Pi4 with LE 9.2.1 - slow boot and USB3 SSD problem

Franco · April 6, 2020 at 8:32 PM

Hello, I have since 1 week a Pi4b (2 GB), I installed LE last version, and then I reproduced exactly the same setup I have running in my old Pi3b (NFS shares, remote control setup, "A Confluence Zeitgeist" skin, and an NTFS formatted SSD connected to the Pi through an USB3 enclosure). Ah, I upgraded the Pi4's firmware, too.

With pi4 the LE's startup time is much longer than with Pi3, and this is a bad surprise. When my external SSD is connected to an USB3 port on the Pi4, it gets mounted about 20 seconds after the UI has appeared. And if I try to access the disk to play a movie in it, I must wait about 20 more seconds to see the file list. I tried changing the USB cable and the USB3 port, to no avail

I switched to the default skin to see if there were differences, no change. I have only addons downloaded from LE's repository.

(I think this is a Kodi problem, not LE's, because in Raspbian the disk's icon appears instantly on the desktop, and I can immediately see the disk contents. But if I install Kodi in Raspbian I get exactly the same behavior as in LE.)

It occurred to me to try and change the USB port, this time using a USB2 port of the Pi4, and presto chango! Everything is normal again, no delays mounting the disk or waiting for the file list.

I wonder if I am doing something wrong, and I would be happy and grateful to learn if there is a way that could make me enjoy the Pi4's USB3 ports.

Thank you for your attention!

Franco · April 7, 2020 at 11:52 AM

Please mark this thread as solved.

I googled for my situation, I found out that the Pi4's USB3 has issues, its chip is easily disturbed by 2.4 GHz dongles nearby (so use a USB hub for them), and by improperly shielded USB cables. I googled for a long time, and at last I found this link: STICKY: If you have a Raspberry Pi 4 and are getting bad speeds transferring data to/from USB3.0 SSDs, read this - Raspberry Pi Forums

Following the instructions I learned that my USB3 enclosure does not support UAS. UAS is an upgraded transport protocol, more efficient than the old one, "USB mass-storage". And PI4 insists on using UAS, which caused the terrible delays, but applying the instructions found in that web page I was able to get an acceptable boot time. Disk mounting and browsing, however, were still as slow as before.

Having no other enclosures I could test, I extracted from the bottom of a drawer a long forgotten SATA to USB cable, to which I connected my SDD. That did the trick: now the SDD is browsable immediately after LE's boot completes. This cable is chinese, the brand is CableDeconn, I got it several years ago, and never used it.

So if the software solution does not work for you, try another enclosure for USB3 speed. If you connect any enclosure to a USB2 port, it will probably perform perfectly, but of course slower.

Franco · April 10, 2020 at 10:58 PM

I have found a (tentative) list of compatible and incompatible USB3 adapters for HDD/SDD/NVME/M.2/mSATA. It can be found here: Raspberry Pi 4 USB Boot Config Guide for SSD / Flash Drives

stefan327 · October 23, 2020 at 4:56 PM

I have the same problems as Franco with a pi4b, and a usb3 ssd. (LE 9.2.5.). Tested with 2 different hdd enclosures, both worked on the usb2 ports, one didn't work at all at a usb3 port, the other one was very slow.

On a different Pi4 with raspbian buster, kernel 5.4.51-v7l+, everything works very good...

I suppose It's not only an issue with several usb chipsets, but with the kernel itself?

LE 9.2.5 has still kernel 4.19...

In this thread

STICKY: If you have a Raspberry Pi 4 and are getting bad speeds transferring data to/from USB3.0 SSDs, read this - Raspberry Pi Forums

people tell that the problems went away after upgrading to the newest kernel.

When Will the next LE Version with kernel 5.4 be available?

**Klojum** · October 23, 2020 at 8:52 PM Official Post

Quote from stefan327

When Will the next LE Version with kernel 5.4 be available?

Kodi 18.9 is to be released first (no ETA known yet), I'm guessing the next LE version will contain that. Whether the Linux kernel will be bumped, I have no idea (I'm not a LE/Kodi dev).

RPi4's firmware and USB3 driverset have been updated as per September. Perhaps that will help you a bit.

I just tested Ubuntu 20.10 on a RPi-4B 4GB and a SSD via a USB3.0-SATA cable. Things went relatively smooth. It's no real PC of course, but it felt snappy. I'll have another go with LibreELEC 9.2.5 later on.

stefan327 · October 28, 2020 at 9:42 AM

I moved back to the rpi3 with LE and TVH.

I have a USB DVB-C TV Tuner (Hauppauge WinTV HD Dual), and both devices (the tuner and the usb-ssd) work better with the rpi3.

(there are far fewer block artifacts and other errors with that setup).

I'm looking forward to use usb3 speed with my ssd - I transfer the video files to a pc sometimes.

Franco · November 2, 2020 at 9:34 AM

Hi Stefan, I read months ago that the USB3 circuitry and sockets in the PI 4 are unshielded or poorly shielded, so it receives a lot of interference from devices which are directly connected to the USB sockets. Try using USB extension cables and move as away as possible the devices from each other and from the Pi. In my case I have a 50 cm extension cable for the USB3 SSD connected to USB3, and a USB2 connected hub with a 50 cm cable for both the remote and mini-keyboard sensors. This setup works well (with the quirks for the SDD, obviously).