USB 2 port not available

[mitu]

Hello,

 

I have installed the Armbian 26.2 minimal IOT image based on Debian 13 Trixie - with the 6.18.x kernel - and I noticed the USB2 port (the single, vertical port next to the Ethernet port) is not working. Is this a limitation of the mainstream kernel (6.18.x) - i.e. does this work only with the vendor kernel (6.1.x) ? NB: I upgraded to 6.19 using the 'edge' kernel, but I'm seeing the same behavior.

 

Here's the armbianmonitor outpur - https://paste.armbian.com/raw/udefojuxuk 

Edited April 13 by mitu

[tim zeng]

I encountered the same issue. When I used the Orange Pi 3B image based on the 6.18 kernel, USB was not available, but when using the 6.1 vendor image, USB worked.

[mitu]

@tim zeng sure, but that's not - directly - related, since the Orange PI5 and the Orange Pi3 are different SOCs/SBCs. The only common trait is the poor SW support offered by the vendor.

Edited April 14 by mitu

[Alec Leamas]

I have also encountered this using Orange pi 5 and latest Armbian updated as of today. That the "standing" USB port does not work also means that the  USB-C port doesn't work -- they are electrically connected.

 

So  Mitu's question is also mine:  Is this a limitation of the mainstream kernel (6.18.x) - i.e. does this work only with the vendor kernel (6.1.x)?

 

EDIT: typo

Edited Wednesday at 06:52 AM by Alec Leamas
Typo

[zjd]

In mainline kernel 6.18 or above, the USB 2.0 port (and USB-C port) is configured as device mode. You can use following cmd to change to host mode to connect other USB devices, but you need to do it again after reboot.

sudo bash -c "echo host > /sys/kernel/debug/usb/fc000000.usb/mode"

It could be done by dtb overlay but there is no one available now.

[Werner]

The upstream default seems to be "otg" to allow users in userspace to change the usb port behavior.

Try this and use armbian-add-overlay

 

/dts-v1/;
/plugin/;

/ {
	fragment@0 {
		target = <&usb_host0_xhci>;

		__overlay__ {
			dr_mode = "host";
		};
	};
};

 

[mitu]

On 5/6/2026 at 9:50 AM, Alec Leamas said:

I have also encountered this using Orange pi 5 and latest Armbian updated as of today. That the "standing" USB port does not work also means that the  USB-C port doesn't work -- they are electrically connected.

 

Not really. The USB-C port does work, I actually connected an USB hub to be able to add a keyboard/mouse to the SBC and it worked without issue.

 

Quote

In mainline kernel 6.18 or above, the USB 2.0 port (and USB-C port) is configured as device mode. You can use following cmd to change to host mode to connect other USB devices, but you need to do it again after reboot.

 

I'll try this , thank you for the instructions. The USB-C port does work though if I connect a hub to it, I'm able to use the devices connected to the HUB without issue.

Edited Friday at 07:30 PM by mitu

[mitu]

OK, I checked and the USB port is already set to host:

Quote

 

$ sudo cat /sys/kernel/debug/usb/fc000000.usb/mode

host

$ uname -r

7.0.2-edge-rockchip64

 

 

The USB-A port is still not functional, but - as said in my previous reply - the USB-C port is working fine.

[Werner]

I verified the overlay above working with diy kernel 7.1.0-rc1 and kernel 6.18.10 from apt repo.

[mitu]

@Werner The overlay solution worked - thank you !

 

Is armbian-add-overlay a separate package/command ? I managed to enable it by creating a rockchip-rk3588-usb-host.dts file in the /boot//dtb-7.0.5-edge-rockchip64/rockchip/overlay folder, compiling it to ockchip-rk3588-usb-host.dtbo with the device tree compiler (dtc) and then using armbian-config to enable the loading of the usb-host overlay.

 

 

[Werner]

7 hours ago, mitu said:

s armbian-add-overlay a separate package/command ?

It should be available on any armbian installation oob.

You can also get it here: https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/main/packages/bsp/common/usr/sbin/armbian-add-overlay

[mitu]

12 hours ago, Werner said:

 

You can also get it here: https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/main/packages/bsp/common/usr/sbin/armbian-add-overlay

Ah, I think I know why I didn't 'find' it - trying to run the command as regular user didn't work since it's in /usr/sbin and this path has been removed from the $PATH of regular users. I need to be root in order to have it available.

 

@Werner thank you again for the pointer.

[Werner]

That's default Debian behavior. Ubuntu includes sbin in PATH afaik. In any case Armbian does not alter this.