what USB-2 CF reader is alleged to work?

[Barry K. Nathan]

On Sat, Jan 08, 2005 at 04:45:58AM -0800, Jamie Zawinski wrote:
> All of them do this when I plug them in (card present or not):
> 
>     usb 5-1: new full speed USB device using address 52
>     usb 5-1: device not accepting address 52, error -71
>     usb 5-1: new full speed USB device using address 53
>     usb 5-1: device not accepting address 53, error -71

Trivia for the day:

If you trigger enough -71 errors (I think a little over 100, if memory
serves), the kernel that ships with Fedora Core 2 oopses. It got fixed
in one of the update kernels. I have no idea whether it was fixed
accidentally or on purpose, however.

[snip]
> "Eratically" means that generally they would work immediately after
> I rebooted the machine, and I could plug/unplug them right after
> that, and they'd continue working; but if I tried to use them again
> a few hours later, the only way to make them work would be to reboot
> again.  No amount of rmmod would bring joy (though some would bring
> complete wedgedness.)

What happens if you run Windows XP instead of Linux? WinXP has a weird
little message that pops up near the lower-right corner of the screen,
when it runs into the equivalent of Linux's -71 errors (something about
device failure or something like that, I think). In fact, if you're
consistently getting two -71 errors under Linux, you might see the
message appear, quickly disappear, then quickly reappear again under
Windows. If you're getting a stream of -71 errors, then the Windows
error may appear and disappear intermittently, perhaps in an attempt
to drive you mad. ;)

BTW, even if the card readers seem to work initially under Windows, the
same falls-apart-after-a-few-hours behavior that you're seeing under
Linux could also happen under Windows.

(I've only seen a -71 error situation once. In that case, the Windows
equivalent happened too, and IIRC the computer's manufacturer decided to
replace the motherboard.)

-Barry K. Nathan <barryn at pobox.com>