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I ran into an odd issue with the GPS during field day that has me stumped.

I plugged in the GPS, CAT cable, and sound card. Then booted the pi and everything was working as it should including the GPS. A few minutes later, I plugged in my USB thumb drive (data) and the GPS stopped working. Noticing the GPS had stopped, I removed the thumb drive and rebooted the pi. The GPS started working again. Plug the thumb drive back in and the GPS stopped working.

This is the thumb drive that creates the problem and I am able to reproduce the problem.

Back in the shack on Monday, I swapped the thumb drive for the one that comes with many of the pi kits and inserted the same micro SD card into the thumb drive. Plugged it into the pi and had NO issue with the GPS. Left it running overnight just to verify. As of this morning, the GPS is still working with the other thumb drive plugged in.

I have no clue why one adapter works and the other doesn't. The main difference is that one is a USB 3.0 and the other is USB 2.0

If anyone has a guess as to why the one doesn't seem compatible with the GPS, I would love to hear it. No settings were changed on the pi at any time. Only the USB device was swapped.

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Hi Jason
I have so many issues with USB and Pi 4 that I don't know where to begin.
It seems that the Raspbian buster distro is quite finicky about the USB devices. I cant even start my SSD with an Orinco USB to SATA adapter, but the Pi4 see the SSD. I am not sure why. I have read so many articles and tried so many things that I am buggering up my installation. It also seems that if you connect some things to USB3 and other things to USB2 everything goes haywire. It also seems that the internal WiFi and Bluetooth is causing all sorts of problems. Most of my problems were sorted out when I switched to an external USB WiFi device and switched the internals off, but this also not with quite a few headaches.
The GPS unit I'm currently using is a modified UBLox Lea6 but unfortunately I fried both the GPS and the WiFi module with the USB hub (accidentally plugged a 12VDC supply into it in stead of a 5VDC supply). So I'm back to square 1, but it seems that the internal WiFi have quite a lot to do with the troubles. There also seems no way to mod the pi to add an UFl connector for and external antenna like the Pi3, which is a shame because I have limited range with my aluminum cooling housing for the Pi4.

Jason
It may also be with one thumb drive that is better isolated than the other against RF. Again maybe you should try the external WiFi module but find one that is compatible with the Raspberry Pi.
See??and?. Maybe something there also that is blocking the Pi
Sometimes switching between USB ports also cause some havoc so make sure U use the same port for the same USB device when you have to unplug the Pi.
Also remember that the power output of the RPi ports is limited, so that may also be an issue.
73 de ZR4EM

Good morning Jason,

Had GPS working before.? Just after the release of Build a Pi v. 3.0, I moved my Raspberry Pi projects out of the house into our Travel trailer parked on our property, from there I did the tweaks to move the operating system onto a Ravpower USB 3.0 SSD, then ran the script and enjoyed a far faster installation? - had a problem with GPS not working out there and was blaming it on the metal shell of the trailer.? It now turns out that I may have some kind of problem between my USB GPS receiver and the USB SSD trying to operate at the same time.? Will be looking into that further this week.? Love the increased speed of the SSD but need that GPS.? Certainly glad you noticed the same during Field Day - now on a proper path of discovery for what the problem really is, in the mean time will revert to booting from the Micro SD card this morning.

73, dave/W6TUX

I would recommend checking the total power usage of the Raspberry Pi while running with the Drive and without the Drive. I've seen low power issues cause things like this.

Ben

A good point Ben,

I am running a 3.5 amp wall wart and pretty sure Jason was still running one of the?

hooked up to a Dakota 12v LifePo battery.? I believe power shouldn't have been the problem.

73 dave/W6TUX

Hi Jason,

Did you check dmesg (diagnostic message)?log? That may give you some idea what is happening. From terminal just run dmesg (I prefer to add -T option to give the timestamp). There will be entries there anytime anything is connected or disconnected, and if there are power issues, you'll see that too. For example, here's what mine shows when running on an extremely under powered supply:

Hi Craig
I also got that problem early on especially because I'm running from a UBEC supply directly coupled to the GPIO port but it seems that that is sorted. I will certainly have a close watch on that because I do not know what is happening during the running of the Pi after boot-up. Problems experienced with the pi may be that the PSU and supply to the USB become unstable especially with the fact that the Pi is not like a windows PC that will alert you if the USB devices is drawing too much power or that the Pi's USB ports do not have that much power compared to a PC. Maybe that is the problem, coupled with the fact that the Linux Core works different with the USB devices that the actual Debian Distro. I am just fed-up with the Pi4 atm. It gives me lot of grief that I may be too old to handle (the same as with digital modes). Sometimes the Pi's errors is just demoralizing and it drives me nuts. I battled till 2am local time this morning with the bloody Pi, to the frustration of the wife (and me).
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73 de Eugene / ZR4EM

Hi!
I also have a problem with GPS when using a USB 3 device. My GPS module is a Quectel L83, connected to GPIO serial port and an extra pin for 1PPS signal. When my RPi4 boots via the SD card there is no problem. To get rid of the slow SD cards I use an SSD inserted in a Orico USB3 enclosure. The boot time is great, the performance too. I have to fears of SD card failure. But there is a price - USB 3 uses spread spectrum for higher transfer rates and this is jamming GPS signal. Even my phone's GPS dies when it comes close to the RPi with the USB 3 disk. There are also issues with 2.4 GHz wireless - the RPi disconnects from the home AP. (There are also problems in the 2.4 GHz band when using a cheap HDMI cable for monitor connection - again the wifi link disconnects)
73!

LZ1DAF

Still can't boot up with SSD, something maybe wrong
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73 de Eugene / ZR4EM

I have a similar problem with a Kenwood D74 used as a KISS modem, If the D74 was on at boot up the GPS would fail. I eventually worked out that the D74 could boot up as ttyACM0, 1 or 2 and sometimes ‘steal’ the port that GPSD uses I.e. ACM0. My point is could the drive be stealing the port in your setup? A total pain as I had to keep changing the KISS port in Xastir until I created a symlink to give the radio a unique port name. Next step is to do the same thing with the GPS and change the Port in GPSD to the symlink port. I realise if I change GPS modules I need to change the symlink as it’s based on vendor Id etc.

Dafcho's answer is the right one. After lots of trial and error testing, I came to the same conclusion. Video coming soon.
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My setup:
1. BAP v2.0
2. Pi4
3. TS-590S on USB 2.0
4. U-Blox GPS on USB 2.0
5. Boot Device: SD Card

I plugged in a spare CM108 based USB sound card directly into the back of the Pi's USB 3.0 and boom, the GPS is no longer seen by the OS. Plug the sound card in via a 3' USB 2.0 extension cable into the USB 3.0 port, and so far, GPS is still there. Plug the sound card back in directly on the back of the Pi, and GPS is gone, but, disable WiFi, reboot, and it stays. Next test - remove sound card, plug in a M.2 NVMe external drive (Samsung EVO 960 in a QNine Case) into the Pi's USB 3.0 port and GPS is gone. Put a snap-on ferrite bead onto the 1' long USB 3.0 cable at the NVMe drive end, and GPS is still there.

Not sure at this point if USB 3.0 is causing it, and how WiFi fits in, but I suspect 2.4 GHz jamming. At any rate, the ferrite bead on the USB 3.0 cable going to the NVMe drive keep the GPS connected. I will leave it connected to see if the GPS stays or falls off, but by all means, if anyone with the problem has some ferrite beads to snap onto the USB 3 cable, please do, and share your results. UPDATE: after 4 hours and the GPS is still there.
73,
Joe - AD2DX