I had that problem with a $50 HP chromebook running LINUX Mint -- only my USB device was the chromebook sound card.
I took a deep dive into LINUX-MINT and found that not all possible drivers are loaded in Mint. Now I did find specific instructions that loaded the driver, however they were specific to my problem of no sound. The solution was somewhat complex.? Multiple command line entries.
Basically it was to remove all USB drivers then go to a repository and reload the latest drivers. Apparently LINUX MINT is happy is there is a driver as opposed to the correct driver.
Consider this not the answer but a suggestion to point you into Linux forums regarding USB issues... My drilling to the depth it required to resolve the sound problem took about 3-4 hours. Finally, I used my windows machine to mine the answer while the chromebook was on the operating table.
Larry W8LM
Larry Macionski