There are a few issues with similar titles, but none match this situation that I could find.
The smartcard reader is detected by dmesg as “Smart Card Reader Interface”. pcsclite is installed and the service is running, systemctl status pcscd and pcscd.socket both look ok.
I edited the pcsclite service to start with --debug. Nothing related to the card reader shows up in journalctl, whether plugging or unplugging the reader, or inserting or removing a card. pcsc_scan does not find the reader.
When passing the reader through to a Debian VM, or on another debian system, it works fine. In all cases the pcsclite version is 2.3.3-1.
Apparently I cannot share links. The reader is called pluss-id, the spec sheet for the card says the IC is an RTS 5169
I am really stumped as to where to look from here, any help is appreciated! This is on Manjaro.