linux-kernel - Re: USB disk speed regression WD Elements - with bisect result 22547c4cc4fe20698a6a85a55b8788859134b8e4

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Date:   Tue, 25 Jul 2017 15:50:06 -0400 (EDT)
From:   Alan Stern <stern@...land.harvard.edu>
To:     Zdenek Kabelac <zkabelac@...hat.com>
cc:     LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, <dianders@...omium.org>,
        <linux@...ck-us.net>, <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: USB disk speed regression WD Elements - with bisect result
 22547c4cc4fe20698a6a85a55b8788859134b8e4

On Tue, 25 Jul 2017, Zdenek Kabelac wrote:

> Dne 25.7.2017 v 19:02 Alan Stern napsal(a):
> > On Tue, 25 Jul 2017, Zdenek Kabelac wrote:
> > 
> >> And in fact it's the very same commit - which adds this message
> >> (just check current 4.13 with and without this commit reverted)
> >>
> >> So here goes usbmon trace (aka  'cat /sys/kernel/debug/usb/usbmon/0u')
> >> no other usb device has been touch so should not hopefully interfere here.
> >>
> >> Trace is from 4.12 kernel - so it has reported  "not running at top speed"
> > 
> > Can you collect an equivalent trace under 4.8?
> > 
> > Alan Stern
> > 
> 
> Hi
> 
> 
> Sure - no pb.
> 
> Just attached & detached  USB disk in this trace

This is really peculiar.  The only difference is that the 4.12 trace
shows an extra 250 ms delay (including two extra Get-Port-Status
requests) compared to the 4.8 trace.  I honestly can't tell what could 
be causing the switch from high speed to full speed, or why it would 
happen in one case but not the other.

It's obvious that _something_ is confusing the USB hardware in the disk
drive.  This shows up in both traces: After you unplug and replug the
drive, it initially connects at high-speed and then disconnects itself
before the computer can communicate with it.  Then a second connection
occurs.  For example, in the 4.8 log:

08:18 usb 2-2: USB disconnect, device number 2
08:25 usb 2-2: new high-speed USB device number 3 using ehci-pci
08:26 usb 2-2: new high-speed USB device number 4 using ehci-pci

If the drive were working entirely correctly, it wouldn't do that.

We could continue futzing around with hardware and driver tests for a 
long time.  But there may be a shortcut: If you have a USB hub, you 
could try attaching the drive through it.  It's entirely possible that 
this will fix the problem.

If not, you'll have to start doing some very detailed tests.  As a 
start, you can enable debugging for the usbcore and ehci_hcd drivers 
immediately before the test:

echo 'module usbcore =p' >/sys/kernel/debug/dynamic_debug/control
echo 'module ehci_hcd =p' >/sys/kernel/debug/dynamic_debug/control
dmesg -C

Then after the test, see what shows up in the dmesg output.  And again,
we'll want to do a comparison.  In fact, 4.12 with and without the
commit you identified would make a better comparison than 4.12 vs. 4.8.

Alan Stern