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Discussion and technical support related to USRP, UHD, RFNoC
View all threadsRe: Problem verifying B200 device
On 21/02/2023 12:59, Maxim Belotserkovsky wrote:
When I do dmesg following the initial 'cold connect' of B200, here is
what I see:
[ 7487.879251] vhci_hcd vhci_hcd.0: pdev(0) rhport(0) sockfd(3)
[ 7487.879260] vhci_hcd vhci_hcd.0: devid(393220) speed(3)
speed_str(high-speed)
[ 7487.879300] vhci_hcd vhci_hcd.0: Device attached
[ 7488.228451] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 9 using vhci_hcd
[ 7488.378208] usb 1-1: SetAddress Request (9) to port 0
[ 7488.413199] usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=2500,
idProduct=0021, bcdDevice= 1.00
[ 7488.413205] usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2,
SerialNumber=3
[ 7488.413207] usb 1-1: Product: WestBridge
[ 7488.413208] usb 1-1: Manufacturer: Cypress
[ 7488.413210] usb 1-1: SerialNumber: 0000000004BE
Does this look correct? What bothers me here is the idProduct=0021,
which, according to
https://kb.ettus.com/Building_and_Installing_the_USRP_Open-Source_Toolchain_(UHD_and_GNU_Radio)_on_Linux
means a B210 device. Is this the kind of inconsistency that may be
causing the image load to fail?
I've tried running b2xx_fx3_utils, but any option I pass into it,
including the ones that are supposed jut query the device, try loading
up the image, so I can't get any more information about the state of
b200 on power-up beyond what's showing up in dmesg. What can possibly
be wrong with the USB configuration on my machine? Clearly, the
dropping of the device ONLY happens once I try running any of the UHD
utilities, but otherwise the connection seems rock-solid.
I did notice this: after initial cold connect, when I run 'usbipd wsl
list' from Windows Power Shell, I see "6-4 2500:0021 WestBridge" in
the list; however, same command issued after the botched image load
using any of the UHD utils shows this instead: "7-4 2500:0021
Unknown", as if the firmware load causes the USB interface chip
(FX3?) to get bricked. I'm more inclined to think something is wrong
with the device or the firmware coming from Ettus than anything going
on with my host.
If you run:
sudo uhd_images_downloader
In your WSL instance, it will, if need be, download the appropriate
images into your filesystem environment, which will
make them available for loading dynamically at UHD start-up.
I literally have nearly a dozen USRP B2xx type devices, and the only
time I've seen this type of issue is when
the underlying host hardware isn't supporting it properly. The
device WILL work with both USB2.0 and USB3.0
host controllers, albeit with lower performance for USB2.0. The
entire B2xx family is a fairly mature product,
with very few changes to the host side or firmware/FPGA in quite some
time. So I'm guessing that you're
not running into "yeah, that version doesn't work" type issues.
I'm not a Windows/WSL user, so I'm not that familiar with how WSL/VM
handles USB. My experience in the past
with Windows VMs and USB is that they are not terribly reliable or
performant. I have no idea whether this applies to
WSL environments or not, and there may be others on the list who are.
How did you install UHD on your Ubuntu image? The
packaged-by-canonical packages are entirely adequate--there's
no need to build from source, if that's the route you took.
sudo apt install uhd uhd-host
Was just fine for me on my Ubuntu 22.04 system (on a probably 5 year old
laptop).
On Tue, Feb 21, 2023 at 11:31 AM Marcus D. Leech
patchvonbraun@gmail.com wrote:
On 21/02/2023 12:24, Maxim Belotserkovsky wrote:
Thank you for your answer. I have Ubuntu 22.04 running under WSL.
To your points:
1) I have considered power consumption issue, so I've tried
plugging in the b200 via a powered hub - same problem. Try a
different hub?
2)ANY canned utility I've tried running (uhd_usrp_probe,
uhd_find_devices) starts off by 'Loading firmware image:'. Just
prior to running either command, the 'lsusb' in Ubuntu lists the
device correctly (as 'Ettus Research LLC USRP B200-mini'), so
presumably it is loaded with the factory image on power-up, or
this is a wrong presumption on my part?
