Some thoughts:
It would be interesting to hear what version of Rpios and how things are powered, at the very least what is powering the Pi.
Assuming mains power for all of this, is all of it from the same source? Reliability of mains power? How far apart are the various components?
Does it recover on its own or what do you have to do to get it working again?
When you say:
Assuming your leads are really ok (no 4 wire leads etc):
How are the network interfaces connected (as you have mentioned a switch)?
If the switch is managed what does it think when the problem occurs, assuming you can talk to it from something else?
If unmanaged (or you can't talk to it) do lights on the switch show anything useful?
Is either the Pi5 or the Rock attempting to set the speed, duplex or flow control on the ethernet interface?
If its a managed switch are either of the sockets being used setting speed, duplex or flow control?
What speed is the switch?
When you say:
The error messages suggest to me that the pi5 is sometimes seeing no input to its ethernet socket. If so then there is a possibility that the problem resides with the Rock SBC, switch or "dock".
It is of course possible that the socket on the pi or switch is damaged or contaminated and is not making good contact with even a good lead. If so gently moving the lead would probably produce the fault. Damage to the "combs" in the socket can be hard to spot visually (and hard to fix without wrecking it altogether) but its worth a look for anything obvious. Does the connection feel right mechanically?
If you haven't, is there any way you could take the "dock" out of the equation?
Is the Rock SBC turning off ethernet for power saving, for example? However if the Pi5 and SBC are connected via a switch, it would be very unlikely (in my experience) to drop its signal to the Pi just because the switch lost the signal from the Rock.
It would be interesting to hear what version of Rpios and how things are powered, at the very least what is powering the Pi.
Assuming mains power for all of this, is all of it from the same source? Reliability of mains power? How far apart are the various components?
Does it recover on its own or what do you have to do to get it working again?
When you say:
do you mean Pi <-> switch <-> Rock ONLY, or something else?Suspected electrical interference/feedback from the attached USB Dock -> The same behaviour even if nothing is connected to the Pi5.
Assuming your leads are really ok (no 4 wire leads etc):
How are the network interfaces connected (as you have mentioned a switch)?
If the switch is managed what does it think when the problem occurs, assuming you can talk to it from something else?
If unmanaged (or you can't talk to it) do lights on the switch show anything useful?
Is either the Pi5 or the Rock attempting to set the speed, duplex or flow control on the ethernet interface?
If its a managed switch are either of the sockets being used setting speed, duplex or flow control?
What speed is the switch?
When you say:
please give more detail.Checked cables and switch ports (ruled out).
The error messages suggest to me that the pi5 is sometimes seeing no input to its ethernet socket. If so then there is a possibility that the problem resides with the Rock SBC, switch or "dock".
It is of course possible that the socket on the pi or switch is damaged or contaminated and is not making good contact with even a good lead. If so gently moving the lead would probably produce the fault. Damage to the "combs" in the socket can be hard to spot visually (and hard to fix without wrecking it altogether) but its worth a look for anything obvious. Does the connection feel right mechanically?
If you haven't, is there any way you could take the "dock" out of the equation?
Is the Rock SBC turning off ethernet for power saving, for example? However if the Pi5 and SBC are connected via a switch, it would be very unlikely (in my experience) to drop its signal to the Pi just because the switch lost the signal from the Rock.
Statistics: Posted by Pi5_User — Tue Jan 27, 2026 6:24 am