# Motors unresponsive - restart firmware without restarting the robot?

**URL:** <https://forum.hello-robot.com/t/motors-unresponsive-restart-firmware-without-restarting-the-robot/455>\
**Category:** Ask\
**Created:** [August 9, 2022, 4:03pm UTC](https://forum.hello-robot.com/t/motors-unresponsive-restart-firmware-without-restarting-the-robot/455 "2022-08-09T16:03:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![cpaxton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/958977/32.png) [@cpaxton](https://forum.hello-robot.com/u/cpaxton)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2022, 4:03pm UTC](https://forum.hello-robot.com/t/motors-unresponsive-restart-firmware-without-restarting-the-robot/455/1 "2022-08-09T16:03:20Z")

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Sometimes when testing code on the robot, something will crash. When this happens I’ve noticed a lot of times the robot won’t respond to any future commands until I restart. Any best practices for avoiding this, or is there a way to restart hardware firmware without restarting the whole robot?

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**Author:** ![aedsinger](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/forum.hello-robot.com/aedsinger/32/6_2.png) [@aedsinger](https://forum.hello-robot.com/u/aedsinger)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2022, 4:34pm UTC](https://forum.hello-robot.com/t/motors-unresponsive-restart-firmware-without-restarting-the-robot/455/2 "2022-08-09T16:34:40Z")

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Hi @cpaxton, welcome to the Stretch Forum!

We haven’t seen this issue but we’d love to learn more so we can resolve it. When it happens next can you try a few things:

- Is there a zombie process holding the USB resources perhaps? Try:
  - ps aux | grep python

- Are the USB devices on the bus? Try
  - stretch\_robot\_system\_check.py

- Reboot the USB system. Try:
  - RE1\_usb\_reset.py

If you can post your findings here that’d be fantastic.

–Aaron

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**Author:** ![cpaxton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/958977/32.png) [@cpaxton](https://forum.hello-robot.com/u/cpaxton)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2022, 11:16pm UTC](https://forum.hello-robot.com/t/motors-unresponsive-restart-firmware-without-restarting-the-robot/455/3 "2022-08-09T23:16:14Z")

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Thanks, will try this next time it happens!