How to use “Disconnect From Device” function in Anywhere USB Plus after DAL 22.11.48.10 firmware

Before DAL firmware 22.11.48.10 it was possible to disconnect a single USB device belonging to a connected group on Anywhere USB manager.

Because of the new Power cycle on disconnect feature, introduced in 22.11.48.10 firmware, this is not behaving anymore as previously. The general behavior is that when a device is disconnected from a PC, it is power cycled, and when it becomes available again, it is reconnected since it is in a connected group. This happens when a USB device is plugged into a USB port that is in a connected group and also when the disconnection is done manually using the “disconnect from device” from Anywhere USB manager.

There are two workarounds for this:

1. USB device in a separated group: If you have a device that you need to manually connect only when is needed, remove its port from the connected group to its own group. In this way, the connect/disconnect action on this new group will affect only this specific device that can remain disconnected until is needed.

Example One Connected Group:

System > Anywhere USB Configuration on WEB UI

Anywhere USB Manager:

After Moving the chosen device to its own group:

System > Anywhere USB Configuration on WEB UI

Anywhere USB Manager:

2. Disable the Power cycle on disconnect feature: disable this new function that is by default enabled in the AnywhereUSB Hub starting from 22.11.48.10 (there some  exceptions for Anywhere USB Plus 24, please see Note 2 at the end of this article).

WEB UI:

• Connect to the WEB UI of the AnywhereUSB Plus device
• Select System > Device Configuration > Services > AnywhereUSB.
• Expand Power cycle on disconnect.
• Click Enable to disable the feature.
• Click Apply to save the changes.

       CLI:

• Connect to the AnywhereUSB Plus device by using a serial connection, SSH, or the Terminal in the WebUI or the Console in the Digi Remote Manager
• Issue the following command:

config service anywhereusb power_cycle_on_unbind enable false

Note 1: this feature is “global”, so when is disabled, will be disabled for all the USB devices connected to the hub, and this may cause certain USB devices (especially security tokens) to refuse to operate properly after being disconnected until that USB device is power cycled.

Note 2: This feature is disabled by default on the AnywhereUSB Plus 24 variant without Wi-Fi. If your device has a serial number greater than or equal to AW24-010000, this feature can be enabled. Otherwise, the feature does not work as expected and should not be enabled.