How to disable USB autosuspend on kernel 3.7.10 or above?

For Ubuntu and Debian, usbcore is compiled in to the kernel, so creating entries in /etc/modprobe.d will NOT work. Instead, we need to change the kernel boot parameters.

Edit the /etc/default/grub file and change the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT line to add the usbcore.autosuspend=-1 option:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash usbcore.autosuspend=-1"

Note that quiet splash were already present options. So keep other options you have too.

After save the file, update grub:

sudo update-grub

And reboot.

Now check autosuspend value:

cat /sys/module/usbcore/parameters/autosuspend

And it should display -1.

Additional Info

In the kernel documentation is stated that someday in the future this param will change to autosuspend_delay_ms (instead of autosuspend), but so far, still the same name.

The documentation for the value -1 can be found in the kernel source file drivers/usb/core/hub.c:

1808:    * - If user has indicated to prevent autosuspend by passing
1809:    *   usbcore.autosuspend = -1 then keep autosuspend disabled.

I have a similar issue with a Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical USB and PS/2 Compatible since upgrading a Linux Mint Debian Edition system to kernel 3.10-2-amd64. An inappropriate autosuspend by the kernel's USB power management was suspected. In Debian, this is compiled as the usbcore module into the kernel.

You can change this permanently by issuing at the command line:

sudo echo "options usbcore autosuspend=-1" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/disable-usb-autosuspend.conf > /dev/null

Some kernels might require autosuspend=0, though.

If your system uses initrd (most probably does), then rebuild the initrd for your kernel.

For example:

uname -r
sudo dpkg-reconfigure linux-image-3.10-2-amd64

Reboot and check with:

cat /sys/module/usbcore/parameters/autosuspend

which should yield -1 now.

According to the kernel tree documentation, the autosuspend idle-delay time is controlled by the autosuspend module parameter in usbcore. Setting the initial default idle-delay to -1 will prevent the autosuspend of any USB device. You should still be able to to enable autosuspend for selected devices.

The usbcore.autosuspend kernel parameter can be set when the module is loaded manually:

$ modprobe usbcore autosuspend=-1

or by adding the following line to a configuration file in /etc/modprobe.d:

options usbcore autosuspend=-1

If usbcore is compiled into the kernel, parameter can be adjusted by adding the following to the kernel command line:

usbcore.autosuspend=-1

Lastly, the option may be adjusted at runtime by doing:

echo -1 >/sys/module/usbcore/parameters/autosuspend

The change will affect all new USB devices. Already existing devices will not be affected.