[Xastir] Device closing on failure

[Curt, WE7U]

On Thu, 29 Sep 2011, Steve Huston wrote:

> all the time anyway) so I use a USB extender to connect the TNC to it
> from the shack.  Now and then, the device sneezes and the TNC will get
> disconnected as ttyUSB0 and end up as ttyUSB1.  This in itself isn't

> However, if I tell Xastir to close the TNC, and unplug it from the
> computer, the program still holds ttyUSB0 open which prevents the kernel
> from reconnecting it there.  The only way I've found to get Xastir to
> actually close the device is to close the program, then I can reattach
> the TNC and it will come back to USB0.  I can of course just tell Xastir
> to look for it on USB1, and that works until I have to restart the
> program :>

How about telling Xastir to open both ports on startup?  It will error-out on one but successfully open the other, then keep trying every 5 or 10 minutes to open the 2nd one.  This shouldn't cause any difficulties, plus allow you to kill/restart Xastir and which of the two ports it's on, it will work.  Strange work-around I know, but it should work fine.


> Any thoughts?  Some time this weekend I figured I'd look through the
> code and see if I can find the error code, and in the mean time I've got
> 'screen' watching for the words "Hard Fail" and emitting a beep if it's
> seen.

I was using a USB->Serial cable and sometimes had these kinds of issues.  I solved it by putting in more real serial ports and getting rid of the USB stuff for TNC's.  I'm sorry to say that's not a fix that you can implement, since you're using the USB extender.

I also had trouble on startup with USB0 <--> USB1 switches, and it was driving me nuts.  Now that I've gone back to real serial ports I no longer have such issues and my Xastir igate just runs and runs.

If you or anyone else discover something in the Xastir serial port code that might help along these lines, I'll be glad to take a look at it.  Particularly if patches are supplied!

-- 
Curt, WE7U.        http://www.eskimo.com/~archer
The world DOES revolve around me:  I picked the coordinate system!"