riddle me this: youtube kills my usb hub

I very rarely watch youtube videos in browser, preferring instead to
take links and download with yt-dlp to watch with mplayer. But sometimes
I'll be on a page with an embeded youtube video and click the play
button. Promptly my USB hub (and thus mouse) gets knocked off-line.

Hardware: Surface Go 2 (which has only one USB port, hence hub)
Browser: Firefox, true for multiple versions over the last year
Distro: Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS
Kernel: 5.12.14-surface, with Surface specific hardware mods
X11 configured to use Icewm instead of whatever Ubuntu has as default
Hub is "uni" branded USB-C to 4 x USB3 A ports; IDs as "Generic":

kernel: [13368677.020715] usb 2-1: new SuperSpeed Gen 1 USB device number 65 using xhci_hcd
kernel: [13368677.050843] usb 2-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0bda, idProduct=0411, bcdDevice= 1.01
kernel: [13368677.050861] usb 2-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
kernel: [13368677.050869] usb 2-1: Product: USB3.2 Hub kernel: [13368677.050875] usb 2-1: Manufacturer: Generic

("idVendor=0bda" means Realtek, FWIW)

When the issue happens, there not much in /var/log/syslog to show
issues. Today has a bunch of once-per-minute cron job entries, the
hub disconnecting, two devices (mouse and backup drive "/sixt") using
the hub being removed, then it's back to regular background log stuff.

The drive was sitting idle at the moment I clicked play today, but
last week I did accidentally interrupt an incremental backup.

Mar 11 10:58:01 surfacego2 CRON[4030674]: (username) CMD (/home/username/masto/makepost.cron)
Mar 11 10:59:01 surfacego2 CRON[4030691]: (username) CMD (/home/username/masto/makepost.cron)
Mar 11 11:00:01 surfacego2 CRON[4030706]: (username) CMD (/home/username/masto/makepost.cron)
Mar 11 11:00:34 surfacego2 kernel: [13367275.445723] usb 1-1: USB disconnect, device number 39
Mar 11 11:00:34 surfacego2 kernel: [13367275.445751] usb 1-1.1: USB disconnect, device number 40
Mar 11 11:00:34 surfacego2 /usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[1935777]: (II) config/udev: removing device
PixArt USB Optical Mouse
Mar 11 11:00:34 surfacego2 /usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[1935777]: (**) Option "fd" "55"
Mar 11 11:00:34 surfacego2 /usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[1935777]: (II) event10 - PixArt USB Optical
Mouse: device removed
Mar 11 11:00:34 surfacego2 /usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[1935777]: (II) UnloadModule: "libinput"
Mar 11 11:00:34 surfacego2 /usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[1935777]: (II) systemd-logind: releasing fd
for 13:74
Mar 11 11:00:34 surfacego2 kernel: [13367276.204714] usb 2-1: USB disconnect, device number 63
Mar 11 11:00:34 surfacego2 kernel: [13367276.204735] usb 2-1.4: USB disconnect, device number 64
Mar 11 11:00:34 surfacego2 systemd[1]: Unmounting /sixt...
Mar 11 11:00:35 surfacego2 kernel: [13367276.324464] Buffer I/O error on dev sdb1, logical block
2196799488, lost sync page write
Mar 11 11:00:35 surfacego2 kernel: [13367276.324478] JBD2: Error -5 detected when updating journal
superblock for sdb1-8.
Mar 11 11:00:35 surfacego2 kernel: [13367276.324483] Aborting journal on device sdb1-8.
Mar 11 11:00:35 surfacego2 kernel: [13367276.324488] Buffer I/O error on dev sdb1, logical block
2196799488, lost sync page write
Mar 11 11:00:35 surfacego2 kernel: [13367276.324492] JBD2: Error -5 detected when updating journal
superblock for sdb1-8.
Mar 11 11:00:35 surfacego2 systemd[2120]: sixt.mount: Succeeded.
Mar 11 11:00:35 surfacego2 systemd[1]: sixt.mount: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Mar 11 11:00:35 surfacego2 systemd[1]: Unmounted /sixt.
Mar 11 11:00:53 surfacego2 wpa_supplicant[3867903]: wlp1s0: WPA: Group rekeying completed with
7c:10:c9:ca:67:54 [GTK=CCMP]
Mar 11 11:01:01 surfacego2 CRON[4030772]: (username) CMD (/home/username/masto/makepost.cron)


Last week starts the same, but different stuff happening before hand:


Mar  5 10:42:06 surfacego2 /usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[3873979]: Unable to initialize
gettext/locale!
Mar  5 10:42:06 surfacego2 /usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[3873979]: 'ngettext'
Mar  5 10:42:06 surfacego2 /usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[3873979]: Traceback (most recent call last):
Mar  5 10:42:06 surfacego2 /usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[3873979]:   File
"/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/deluge/i18n/util.py", line 118, in setup_translation
Mar  5 10:42:06 surfacego2 /usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[3873979]:     builtins.__dict__['_n'] =
builtins.__dict__['ngettext']
Mar  5 10:42:06 surfacego2 /usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[3873979]: KeyError: 'ngettext'
Mar  5 10:42:23 surfacego2 xdg-desktop-por[1936201]: Backend call failed: Cannot invoke method;
proxy is for the well-known name org.freedesktop.ScreenSaver without an owner, and proxy was
constructed with the G_DBUS_PROXY_FLAGS_DO_NOT_AUTO_START flag
Mar  5 10:42:23 surfacego2 kernel: [12851383.944478] usb 1-1: USB disconnect, device number 35
Mar  5 10:42:23 surfacego2 kernel: [12851383.944487] usb 1-1.1: USB disconnect, device number 36
Mar  5 10:42:23 surfacego2 /usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-x-session[1935777]: (II) config/udev: removing device
PixArt USB Optical Mouse
[...]


I've checked, the screen saver error happens frequently (18 times,
with range 0 to 8 times per day, in past week), so appearing in
second fragment an instant before the disconnect is just luck.

Elijah
------
has had an unpleasant time trying to narrow down the conditions for this