Problem with Three Port USB Hub with Ethernet

I’m having problem with the Ethernet USB adapter and Pi Zero. Adapter loses its ethernet connection for 2 or 4 seconds very ofter, sometimes many times in minute and sometimes it might take ten to twenty minutes, but anyway the connection breaks all the time. I tried the adapter also with my Ubuntu laptop and similar thing happens also with that. Pi Zero works fine with cheapest eBay ethernet-usb adapter so the problem seems to be with the adapter instead of the cable or router.

Here’s a snippet of syslog which shows the problem. What should I try to do to fix the problem?

Jun 9 12:26:36 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: carrier lost Jun 9 12:26:37 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: deleting address fe80::89ab:bd9c:393b:c246 Jun 9 12:26:37 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: deleting route to 192.168.255.0/24 Jun 9 12:26:37 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: deleting default route via 192.168.255.1 Jun 9 12:26:39 raspberrypi ntpd[720]: Deleting interface #9 eth0, 192.168.255.20#123, interface stats: received=9, sent=12, dropped=0, active_time=102 secs Jun 9 12:26:39 raspberrypi ntpd[720]: 194.100.2.194 interface 192.168.255.20 -> (none) Jun 9 12:26:39 raspberrypi ntpd[720]: 80.69.163.42 interface 192.168.255.20 -> (none) Jun 9 12:26:39 raspberrypi ntpd[720]: 62.236.120.71 interface 192.168.255.20 -> (none) Jun 9 12:26:39 raspberrypi ntpd[720]: 77.86.199.1 interface 192.168.255.20 -> (none) Jun 9 12:26:39 raspberrypi ntpd[720]: Deleting interface #8 eth0, fe80::89ab:bd9c:393b:c246#123, interface stats: received=0, sent=0, dropped=0, active_time=107 secs Jun 9 12:26:39 raspberrypi ntpd[720]: peers refreshed Jun 9 12:26:39 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: carrier acquired Jun 9 12:26:39 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: adding address fe80::89ab:bd9c:393b:c246 Jun 9 12:26:39 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: IAID 4c:36:0b:de Jun 9 12:26:39 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: rebinding lease of 192.168.255.20 Jun 9 12:26:39 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: soliciting an IPv6 router Jun 9 12:26:42 raspberrypi ntpd[720]: Listen normally on 10 eth0 fe80::89ab:bd9c:393b:c246 UDP 123 Jun 9 12:26:42 raspberrypi ntpd[720]: peers refreshed Jun 9 12:26:44 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: leased 192.168.255.20 for infinity Jun 9 12:26:45 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: adding route to 192.168.255.0/24 Jun 9 12:26:45 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: adding default route via 192.168.255.1 Jun 9 12:26:46 raspberrypi ntpd[720]: Listen normally on 11 eth0 192.168.255.20 UDP 123 Jun 9 12:26:46 raspberrypi ntpd[720]: peers refreshed Jun 9 12:26:54 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: no IPv6 Routers available Jun 9 12:28:13 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: carrier lost Jun 9 12:28:14 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: deleting address fe80::89ab:bd9c:393b:c246 Jun 9 12:28:14 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: deleting route to 192.168.255.0/24 Jun 9 12:28:14 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: deleting default route via 192.168.255.1 Jun 9 12:28:16 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: carrier acquired Jun 9 12:28:16 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: adding address fe80::89ab:bd9c:393b:c246 Jun 9 12:28:16 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: IAID 4c:36:0b:de Jun 9 12:28:16 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: soliciting an IPv6 router Jun 9 12:28:16 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: rebinding lease of 192.168.255.20 Jun 9 12:28:17 raspberrypi ntpd[720]: Deleting interface #11 eth0, 192.168.255.20#123, interface stats: received=6, sent=8, dropped=0, active_time=91 secs Jun 9 12:28:17 raspberrypi ntpd[720]: 194.100.2.194 interface 192.168.255.20 -> (none) Jun 9 12:28:17 raspberrypi ntpd[720]: 80.69.163.42 interface 192.168.255.20 -> (none) Jun 9 12:28:17 raspberrypi ntpd[720]: 62.236.120.71 interface 192.168.255.20 -> (none) Jun 9 12:28:17 raspberrypi ntpd[720]: 77.86.199.1 interface 192.168.255.20 -> (none) Jun 9 12:28:17 raspberrypi ntpd[720]: Deleting interface #10 eth0, fe80::89ab:bd9c:393b:c246#123, interface stats: received=0, sent=0, dropped=0, active_time=95 secs Jun 9 12:28:17 raspberrypi ntpd[720]: peers refreshed Jun 9 12:28:19 raspberrypi ntpd[720]: Listen normally on 12 eth0 fe80::89ab:bd9c:393b:c246 UDP 123 Jun 9 12:28:19 raspberrypi ntpd[720]: peers refreshed Jun 9 12:28:21 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: leased 192.168.255.20 for infinity Jun 9 12:28:21 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: adding route to 192.168.255.0/24 Jun 9 12:28:21 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: adding default route via 192.168.255.1 Jun 9 12:28:28 raspberrypi ntpd[720]: Listen normally on 14 eth0 fe80::89ab:bd9c:393b:c246 UDP 123 Jun 9 12:28:28 raspberrypi ntpd[720]: peers refreshed Jun 9 12:28:30 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: leased 192.168.255.20 for infinity Jun 9 12:28:30 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: adding route to 192.168.255.0/24 Jun 9 12:28:30 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: adding default route via 192.168.255.1 Jun 9 12:28:32 raspberrypi ntpd[720]: Listen normally on 15 eth0 192.168.255.20 UDP 123 Jun 9 12:28:32 raspberrypi ntpd[720]: peers refreshed Jun 9 12:28:39 raspberrypi dhcpcd[668]: eth0: no IPv6 Routers available

