67 replies to this topic

[Pedro_Newbie]

I wanted to use an exfat formatted 64GB USB-key but it didn't worked out of the box. I searched the forum and found some topics about this problem but none gave a good solution on how to get things going.

Therefore I place this topic on how I solved this "problem".

Maybe it is not as it should be done by the book but the hereunder mentioned steps gave me a working solution.

So here are the steps to be taken to get things going:

 

What steps do I have to take be able to read/use the USB-stick?

 

Open a telnet session with e.g. DCC_E2

1        Install the package fuse-exfat_1.1.0-r0.0_mips32el.ipk (versionnumber may differ!) with the command

opkg install fuse-exfat

2        Install the package exfat-utils_1.0.1-r0.0_mips32el.ipk (versionnumber may differ!) with the command

opkg install exfat-utils

         and restart your receiver. (I'm not sure if this restart is actually needed.)

3        Insert the USB-key to be used into one of the USB-slots and wait a few seconds

4        give the command

cat /proc/partitions

         you see something like this

root@et8000:~# cat /proc/partitions 
major   minor   #blocks  name          
                                   
   8        0  976762584 sda        
   8        1  976762580 sda1       
  31        0     524288 mtdblock0  
  31        1       6144 mtdblock1  
  31        2     518144 mtdblock2  
   8       16   62411243 sdb       

         Look for a line that could represent the capacity of your USB-key.

         In this case the first 2 lines are my 1GB hard disk (sda and sda1) and the last line in this case is my 64GB Innostor USB-key which I want to mount and is device sdb.

         This sdb is needed to mount the USB-key.

5        Again in telnet give the command

mkdir /media/<desired name>

         In my case I want to name the mount innostor, so the command to use is

mkdir /media/innostor

6        Now the USB-key will be mounted on media/innostor (my chosen name) with the command

        

mount.exfat-fuse /dev/sdb /mnt/innostor -o nonempty

If everything worked out well you should be able to read and write your exfat formatted USB-key.

 

Please feel free to comment or supplement the above

 

As always: Use at your own risk

Edited by Pedro_Newbie, 2 January 2016 - 15:29.

[MiLo]

Just "opkg install fuse-exfat" should do the trick. If you need more than that to mount a stick, it's a bug. If you modprobe the module after installing it, you don't even need to reboot, just inserting the stick should be enough.

[Pedro_Newbie]

Indeed the installation of the exfat-utils shouldn't be necessary (and isn't).

 

Just installing fuse-exfat isn't enough to mount the stick, at least it wasn't enough in my case.

 

The USB is recognised under menu -> information -> about. It shows as 63.908GB, -1.- MB free.

 

If I don't create the entry under /media and doesn't mount it with

mount.exfat-fuse /dev/sdb /mnt/innostor -o nonempty

it won't work.

 

Maybe someone else can check/try it with an exfat formatted stick?

[MiLo]

What does "cat /proc/filesystems" output when exfat is loaded?

[Pedro_Newbie]

That gives

odev	sysfs
nodev	rootfs
nodev	ramfs
nodev	bdev
nodev	proc
nodev	tmpfs
nodev	devtmpfs
nodev	sockfs
nodev	pipefs
nodev	anon_inodefs
nodev	rpc_pipefs
nodev	devpts
	ext3
	ext2
	ext4
	vfat
nodev	nfs
nodev	nfs4
nodev	cifs
nodev	autofs
	fuseblk
nodev	fuse
nodev	fusectl
nodev	mqueue
nodev	mtd_inodefs
nodev	ubifs

[MiLo]

As an experiment, if you run:

echo exfat-fuse >> /etc/filesystems

(note the "etc", not "proc"!) to append exfat-fuse to the list of "filesystems to try first", does the hot-plug work then?

Edited by MiLo, 2 January 2016 - 19:37.

[Pedro_Newbie]

Bingo! Now the hotplug recognises the stick on insertion and is mounted on /media/usb

[Pedro_Newbie]

But, what has to been done to let it work out of the box for future users?

