Ubuntu

USB 1 and 2 scanners fail in USB 3 ports

Asked by Technical Support

Plugging a number of USB 1 and USB 2 scanners into the USB 2 port of various computers works as expected. Moving the scanners to the USB 3 port of the same computers causes the scanners to stop working. The scanners are recognized by sane-find-scanner, but fail to scan. The difference appears to be the USB 2 ports using ehci-pci and the USB 3 ports using xhci_hcd.

The problem is becoming more serious as new computers come out with only USB 3 ports and no option to disable xhci_hcd in the bios.

Is there a workaround or fix for this problem?

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actionparsnip
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Best actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

I suggest you report a bug. Considering the data rate from scanners is usually low I'd suggest using your USB2 ports for this and reserve your higher speed interfaces for when it matters.

You are right about USB3 becoming the norm and the issue will need attending in the kernel.

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Technical Support (b-launchpad-ok-z) said : 		#2

Thanks for the suggestion. I submitted the report as a bug.

As far as using usb2 ports for scanning is concerned, makes sense. If the computer has usb2 ports. Many of the better computers only have usb3 ports since they work fine in Windows. It's a little embarrassing to have ubuntu come up short :-O