and since then I have no recognition problems. I did notice two things though:

1. If I play music there is a higher probability of a lockup.
2. If I use my (powerless) hub there is a greater risk of lockup.

I'm thinking interrupt issues (the music) and power issues (the hub consumes a little when attached). The 8GB stick had a note that it required full power from the port and on the MP3-player I can see the backlight flickering when it transfers and if power fluctuated.

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@Deniil715
Yes with an A1XE/OS4.x loading pictures would freeze in Workbench but usually never using DiskMaster2! Well I got fed up with the slowness and got a pc years ago.

@PR

Yea, I get freezes more often in DirOpus4 but not so often in a shell with Copy.

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@Deniil715

I've had the same exact thing happen to me twice in succession!. Perhaps I should go back to DVDRW's?

I blame CrossDOS. When I saw CrossDOS on OS4 I thought great, it's up to version 7, and can now understand Amiga length file names in full case! Hooray!

By comparison, OS3 CrossDOS looked crap, stuck at the MSDOS 8.3 all capitals level. Of course, it wasn't to last. And some fatal flaws in CrossDOS would start to appear. Unfortunately unlike the old days it isn't an unsupported feature anymore, it's bugs that can stop copying data or worse like has happened to you or I; corrupt the whole drive.

Now, the FAT filesystem has to take some of the blame for this as well. After all, how can writing a few blocks to a drive render it completely useless and wreck every single file and directory?!

I also got a crash in CrossDOS recently. Still need to examine it. IIRC I copied a few short files, waited a few sec, pulled it out and boom! Corruption awaits! It's at these times I think we need to dismount drives like other systems. In fact I think those two square holes on a USB plug should be used to actually hold the device in! What else are they for? Pull out and the OS knows, dismounts and releases it's grip. Better than telling the OS. Just like a CD which works more modern.

Apart from this I do think OS4 USB is buggy as well. I can insert a drive and it detects it but no sign of a mount. Pull out, insert again. No sign. So I can try to pull it out, restart the USB stack, or even stop and start it. But that never works for me. Once I have to restart or try and start it again it never comes back. Reboot required. I hate silly things like this, no crashing but OS software stops working, so I have to reboot. The internet stack can do the same to me, though today when I shut it down it did so and I could bring the connection back up.

@Gebrochen

Quote:

Even Hypex had a look at it. Maybe I need to sell the current one, and get a new one thats been tested to work with my hardware and OS4.1?

Well I was going to say but yes I agree! Get a HP.

BTW I think you should tell the guys what you said about the existing drivers you can download in a zip file.

Just to get back the printer is USB.

BTW s you can't copy with only OS4? You use Debian on Sam?

@Deniil715 Quote:

How can I configure the USB stack to not write Amiga attributes to the files, if that is a problem?

I do NOT think it is relevant to your problem, but I have noticed that OS4's FAT filing system implementation stores Amiga-specific stuff (as well as Write/Delete flags) in a way that is totally invisible to Windows. This also means that moving (and possibly renaming) a file or folder looses those Amiga attributes.

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@all

The problem is the users have problems with USB and said It's USB or crossDOS or.... but finally we all maybe said mistakes ???

Too bad that a AOS4.x team members can't explain us to not do some things (flags, comment or double point on filenames,......) when using USB and/or with FAT on USB to limit the problems for the users.

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Amiga Docs Disks Preservation Project

All i know is that i can copy gigabytes of data to a USB-Harddisk that uses SFS without any problem on my SAM and A1. If the -same- USB-Harddrive is formated using FAT i have problems after a few megabytes...

The same is true for USB-Sticks and SD-cards here.