# Problem accessing Sony Ericsson P1i over USB



## vatson (Sep 16, 2009)

I have a Sony Ericsson P1i which I connect to my PC via USB for transferring photos and music.

Until recently, this worked very well. But then the motherboard died on me and I installed a new system. 

Old system was Intel D865GLC motherboard, ICH5 southbridge (UHCI based controller), running 6-STABLE i386.

New system is Asus M4A78-EM motherboard, SB700 southbridge (OHCI based controller), running 7-STABLE amd64.

Now I'm in trouble. When I attach the phone, it seems to attach somewhat successfully in that da0 device is created and I can even mount it. But the contents of the filesystem that is supposed to be there are sometimes entirely missing, sometimes some files are there but they look corrupt (photos have half of them missing, directories have size 0 and can't be cd'd into, etc). The phone itself still accesses these files successfully, so I assume they are intact.

I tried to connect the phone to another machine running recent 7-STABLE i386, and got similar results. The USB controller in that machine is also OHCI based (SIS 5571, IIRC).

On my new 7-STABLE amd64 machine I can successfully use an USB thumbdrive, so the problem seems to be specific to the phone.

Now I'm left wondering which strategy would be best to escape from this situation:

1. Get a PCI USB controller and connect the phone to that (hoping that the problem is specific to the controller, probably should try to get an EHCI based controller?).

2. Get an USB-based card reader and plug the phone's memory card into that (hoping that the problem is specific to the phone).

3. Submit a PR from the debug info that I've generated (hoping that some developers are still willing to take a look at a problem with the 'old' USB stack).

What do you think?


----------



## vatson (Sep 17, 2009)

After more testing, it seems that the memory card in the phone was actually faulty. With another card, everything is working fine so far. Just a coincidence that this happened at the same time that I rebuilt my PC.


----------



## vatson (Sep 18, 2009)

Well, I spoke too soon. There is still something wrong, even with another memory card. I have gone through couple of cycles of the following:

1. Format the memory card using phone.
2. Connect phone to computer via USB, mount the phone, copy some mp3 files to the phone.
3. Compare md5 checksums of copied files to the originals. They are identical.
4. Unmount the phone.
5. Re-mount the phone. Compare md5 checksums of the files to originals. They are now different.

So, it looks like files are getting corrupted while being transferred to the phone. My guess is that on first comparision the checksums are correct because files are actually read from cache (md5 gives results instantly), and on second attempt md5 actually reads the file from memory card (takes a couple of seconds).

I'll do the same test on another computer tomorrow, but meanwhile, does this look familiar to anyone?


----------



## morbit (Sep 25, 2009)

Well I have P1i and luckily found it's box. USB cable was still in original package..

Anyway, I'm on 8-STABLE and copied some *png on the card files without any problems. Will compare checksums in a moment..

//
After remount checksums are identical.


----------

