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I recently upgraded to ubuntu 16.04 and my SD card reader is not working. The system does not detect the reader at all. The output of lsusb is fairly uninformative:

lsusb
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:8000 Intel Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 005: ID 8087:07dc Intel Corp. 
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 0bda:572a Realtek Semiconductor Corp. 
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 046d:c245 Logitech, Inc. G400 Optical Mouse
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 04f3:024c Elan Microelectronics Corp. 
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

So I don't even know what sd card reader model I have. I'm using an ideapad u430.

Output of lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT DRAM Controller (rev 0b)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0b)
00:03.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT HD Audio Controller (rev 0b)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series USB xHCI HC (rev 04)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series HECI #0 (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 8 Series HD Audio Controller (rev 04)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev e4)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series PCI Express Root Port 3 (rev e4)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev e4)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series PCI Express Root Port 5 (rev e4)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series USB EHCI #1 (rev 04)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series LPC Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series SATA Controller 1 [AHCI mode] (rev 04)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 8 Series SMBus Controller (rev 04)
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 10)
02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless 7260 (rev 73)
09:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK208M [GeForce GT 730M] (rev a1)
Pablo Bianchi
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Matías Guzmán Naranjo
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  • Have you tried putting an SD card into the reader? With some memory card readers the connect via IDE or Sata inside your laptop and there is nothing to actually detect without the SD card being present. – proprocastinator Jun 14 '16 at 22:30
  • It could also be pci too, in which case "lspci" would be the command to find it. – proprocastinator Jun 14 '16 at 22:32
  • yes, I tried this with an sdcard in the reader, nothing changes :/ – Matías Guzmán Naranjo Jun 14 '16 at 22:33
  • I just added the output of lspci – Matías Guzmán Naranjo Jun 14 '16 at 22:35
  • Try to boot a completly different live Linux CD - i.e. Fedora, Manjaro or similar and check if the reader works there. Right know you dont know if is is a hard- or a software issue. If the reader works in another OS/Live CD its somehow clear it is a software-issue. – dufte Jun 17 '16 at 12:35
  • Could it be that there simply is no driver for his sd card reader? – Frederik Baetens Jun 19 '16 at 21:24
  • It works fine with ubuntu 14.04 – Matías Guzmán Naranjo Jun 20 '16 at 09:21
  • does it show in the bios? if not, your h/w is faulty. if yes, and if it works with a live CD/usb, then likely you need a fresh install. – rob grune Jun 22 '16 at 03:55
  • it maybe that your laptop needs to wake up the controller for the sd card via some kind of quirky i2c/gpio call that was in 14.04 but not 16.04 yet.\ – Amias Jun 22 '16 at 09:36
  • Install non-free firmwares using sudo sh -c "apt-add-repository restricted; apt-get update; apt-get install linux-generic linux-firmware linux-firmware-nonfree" , reboot and see it it does work. If not, boot into 14.04 where it does work, post output of sudo lshw -c generic; lsusb; lsusb -t; lspci and /var/log/dmesg. – user.dz Jun 23 '16 at 18:31
  • temporary fix for RTS5129/RTS5139 USB MMC card reader Working on ubuntu 16.04.1 lts with integrated card reader Realtek . See This : https://github.com/asymingt/rts5139 –  Aug 15 '16 at 20:25
  • Can you still access the sd card reader using windows (or previous ubuntu version)? These realtek sd card readers connected via usb are a pain, they lockup and disappear from the usb bus, and only a full power off (removing power cord and battery, since you can't just unplug it) will make them appear again. Upgrading their driver in windows (also updates it's firmware) made it a lot more stable in Linux for my Dell computer with RTS5182 card reader. – Daniel Jun 24 '16 at 02:49

3 Answers3

90

Probably an installation-issue which can be resolved with re-installation?! This would concern package udisks2.

  1. Reinstall package udisks2

    sudo apt-get install --reinstall udisks2

  2. Reboot the machine

    systemctl reboot

SD cards should be recognized then, after inserting them (in and out and in cautiously).

Pablo Bianchi
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dschinn1001
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4

If you have installed a Card reader lsusb should give you something like:

Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0bda:0129 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTS5129 Card Reader Controller
Pablo Bianchi
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sqp_125
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2

I am guessing you have Realtek card reader?

Download the Linux driver for your Realtek device for example rts5159 Open a new terminal session

Install the driver. Run the following commands:

cd where-your-driver-was-downloaded-extracted 
make
sudo make install
sudo depmod
ognjen011
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