[Erik Slagter]

ExFat is a monstrousity anyway. On the one side, it's totally unneeded and only used for making cash for Microsoft. You can use FAT32 just as good, which has a complete open implementation in the kernel. But it seems that USB sticks that are formatted ExFAT cannot be formatted/repartioned without more or less destroying the stick. If that is true, I'd say: boycot such sticks at all. Or just format it FAT32 and take it back to the shop if it fails Ridiculous.

[Pedro_Newbie]

But with FAT32 you'll have a max filesize of 4GB, with exfat you don't have this limit. And the exfat stick can be easily read in a Windows system.
This stick can be used to easily exchange large files

[MiLo]

Format NTFS instead, works just as easy on both.

[Erik Slagter]

If you're going non-standard, why not use ext4 then. Oh, you're using a windows PC

[Pedro_Newbie]

And I'm not the only one, that's the "problem". 

I know, in the linux world it is blasphemous

 

Too bad MS-DOS is out of fashion

[Pedro_Newbie]

So forget/ignore my first post and download and install this little ipk.

copy it to /tmp and install it with

opkg install /tmp/*

What it does is
- installs fuse-exfat
- checks if exfat is mentioned in /proc/filesystems, if it is the work is done
- if it is not in /proc/filesystems then it checks if it is in /etc/filesystems, if it is the work is done
- if not it is added in /etc/filesystems

 

 

Now on insertion your exfat formatted USB-stick is detected and should work

Attached Files

•  make-exfat_1.0_all.ipk   690bytes   77 downloads

[Pedro_Newbie]

In the above post  the command must be of course

opkg install /tmp/*.ipk

[Pr2]

Hi,

 

Is it a real problem to include the same check as Pedro_Newbie does in its .ipk directly into the fuse-exfat ipk?

This won't arm anything and will ease people life that decide to install this ipk.

 

Of course we can have many discussions around the different filesystem types and support but if we install the support from the feed for exFat it should work easily for end-users that decide to use it.

 

Pr2

[Dimitrij]

root@et8500:~# opkg list *fuse-exfat*
fuse-exfat - 1.1.0-r0.0 - read and write exFAT driver for FUSE  fuse-exfat is a read and write
 driver implementing the extended file   allocation table as a filesystem
 in userspace. A mounthelper is provided   under the name mount.exfat-
 fuse.
fuse-exfat-dev - 1.1.0-r0.0 - read and write exFAT driver for FUSE - Development files  fuse-exfat is a
 read and write driver implementing the extended file   allocation table
 as a filesystem in userspace. A mounthelper is provided   under the name
 mount.exfat-fuse.   This package contains symbolic links,   header files,
 and related items necessary for software development.

[Pedro_Newbie]

Yep, this is the package but after installation you'll have to use indeed mount.exfat.fuse as described in my first post.

But if exfat is added in /etc/filesystems then it works without the need of additional mounting and it is recognised by the hotplug at insertion

[isteric2005]

Grazie alle vostre informazioni sono riuscito a risolvere il problema delle registrazione su microsd da 128gb.
Mi è rimasto un'unico problema non funziona il timershift, probabilmente perchè il percorso di archiviazione impostato è errato.
Come posso modificarlo??
Ciao
 

 

translate

Thanks to your information I was able to solve the problem of registration of microSD as 128gb .
I was left with not a single problem does timershift , probably because the storage location is specified incorrectly .
How can I change it ??
Hello

[Pedro_Newbie]

Menu -> Impostazioni -> Sistema -> Percorsi registrazioni -> Percorso timeshift -> OK -> Menu -> Passare all'elenco file -> <Elenco supporti memorizzazione>

Menu -> Setup -> System -> Recording paths -> Timeshift location -> OK -> Menu -> switch to filelist -> <List of storage devices> -> Choose the right entry

Edited by Pedro_Newbie, 1 May 2016 - 07:40.