I had the same problem a few times with two v3 probes.
Also, multiple USB sticks died over the years (original Sandisk and Transcend): permanent read-only, not a filesystem issue.
Power-cycling the v3 probes was "risky" as well and resulted in USB dongle replacement / reformatting sometimes.

Fragile design. V4 and v5 probes are way more robust.

I gave up at some point, because i have spend (wasted) to much time troubleshooting v3 probe issues, so i've returned both to the RIPE Atlas team.

BR,
Simon

On 11/11/25 10:06, Radu Anghel via ripe-atlas wrote:

hi,

one of the v3 probes i spread around the universe that is 12+ years old just had another USB stick die after a power failure.

i have tried reviving it by replacing the stick (tried at least 3 different ones), but for some reason it does not work as when i previously replaced it.

i also tried different partitioning on the 16/32gb sticks: one single partition fat32/ntfs/ext4, no partitions at all.

the probe does not format the new stick or do anything with it except reporting it to the controller, i see "registrations" in the event log with info about the USB that is plugged in. after that it just keeps repeating the BADMD-APP SOS DNS query. no blinky light on the stick to show activity.

tried leaving it for more than 8h with the new stick, tried plugging in the stick 10+ minutes after probe booted, tried booting with the fresh stick plugged in. no changes in behaviour.

also replaced the power source/cable, that did not help either.

is there anything else i can try to revive it?

thanks!

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