Laptop USB ports stop working: how to restart them without restarting the PC?
Solution 1
Make sure that all USB devices are unplugged/safely removed and then try:
sudo modprobe -r usbhid && sleep 5 && sudo modprobe usbhid
and
sudo modprobe -r usb-storage
sudo modprobe usb-storage
This will reload the kernel modules for USB keyboards/mice and usb hdd's, and might emulate whatever it is about restarting that is fixing your problem. Good luck.
Solution 2
Another thing worth trying: restart the udev subsystem:
sudo restart udev
Tell us whether that one worked.
As for finding out what happens, I would start by going through the system logs. For example, when something like that happens, try
dmesg | tail
Otherwise, record the exact time, and later see in
/var/log/syslog
for example by
gksudo gedit /var/log/syslog
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Community
Updated on September 18, 2022Comments
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Community over 1 year
Possible Duplicate:
USB slots stop working suddenly from time to timeThe usb ports of my laptop fail for some reason from time to time. This concerns apparently mainly the external mouse and keyboard connected by usb, while connecting an external hard disk to the same ports may activate them. All gets back to normal after restart. How could I get the same effect without restart?
Since the issue reemerges after reinstalling OS and due to random variations I have created a new question asking for a permanent solution.. In case I get an answer I will close this one.
EDIT:
/sys/module/usbcore/parameters/autosuspend
contais only the line2
./sys/bus/usb/devices/usb2/power/autosuspend
and/sys/bus/usb/devices/usb3/power/autosuspend
contain0
(This was verified after solving the problem by restart, not before..)I do not see Legacy USB Support in BIOS
I have edited and updated this question because I have some answers and comments here: but for new solutions please try answering my new question.
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Admin over 11 yearsSee if there is Legacy USB Support in your BIOS, and enabled it if its disabled.
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Admin over 11 yearsWhat's your Laptop brand?
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Admin over 11 years@Mitch - HP Compaq nx8220. I was asking about whether I should go into bios etc now I see that's what you ment
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Admin over 11 years@Rinzwind: did you mean the
/sys/module/usbcore/parameters/autosuspend
parameter? -
Admin over 11 yearsOh OK, sorry. To test @Rinzwind 's suggestion, type this one line and run it, twice -- this disables autosuspend. See if this is the issue:
for i in /sys/bus/usb/devices/*/power/autosuspend_delay_ms;do sudo sh -c "echo -1 > $i"; done
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Admin over 11 years@Mitch, I do not see Legacy USB Support in BIOS, see edit
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Admin over 11 years@izx, please see edit
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Admin over 11 years@izx, please look at my new question (askubuntu.com/q/206614/47206)
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Admin over 11 years@Mitch please look at my new question (askubuntu.com/q/206614/47206)
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Admin over 11 years@cipricus I'm guessing you don't want the new question to be made a duplicate of this. But is there any reason this question shouldn't be made a dupe of the newer one that's currently active?
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Admin over 11 years@Eliah Kagan: the title is too different i guess. but it could be edited. we could keep this one here too, as a duplicate, don't see no major reason against it
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Admin over 11 years@cipricus Yeah, questions that are closed as duplicates are usually not deleted (whereas most other questions are deleted eventually). I'm out of close votes until the end of the day, but if you think it's a good idea for this question to be closed as a duplicate, I recommend flagging it for closure.
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Admin almost 10 yearsPosting here because I have a similar issue in trusty (hence the newer question that this is marked duplicate of is not relevant, but I can't post an answer, because this one is closed). I got USB restarted with the script at billauer.co.il/blog/2013/02/usb-reset-ehci-uhci-linux - I just used
sudo -s
and pasted the main for loop of that script. Spits out some file-not-found errors, but still works.
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Admin over 11 yearssorry, nothing happens
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Admin over 11 yearsno, nothing happens
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Admin over 11 years
laptop-mode-tools
is not installed here -
Admin over 11 yearshappened again. reboot did not solve it, restart will. but before that (after reboot) i ran
dmesg | tail
and got this : pastebin.com/4GKkTZRt -
IcyFlame about 7 yearsYou are the best! :D
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Pablo Bianchi over 6 yearsDoesn't work now that Ubuntu use systemd:
restart: Unable to connect to Upstart: Failed to connect to socket /com/ubuntu/upstart: Connection refused
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Kostanos over 6 yearsJust give it a time, in my case, I needed to wait extra 15 seconds until all my USB devices re-connected. You always can see the
/var/log/syslog
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soger over 5 yearsI upvoted the answer but then I realised it doesn't work correctly. After the modprobe -r commands I can mount my external hard disk but it works painfully slowly, I still have to restart my computer. Maybe I'd have to also remove usbcore but that's built into the ubuntu kernel.
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Saren Tasciyan almost 5 yearsGetting "modprobe: FATAL: Module usb_storage is in use." for "sudo modprobe -r usb-storage", how to deal with it?
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Skippy le Grand Gourou almost 5 years@Genom Search for loaded modules depending on
usb-storage
(lsmod|grep usb-storage
) and unload them withmodprobe -r
. Also make sure to close any program using whatever was on the USB device. Then you should be able to unload theusb-storage
module. Nevertheless, this answer only seemed to work once for me. -
Admin about 2 yearsIt doesn't work in Ubuntu 20.04
sudo: restart: command not found