USB is very slow

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lisapisa2
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USB is very slow

Post by lisapisa2 »

It started with the upgrade to 19.0 but I didnt get around to asking about it til now. Whats is happening is that if I put a USB thumb drive or phone on any USB port I usually (not always) get a message "The folder contents could not be displayed". If it is a phone I get the message "Could not display mtp://.....". Sometimes I can access the device for a while but eventually I will go to open a directory and then it will again hang. It makes no difference which USB port or which USB device I use it happens with all of them. It got slightly better with 19.1 in that it does not happen all the time now but it is still painfully slow. It seems that when transferring data it takes a long time for it to start but once it start it does go faster. For instance I transfer a 3 MB file from mem stick to SSD. It takes 30 seconds to start and 2 or 3 to actually transfer.
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kato181
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Re: USB is very slow

Post by kato181 »

Okay if you are using a samsung phone you have to do the following:
sudo apt update
sudo apt-get install mtp-tools
sudo apt update
then connect your phone and allow access on it.
that problem solved.
With regards to the usb, it's not getting full is it? try formatting it as see what happens.
good luck
lisapisa2
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Re: USB is very slow

Post by lisapisa2 »

Thanks that helped a lot and fixed most USB issues. There is however one left. It is as descrfived when I got to transfer files from USB device to MInt desktop. I have plenty of space available on both sides. I have run stopwatch to get some accurate times. Today I went to copy 7 jpegs, 35 MB total, from phone to desktop SSD. It took a minute and 37 seconds to start the transfer. If you look at the progress bar it is sitting on the first file.When the transfer starts it completes in less than 2 seconds. I checked performance monitor and dont see anything strange. It just seems to take a long time to copy files I also have another piece of information. If I open image viewer I can step through the pictures on the USB device in near real time. It baffles me as to why the transfer of files be it 1 or 100 takes so long to start??
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kato181
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Re: USB is very slow

Post by kato181 »

lisapisa2 wrote: Tue Feb 12, 2019 4:23 pm Thanks that helped a lot and fixed most USB issues. There is however one left. It is as descrfived when I got to transfer files from USB device to MInt desktop. I have plenty of space available on both sides. I have run stopwatch to get some accurate times. Today I went to copy 7 jpegs, 35 MB total, from phone to desktop SSD. It took a minute and 37 seconds to start the transfer. If you look at the progress bar it is sitting on the first file.When the transfer starts it completes in less than 2 seconds. I checked performance monitor and dont see anything strange. It just seems to take a long time to copy files I also have another piece of information. If I open image viewer I can step through the pictures on the USB device in near real time. It baffles me as to why the transfer of files be it 1 or 100 takes so long to start??
Transfer speed relies on a number of things..
1. the speed of the usb port be it v1.0, v2.0 or v3.0
2. the usb stick whether it's v1.0, v2.0 or v3.0
If you have a v2.0 usb stick and insert it into a v3.0 usb port it will only transfer at IT'S speed and not the speed of the port and vice versa for the v3.0 usb it will only transfer at it's speed if using a v3.0, but will not attain it's speed in a v2.0 port
Just like putting a V8 motor in a ferrari and going like hell, then put in a 4 cylinder motor and expect the same speed..It just won't happen.

Data files like documents transfer at a greater speed than graphics, only natural as most doc files are about for eg. 75kb where as most graphic files depending on the compression method are usually in excess of 3mb hence it takes longer to transfer. The same applies to SSD drives and mechanical drives.
The old style drives usually found in laptops and early desktops were usually 5400rpm, whilst later drives were 7200rpm. SSD's are again, depending on the manufacturer can be upto 100 times faster depending on the data transfer rate of each drive.
lisapisa2
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Re: USB is very slow

Post by lisapisa2 »

It wasnt always like this.One the same machine with the same hardware this problem never existed until I upgraded to 19.0. LIke I said it is usually between 30 seconds and a minute before the transfer starts and sometimes it even times out (I have actually timed it). I have USB 3.0 and 2.0 ports and it makes no difference what I plug into the port. I can take my USB drive go to another computer and copy teh same files files from it to the local hard drive in a couple of seconds. There is something strange happening whenever data is moved via the USB. The startup takes forever, I totally get what you are saying about USB and devices but I am not talking a little slow, something is broken. It appears that once the transfer starts it goes very quickly. There is a related symptom. Open a directory and regardless of what is in it one can wait again up to a minute for it to display contents. It would be interesting to find out what is going on when data is a bout to be transferred across the USB port?
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kato181
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Re: USB is very slow

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lisapisa2 wrote: Sun Feb 17, 2019 6:32 pm It wasnt always like this.One the same machine with the same hardware this problem never existed until I upgraded to 19.0. LIke I said it is usually between 30 seconds and a minute before the transfer starts and sometimes it even times out (I have actually timed it). I have USB 3.0 and 2.0 ports and it makes no difference what I plug into the port. I can take my USB drive go to another computer and copy teh same files files from it to the local hard drive in a couple of seconds. There is something strange happening whenever data is moved via the USB. The startup takes forever, I totally get what you are saying about USB and devices but I am not talking a little slow, something is broken. It appears that once the transfer starts it goes very quickly. There is a related symptom. Open a directory and regardless of what is in it one can wait again up to a minute for it to display contents. It would be interesting to find out what is going on when data is a bout to be transferred across the USB port?
Hmmmm..
Sounds like a glitch in the software somewhere. I have mint 19, and 19.1 on 3 desktops and 1 laptop and don't have a transfer problem with usb devices.
The only alternative I can suggest mate is to do a fresh install of mint as a last resort. Then don't install any of the programs you use, just try transferring files to and fro from usb etc to see if the problem still exists.
Have you checked the version of your kernel?
You could go to ukuu and download the latest kernel from there and try that to see if the problem still exists, but remember those kernels aren't supported.
With that said, I use the kernels from Ukuu and it fixed a few problems I had and I've had no further problems from using them.
Just a suggestion.
lisapisa2
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Re: USB is very slow

Post by lisapisa2 »

Yes I have posted a couple of times on this and still no solution although adding MTP-tools made the hanging of transfers happen much less. I think what I will do is wait until the next version and then do a destructive install rather than an upgrade.
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kato181
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Re: USB is very slow

Post by kato181 »

lisapisa2 wrote: Tue Feb 19, 2019 7:45 pm Yes I have posted a couple of times on this and still no solution although adding MTP-tools made the hanging of transfers happen much less. I think what I will do is wait until the next version and then do a destructive install rather than an upgrade.
My lil grey cells never absorbed that you said it was an upgrade!!! As a rule i Never ever ever upgrade and O/S. I always do a clean install no matter what, the reason being is that there is nearly 90% chance of having a glitch, usually either driver or software.It's vary rare that you don't get problems with one. That being said it could be a few years before an upgrade appears, LM17+ ends it's lifespan I think later this year or next year, so if it was me, I'd do a complete clean install, remembering it takes a quarter of the time to install unlike windoz. The great thing about mint is that it updates as you install if you tell it to, unlike windoz.
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