My USB-MIDI cable stopped working under Linux (but seems to work under Windows)

[kerkovits]

I know that such issues are hard to investigate, but maybe someone has more knowledge about the deep emotions of a Linux system.

My organ console has a MIDI output, and it is connected to my PC via an USB-to-MIDI adapter. It stopped working after a system upgrade.

It does not seem to be a hardware fault: exactly the same cable on exactly the same port works fine if I boot the same computer to Windows (it is a dual-boot computer). Under Linux, I get the following logs repeatedly each second:

$ dmesg -w
[ 1112.366637] usb 1-11: new full-speed USB device number 34 using xhci_hcd
[ 1112.494359] usb 1-11: New USB device found, idVendor=fc02, idProduct=0101, bcdDevice= 2.50
[ 1112.494373] usb 1-11: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[ 1112.494379] usb 1-11: Product: USB MIDI Interface
[ 1112.496547] usb 1-11: Quirk or no altest; falling back to MIDI 1.0
[ 1112.504466] usb 1-11: USB disconnect, device number 34
[ 1112.918631] usb 1-11: new full-speed USB device number 35 using xhci_hcd
[ 1113.046671] usb 1-11: New USB device found, idVendor=fc02, idProduct=0101, bcdDevice= 2.50
[ 1113.046675] usb 1-11: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[ 1113.046676] usb 1-11: Product: USB MIDI Interface
[ 1113.048220] usb 1-11: Quirk or no altest; falling back to MIDI 1.0
[ 1113.052474] usb 1-11: USB disconnect, device number 35

Of course, lsusb does not list the device. Multiple USB ports were tried.

I tried downgrading packages kernel, alsa, and linux-firmware without success.

Before buying a new USB-MIDI adapter, I have to confirm that it is a hardware fault, but as it works under Windows without problems, I am afraid that the error is not in the cable, so buying a new one would be useless.

[oleg68]

It stopped working after a system upgrade.

It looks like a linux kernel issue. Could you try to load with the old kernel?

[kerkovits]

Just a simple sudo dnf up. It updated a plenty of shared libraries and linux-firmware. It also installed a new kernel, but I can boot into the older one.

[oleg68]

Do you have a backup of the old system?

[kerkovits]

No.

[oleg68]

Then try to do full power off your computer (with unplugging from the socket) and wait couple of minutes. Sometimes usb devices star working after cold reset.

[kerkovits]

I plug the PC out every night, so I have already done it.

[oleg68]

@kerkovits I experienced the same problem with my midi-usb cable after I updated my Fedora 39 system.

But I performed a backup before dnf update.

Now I have restored the old f39 from the backup and everething seems to work. This evening I'm going to update packages one-by-one for determining, which one causes the problem.

[oleg68]

@kerkovits I found that fwupd-1.9.14 breaks midi-to-usb cable to work.

After downgrading it to fwupd-1.9.5 everything works as expected.

So if you have made dnf update, you have to perform dnf downgrade 'fwupd*' fore restoring your midi-to-usb to work.

[kerkovits]

Thank you very much for your time, it worked.

[kerkovits]

In fact, a new version of fwupd arrived to fedora repos today. The cable works also with that one.

[oleg68]

Seems there were bugs fwupd/fwupd#6882 and fwupd/fwupd#6871

They were fixed in 1.9.15

[kerkovits]

It is good to know that it is not a hardware fault. I had two BSOD on Windows last week while using GO, which also made me suspect that the cable is not working perfectly.