it could be a power related issue… are you connecting USB devices to the adapter and if so what are they? how are you powering up the Pi itself?

I had a Huawei 3G modem attached to the adapter, but removed it now and tested again, same results. Just PiZero and ethernet adapter connected now. And like I said the problem is reproducible also with my laptop when using the adapter for ethernet connection.

Pi Zero is powered by battery pack which is able to provide 2.1A to the USB connecter (and 1A to another), also tested Nokia AC-10 charger with 1,2A output.

It seems that this is a Linux driver issue. I have Mac laptop running El Capitan, PiZero running latest Raspbian and another laptop with Ubuntu 16.04 and Windows 10.

I tested the adapter with all of these by pinging my router from the clients. Only Raspbian and Ubuntu has problems. With Mac adapter works fine, 0% packet loss and speed is great, same thing with the another laptop when testing with Windows 10.

But when I boot to Ubuntu there are connection losses and therefore packet loss (2-10%). Raspbian seems to work at the same level. Constant connection losses and therefore quite useless.

16.04 LTS has kernel version 4.4.0-24-generic, Raspbian 4.1.21+

So it seems that the adapter doesn’t work properly with linux but otherwise a its a great adapter.

Is this the ethernet to USB adapter that we sell in our shop?

I’ve just tested one for about three minutes, pinging google.com, and got 2% packet loss.

Doing the same test with the built-in ethernet (it’s a Pi 3 I’m using), I get 1% packet loss, so in the same ballpark.

Yes it is, just recently bought it with another PiZero. But as it works with Windows and OS X it seems that the hw is ok, but the linux driver is not.

Maybe the driver is not fully compatible with my router (Apple Time Capsule). I guess 2% packet loss to outside of local network is ok, but between router and client it is not. It makes ssh usage pretty hard and for example downloading db backup file from my orientdb studio running in PiZero usually fails as connection drops during the download.

Anyway I have another cheap usb-ethernet adapter which works fine so I can use that for now.

I can confirm that the problem is between Apple Time Capsule (mine is 5th gen) and the linux driver of the usb ethernet adapter. I moved my raspi to another location where I connected it to ethernet switch and there was no connection losses.

I tried to downgrade Time Capsule fw (7.7.3 and 7.7.7), but it didn’t help. Have to come up with another solution or use to old usb-ethernet adapter for now.