USB C port question

MNT Pocket Reform
1

If I’m reading this correctly:

Both of the USB C ports on the pocket should work for data/dongles/accessories, but only one is for charging.

This doesn’t seem to be the case with mine? The charging port charges, the other port works with various USB devices plugged in, but I’ve never gotten the charging port to work with anything other than charging, as far as I have seen.

This isn’t a huge deal – I can plug a hub into the data port and it works great!

Is this a firmware thing? I haven’t done anything with firmware (yet).

Edit to add: @josch over on the fediverse says you need to have a powered hub/dock for the upper port to work, so I’ll try that!

2

I’ll try some additional hubs, but so far no dice on the charging port. If I put power into the hub, and then plug it in (or if I’m plugged in and I add power) the power is passed into the pocket, but the hub itself isn’t recognized or visible. If I plug into the data-only USB C port with the same hub it’s seen and shows up in lsusb.

Dunno.

3

I’ve had mixed results from a wide variety of USB-C chargers and cables, and one thing I often try is to just turn the cable over (at the device end)

In theory, you shouldn’t have to do this, but I’ve found on some devices (notably small Mesh radios) that it’ll charge with the cable in one way but not in the other. I’ll have to see how I get on when I receive my ‘Pocket, hopefully soon…

4

This is less about charging, and more about functioning as a data port. The docs suggest it should work, and I’m not experiencing that. It works fine for charging, AFAIK.

5

I’ll do more experiments tomorrow, but what I’m finding is that some USBC dongles which work fine in the data-only port work intermittently or not at all in the power port. Others work in either port. Power delivery is also inconsistent. I’ll post more complete info of what I’ve tested tomorrow.

6

Okay, as I was promising, here’s what I’ve found.

tl;dr The one hub I was trying to use does not work in the top USB C port at all, except to pass power, but all the others I tested do, if I provide external power.

Because I’ve been living #DongleLife for a few years, I have managed to dig up the following USB C hubs which can provide power to the device, in addition to having a variety of other functions or features (USB A or C ports, or SD card slots, or network cards):

  • Belkin USB C to 4 USB C ports (one of which can have 100 watts input), model AVC018
  • Uni 6-in-1 USB C hub with detachable cable – I couldn’t find this on their website anymore and there’s no markings other than “uni”, so I don’t know the model. It’s got HDMI, 2x USB A, a single USB C port for power and Micro and regular SD card slots
  • StarTech USB-C Hub model 5G2A2CPDB – this has two USB A ports and two USB C ports, one of which can take power in.
  • StarTech US1GC303APD– this one has three USB A ports, an ethernet port, and a USB C port that is power in only – it cannot do data.

Of these four hubs, all four work in the “bottom” data-only USB C port. Three of them work in the data or power port, but only if I provide external power to the hub – when unpowered, none of them work in the data + power port. I also tried an unpowered USB A → C adapter, and likewise nothing I tried in the power + data port worked with that adapter, which obviously doesn’t provide power.

The one hub that did not work was the StarTech one with two USB A and two USB C ports – model5G2A2CPDBwhich is, incidentally, the newest of the four.

This suggests that the power port does indeed work, but it doesn’t work as I’d expect. It only seems to work as a data port when there’s external power also supplied, and it also seems at least some adapters do not work with it, probably due to some details of how the USB C power negotiation with that hub works.

I also powered up gnome-firmware and found I had a bunch of available upgrades, so I installed all of them, one at a time, since I wasn’t sure if I could jump directly to the newest or not. This seems to have gone okay. I haven’t retested to see if that affected anything or not.

Anyway. Data! Science! Knowledge Gained! =)

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7

This should be documented. So I created this issue:

Your observations mirror what I read in IRC. Don’t take my word for it because I’m a USB-C noob. The pocket was the first USB-C device I owned. I’m still looking for a good powered USB-C hub which I can use in the upper USB-C port to charge the pocket and use usb devices at the same time. It would be nice if it also had an ethernet port so that I do not need the ethernet adapter for the industrial port. There are plenty of devices (they seem to be called “docks”) that do this but they all come with HDMI or DisplayPort which I do not need. Today, a device got delivered which is just a USB-C hub with USB-C power delivery and a single ethernet port in nice and compact form factor. But then I noticed that it only does 480 MiB/s… sigh… :frowning:

If somebody has a recommendation for a good USB-C PD hub with ethernet for my Pocket, I take recommendations.

@zeha might be interested in that one as I apparently still fail to keep with my promise of providing him with debug data of a non-functional usb-c hub.

1 Like
8

I believe this is the startech one with ethernet that worked for me – no idea on your budget, or availability where you are – I’ve had it for at least 5 years, so it’s possible this has some internal difference despite looking like what I have:

ETA: Nope, it has a different version ID on the website. Searching for mine finds this, which looks identical, but has a different description:

1 Like
9

Ooooh thank you I misunderstood the entry in your post when you said “it cannot do data”. You only meant that single port not that the hub cannot do data when attached to the upper port, right?

That adapter looks just like what I was looking for. I’ll start looking for it in the local second hand markets. I have some other searches running. Whichever comes available next I’ll try out. :slight_smile:

Thank you!

10

Oh, you’re very welcome! And yes, the USB C port on that only passes power, but the ethernet port and the 3 USB A ports all worked in the charging port when power is provided via the hub. The hub works in the other port whether power is provided or not (and, obviously, power is not passed through to the pocket in that case).

1 Like
11

Generally the hubs should still work even when plugged into the upper port. Maybe there is still a bug to iron out.

I just don’t have any hubs which exhibit this problem.

12

I now have here a hub which provides power to the pocket if you first plug the adapter into the hub and then plug the hub into the pocket. But when first plugging the hub into the pocket and then connecting power to the hub it does not charge. Is that expected?

It’s a Wavlink WL-UHP3032G. If that’s something you’d like to tinker with I can send it over.

13

I have a Cable Matters 201048 one, which may work without power, but I hardly have seen that happen, its led goes on/off in loop (fastly).

Same, if shipping it or some logs help ask me.