# Nitrokey3 unusable, CHANNEL\_BUSY

**URL:** <https://support.nitrokey.com/t/nitrokey3-unusable-channel-busy/5440>\
**Category:** Nitrokey Generic\
**Created:** [September 23, 2023, 12:12pm UTC](https://support.nitrokey.com/t/nitrokey3-unusable-channel-busy/5440 "2023-09-23T12:12:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Signum](https://support.nitrokey.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Signum](https://support.nitrokey.com/u/Signum)\
**Post date:** [September 23, 2023, 12:12pm UTC](https://support.nitrokey.com/t/nitrokey3-unusable-channel-busy/5440/1 "2023-09-23T12:12:36Z")

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Hello world,

my Nitrokey3 used to work for a while. GnuPG integration still appears to work but FIDO2 is failing. Whenever I get prompted to touch the device it does not blink and does not react to touches. It just briefly blinks blue when I unplug and replug it.

Tested with:

- Chromium (chrome://settings/securityKeys)
- [webauthn.io](http://webauthn.io)

It appears like the stick crashes and requires replugging to boot it again.  
After plugging it in and waiting a few seconds I get can its status:

nitropy nk3 status  
Command line tool to interact with Nitrokey devices 0.4.39  
UUID: 10148E5…  
Firmware version: v1.5.0  
Init status: ok  
Free blocks (int): 27  
Free blocks (ext): 467  
Variant: LPC55

However when I ask for the status repeatedly this command seems stuck. When I Ctrl-C and retry I get:

nitropy nk3 status  
Command line tool to interact with Nitrokey devices 0.4.39  
Critical error:  
An unhandled exception occurred  
Exception encountered: CtapError(‘CTAP error: 0x06 - CHANNEL\_BUSY’)

* * *

Critical error occurred, exiting now  
Unexpected? Is this a bug? Would you like to get support/help?

- You can report issues at: [https://support.nitrokey.com/](https://support.nitrokey.com/)
- Writing an e-mail to [support@nitrokey.com](mailto:support@nitrokey.com) is also possible
- Please attach the log: ‘/tmp/nitropy.log.18f70bcg’ with any support/help request!
- Please check if you have udev rules installed: [Firmware Update - Nitrokey Documentation](https://docs.nitrokey.com/nitrokey3/linux/firmware-update.html#troubleshooting)

Anything I can try to isolate the cause?

…Christoph

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![saper](https://support.nitrokey.com/user_avatar/support.nitrokey.com/saper/32/493_2.png) [@saper](https://support.nitrokey.com/u/saper)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2023, 9:35pm UTC](https://support.nitrokey.com/t/nitrokey3-unusable-channel-busy/5440/2 "2023-10-10T21:35:47Z")

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I had the same and had to unplug it … no idea what went wrong

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Signum](https://support.nitrokey.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Signum](https://support.nitrokey.com/u/Signum)\
**Post date:** [October 11, 2023, 9:25am UTC](https://support.nitrokey.com/t/nitrokey3-unusable-channel-busy/5440/3 "2023-10-11T09:25:22Z")

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Thanks for the reply. I actually did that a couple of times before I gave up.

Now interestingly after letting the topic rest for a few days it starts to work again. I’m a huge fan of the idea of Nitrokey but I’m not sure if I want to rely on it yet.