The past few days Pathpilot has been intermittently locking up. It appears it’s USB related as the status screen shows my USB devices unplugging then plugging back in. The unplugging and plugging in messages are happening in a matter of a few seconds multiple times. In some instances I get a popup dialogue box with an error message that says “Could not read the contents of 4070-4733. Error when getting information for file ‘/media/operator/4070-4733/D2NC’: Input/output error”. When this happens the screen is locked and the mouse doesn’t work. Actually none of my USB devices are working so I have to shut down the controller and restart. I’m not sure if it’s a cabling issue or a control board issue. I have an 1100M. Any suggestions are appreciated.
do you have a USB hub? If so, try removing that.
Is it a particular device that is causing the connect/disconnect issues or all of them?
Thanks for your reply. Yes, I have a USB hub. I have a keyboard, thumb drive, Shuttle Express plugged into the hub. Looking at the status screen it reads; keyboard unplugged, mass storage device unplugged, Shuttle Express unplugged, USB Receiver unplugged, USB Hub unplugged. Then the following five lines show these devices plugged in. This sequence repeats for several screens and the timing covers but a few seconds.
I’ll unplug the hub and each device and see what happens. Then I’ll plug in one device at a time.
If you’ve had the USB hub for any significant length of time, just replace it. I’m not really sure what causes it but hubs don’t seem to last very long. I’ve had my machine since 2019 and am currently on hub number 4 (maybe 5). I’ve tried unpowered and powered hubs but it doesn’t seem to make much of a difference in lifespan. Once the constant plugged in and unplugged messages start to appear, that’s my sign the hub is getting ready to fail.
I’ve seen quite a few others in the facebook groups that have also gone through several hubs so it’s not just me.
The worst case is when you’re running a program and something goes wrong right as the hub decides to go through one of these cycles and leaves you without a pendant, touchscreen, keyboard, or mouse so your only option is to estop it.
I ran the machine all day yesterday and no error codes or devices unplugging and plugging in. It could be that physically unplugging and plugging in the hub and USB cables solved the problem. However hubs and cables are cheap. They will get replaced. Thanks for everyone’s input.
I posted my rant about USB elsewhere on here, but yeah, it’s not designed or going to run forever in an industrial shop with cheap Amazon / eBay cables and hubs.