Hello friends and family,

I am a relatively new Linux user. I have been having a peculiar problem with my two usb ports on my MacBook Pro.

First I will describe the problem as best I can, then I will provide some technical stuff.

---Problem---
The problem began, as best as I can remember, before I installed linux (not 100% sure). If I plugged a device such as a mouse or phone into one port it would not register; I wouldn't be able to access any of the files. I didn't pay much attention then and just used the other one. Somewhere during this point the other port began to intermittently exhibit the same problem. If I was using my mouse and it stopped working, the problem had a chance of being remedied by 1) waiting 10 minutes or 2) restarting. Now neither work. I don't think its a hardware issue because both ports can still be used to charge devices.

---Supplementary Information---
Have scoured the net and found forums wherein people have seemingly similar problems, however, the proposed solutions never work for me.

---Technical Stuff---
My laptop is MacBook Pro9.1, Model number A1286.

My linux distribution is Linux Mint 17.2.

Usb's are 2.0 (it's not blue).

My usb driver is xHCI Host Controller. it also goes by the name xhci_hcd apparently. I rebooted kernel and made that thing as a module as also tried to replace with ehci_hcd. I don't think it did anything.

The error i get from dmesg is 'device descriptor read/64, error -71' and 'device not accepting address [n], error -71' and 'unable to enumerate USB device'. The kernel (that's a guess) must try to make it work several times, because the message appears 7 times.

1500 experience points goes to the solver.

Thanks,
Tonez

Sorry, but this logic is not valid. Charge (5 V) circuit is separate from serial connection circuit.

Hello and welcome to LQ.

I guess you could have blown the data part of the chip ESD and still have power rather easily.

You might try some diags like live cd/dvd/usb to see of a different distro can replicate the issue.

Could be some failure with the mouse/keyboard or any usb attached device or any driver.

Not sure about using that driver too.

Unfortunately, this reads like hardware failure to me.

Thanks for the responses. I didn't know that there could be hardware failure and still have charging capabilities.

Can I fix the problem by putting new USB ports in my laptop? Can I upgrade to 3.0?

This involves soldering on the motherboard, I know.

I doubt there's much you can do. Laptop's are not really user serviceable.