USB to Ethernet for T2 running 17.5

[Brainz]

Hello me little lovelies!

My T2's ethernet port decided to stop working last week and after much cable swapping and such, it appears it may have died.
I pinched my TP-Link wireless adapter (T4U v1.0) from a PC and knowing that it had worked on the T2 previously, flashed the T2 with 19.3.2021010 and set it up. Connected happily at 867MB/s.

root@beyonwizt2:~# ethtool eth0
Settings for eth0:
Supported ports: [ TP MII ]
Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
Supported pause frame use: No
Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
Supported FEC modes: Not reported
Advertised link modes: Not reported
Advertised pause frame use: No
Advertised auto-negotiation: No
Advertised FEC modes: Not reported
Speed: 10Mb/s
Duplex: Half
Port: MII
PHYAD: 1
Transceiver: internal
Auto-negotiation: off
Supports Wake-on: ags
Wake-on: d
SecureOn password: 00:00:00:00:00:00
Link detected: no

My issues are:.

I would like to use a USB to ethernet adapter so I can recover my wifi dongle but the one I have is based on the RTL8153 chipset and does not appear to have a driver installed. I have tried it but it is not recognised. I believe I may need one with an AX88179 chipset for it to work out of the box with 19.3

I would prefer to continue with 17.5 but then I lose my wifi access and probably any chance of USB to ethernet as I have no idea of which compatible devices to buy. If any of you have a list of 17.5 installed drivers for both that would be extremely useful.

This T2 has always taken exception to running any of the 19.3 firmwares. I have posted about this in the past but it seems that mIne is the only one with this issue that I am aware of. Suffice to say that the longer it runs, the more unwatchable the recordings become regardless of tuner settings. The system just seems to keep slowing down. Rebooting every few hours is the only fix so I have always given up and gone back to 17.5 as it is far less flaky.

I await your outpouring of answers and advice!

BB

[MrQuade]

A marginal Ethernet port (silently soft failing) might have been a cause for your spurious one-of-a-kind results with 19.3.

Could be worth trying it again.

[Brainz]

After nearly 4 years of trying nearly every release of 19.3 up to and including 19.3.20211010, I can categorically state that it is the problem. The hardware runs perfectly fine under 17.5.20190207. Unfortunately I have to run 19.3 at the moment so I can have LAN access for IceTV and OpenWebif

17.5 will run for at least 24 hours before I feel I need to reboot the box. This is probably not even necessary, but I have been bitten by 19.3 so many times I am now fanatical about restarts to prevent errors.

Tonight the T2 & V2 (both running 19.3) woke from deep standby at 5:50pm to record a lengthy block of overlapping timers. This obviously prevents it from being shutdown and restarted by any power timers so both boxes were awake for the same length of time.

A timer on each box recorded "20230711 2220 - 7mateHD Brisbane - Railroad Australia - Series 1, Episode 6" at 10:20PM for about 1hr 35min (give or take 2 seconds between boxes).

The V2 recording is 3.93GB in length and free of errors according to TS Doctor.

The T2 recording is 3.57GB in length and riddled with errors according to TS Doctor. This attached screen shot of the results should be free of yellow (warnings) or red (errors) markers. These show up in the video stream as glitches and make it basically unwatchable and not suitable for archiving. The .36GB size difference is the result of lost data and how I know a file has many errors.

Clipboard Image.png (23.57 KiB) Viewed 414 times

Both boxes had only been awake for 4.5 hours yet the V2 is running perfectly and I can again state that if the T2 was running 17.5 it would be the same.

I use(d) the T2 as a backup for important recordings. Looks like that is on hold for the moment.

The upshot of this ramble is that I need a machine that can stay awake for more than an hour before it starts creating recording errors.
This means I need it running 17.5 and I somehow need to have it on the LAN without a functioning ethernet port.

A look through the forums seems to suggest that a N300 wifi dongle might be my best option on 17.5 but I am still unsure of the chipset that is supported. I have also seen no mention of a USB to ethernet solution for 17.5 either.

If any one is running 17.5 on anything, could you please have a look at the installed USB drivers in the OpenWebif > Settings > Packages menu and post a list in this thread.

Cheers,
BB