Mystery USB Hitching
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I have a Retropie setup on a Raspberry Pi 4/4GB, and I'm having an issue that I can't diagnose. I've looked everywhere and can't find anything...hopefully someone here has an idea!
On my system every couple of minutes, all connected USB devices will pause for a couple of seconds.
When it does this, there's no low-power icon on screen, input just hitches. The system keeps running, but no input is detected. This leads to typing like ("this is me typingggggggggggggg") or incorrect input in games.
Admittedly, I have a LOT of USB devices plugged in. I have a mini keyboard/mouse device, two arcade sticks, a spinner and a trackball. Most of these devices (everything but the arcade sticks) run through a powered USB 3 hub.
I thought the issue might be low power (despite the lack of error notification) so I replaced the RPi power supply with a CanaKit one that was recommended online. It didn't make any difference, and the issue still occurs.
Then I thought maybe the USB bus on my RPi was faulty, so I swapped out the SD card and replaced the system with a different one, with all plugs in the exact same place. Issue still occurred, so it's not the Pi. It's either a USB device or software.
Anyone have idea what's going on? Any suggestions for ways to diagnose are greatly appreciated. I haven't tried running any USB tests or logs, because I'm not sure what to run.
Here's some detailed info on my setup:
Pi Model or other hardware: Pi4 4gb
Power Supply used: Canakit (non switch version)
RetroPie Version Used: 4.7.11
Built From: SD image on website, then ran online updater
USB Devices connected:
- Two DragonRise sticks
- Trackball
- Spinner
- RF mini keyboard
- Two port USB extender plug (on front, nothing currently plugged into it though)
The two sticks and the mini keyboard are plugged into the main unit. The rest goes through a USB 3.0 hub.
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@loonyboi a simple test would seem to be to disconnect all the devices and reconnect one back at a time until the issue occurs.
you could also look at the system log. see https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/20527/retropie-configuration-screen-not-responding
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@loonyboi That's an issue some of us were struggling with some months ago. It appears to be Audio related. See this: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/29481/controls-randomly-locked-for-1-or-2-secs
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@rott42 Oh wow, I'll look into that!
Thank you!
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The first version of my arcade cabinet build used a very inexpensive powered USB3.0 hub (lowest price Amazon listing at the time) which actually caused a similar issue. I was getting random intermittent ghost inputs, no matter what controller or encoder I used.
Apparently that USB hub was known for random strange behavior, as well as back-feeding power to the USB host. Once I discovered this in the reviews section of the product listing, I replaced it with a different powered USB3.0 hub and the issue went away.
If you have a different model/brand of USB hub, try that and see what happens. Or maybe just try running without the hub/connected devices for a while.
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@rott42 I'll need to (literally) play with it a bit more to be 100% certain, but I just hooked it up, and it looks like that was my issue.
Thank you! This one was a real stumper.
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@loonyboi Great to hear I could help someone. I consider myself an old noob.
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