Some background, I work full stack while we also man the support email from users. I'm manning the support email this week, but today I was also tech support for a fellow developer.
We use HP docks to connect everything from screens to keyboards. But today a dock would not do anything when my colleague attempted to use it.
Being the nosy kind, I went and asked the usual
- Did you reboot?
- Did you remove the power to the dock?
- Try messing with the drivers?
- lock the screen before unplugging?
- Tried another dock?
All yes, none worked. Our IT support hadn't opened for the day yet and he was looking into updating the specific dock driver.
So I asked, did you try the other USB-C port? And what do you know, that worked. Then he just plugged right back into the first USB-C port and everything was back to normal. I don't know who made the drivers, but it's pretty danning when they can brick a specific USB port until it's forced to redo whatever config that messes it up, by using another USB port...
If anyone wonders, the docks have a magnetically joined charging and USB plug, so it's fairly natural to plug them in together side by side. It's also almost uniquely a dock issue and not a dead USB port, so it's funny that the enite thing uncloggs from just using another port for a second. But a reboot does not...
Yep, most laptops have a different capabilities in USB ports, it's always been that way. No need to provide max power on multiple ports, as that would require more hardware on the board, and isn't really useful.