3) USB interface is provided by a separate chip inside b200 (not
the FPGA firmware), right? Why is it then that when image is
being loaded the USB connection gets dropped? Is unsustainable
power draw the only possibility?
3) How do UHD utilities (say uhd_find_devices) "know" that the
device has not image on it? Say, I use Xilinx program manager to
load up the provided firmware image, and then try calling up one
of the canned UHD utilities, are you saying the utility will then
no longer attempt to load up anything because it can read some
register on FPGA that will tell it it already has an image loaded?
Perhaps there is a more detailed WIKI that explains these points
in more detail? All I see online is fairly high level, hence my
naive questions.
Thanks!
The UHD library queries the device to determine whether correct
"stuff" has been loaded. The firmware is for the
FX3, and the FPGA image is for the FPGA. They both need to be
mutually compatible, and if UHD detects that there's
either no images present, or that there's something "screwy" it
will force reload of both the firmware (small) and
the FPGA (much larger). But once they're loaded, UHD startup
will just proceed without reloading. You're seeing
multiple attempts to reload, because those attempts are failing,
because there's something wrong with your
USB host configuration.
If you're running this under WSL, there may be some USB
configuration issues that are causing your host controller
to drop the device.
In terms of "which registers do what", you'll need to look at the
source code and FPGA code -- both of which are
freely available. There is no structured-walkthrough document
available for FPGA programming on the B2xx
series. The RFNoC framework is not available for those devices,
so any FPGA programming is done
"bare metal".
On Tue, Feb 21, 2023 at 11:06 AM Marcus D. Leech
<patchvonbraun@gmail.com> wrote:
On 21/02/2023 11:53, Maxim Belotserkovsky wrote:
Hi everyone. Got a brand-new B200-mini device, installed
all the tools
etc. Ubuntu sees the device correctly once it's attached to
the host:
<home>:~$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 2500:0021 Ettus Research LLC USRP
B200-mini
...........
However, any attempt to run initial UHD verification (as per
https://kb.ettus.com/Verifying_the_Operation_of_the_USRP_Using_UHD_and_GNU_Radio),
for example, by running uhd_find_devices, fails in the
following way :
<home>:~$ uhd_find_devices
[INFO] [UHD] linux; GNU C++ version 11.3.0; Boost_107400;
UHD_4.4.0.0-0ubuntu1~jammy1
[INFO] [B200] Loading firmware image:
/usr/share/uhd/images/usrp_b200_fw.hex...
No UHD Devices Found
When I re-run 'lsusb' now, The 'B200' device no longer
shows up:
<home>:~$ lsusb
..................
At this point, it now requires power-cycling the B200 in
order for it
to be recognized by the OS again (which presumably re-loads
the
default factory image that comes on the built-in flash)
So, the problem is this: it appears as if in the process of
loading
the firmware image (which comes as a part of running any of
the UHD
utilities) the device loses connection to the system,
causing it to no
longer enumerate on the OS, so that the subsequent steps (of
'uhd_find_devices' in our example) can no longer be
executed (due to
'No UHD Devices found').
The questions I have are these :
- Is this something generally known, with a known
solution, or is
there something wrong with my particular system, the B200
device,
driver installation etc.?
2) Is the problem really caused by the FPGA image loading,
or some
other non-FPGA component being disturbed causing the device to
disconnect? Is it possible the image attempted to be loaded
the wrong
one( usrp_b200_fw.hex incompatible with the hardware)?
2) Is there a work-around? For example (preferred by me):
can I run
UHD with the option passed to commands of not-loading the
FPGA image
every time a command is executed? Say, a config file that
UHD reads to
know what to do with the device? I want to be able to deal
with the
B200 with whatever static image I've loaded up on it (be it
the
factory image or some future custom image)
Thank you.
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What version of Ubuntu? What type of hardware?
This might be that the USB controller on your host is dropped
the device
off the bus due to power-consumption.
The FPGA/Firmware are only loaded during *cold start* of the
device--that is after a power cycle. Once it is loaded, as long
as it's plugged in, and you don't ask for a different FPGA
image, it
will continue to run with that image.
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--
Maxim Belotserkovsky
maxim@gotenna.com
<https://gotenna.com/>