[Xastir] Xastir on Ubuntu locks up opening serial TTY

[Tom Russo]

On Mon, Sep 08, 2014 at 05:45:14PM -0600, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <russo at bogodyn.org> flavor, containing:
> On Sun, Sep 07, 2014 at 10:27:49PM +0000, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <neillt at neillt.com> flavor, containing:
> > All,
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Hoping for some guidance here.  I have been running Xastir on an Ubuntu box just fine for several weeks.  Today I upgraded to 14.04 and noticed Xastir was locking up when started, not even displaying a map, just a blank grey screen.
> > 
> [...]
> > 
> > Does anyone have any ideas here?  Some googling really did not turn up much.
> 
> Neill:  Sorry for the delay in responding.
> 
> I have also upgraded Ubuntu on my lapto to 14.04 but have not yet tried 
> Xastir with a serial TNC.  Based on your report, I will try to do so tonight
> or at least sometime this week.
> 
 

I just dragged my Ubuntu 14.04 laptop out to my truck and hosed it up to 
my D700 with a USB/Serial adapter, in the identical configuration that has
always worked before.

It worked as it always had --- no hang-up as you describe.  Once I started
the interface, it put the D700 into packet mode, started receiving
GPS sentences from the GPS connected to the radio, and started processing
packets it received from the radio, displaying them on the map.

I'm at a loss now, because I cannot reproduce the failure mode you have.  But
I'm relieved that the next time I need APRS for search and rescue I can count
on the laptop actually working.

I do not run Xastir on this laptop with SUID bit set --- since I don't use
ax.25 kernel networking on that laptop, there is no need.

I see that most of the questions I asked were answered in your original 
email --- you're using a hardware serial port, not a USB/Serial adapter,
and have tried setting debug levels, though you say you tried debug level
2048.  If your issue is not permissions on the serial device (and from 
your minicom tests, it appears that it isn't), I don't know *what* it could
be.  What TNC type do you have, and what startup file are you using?

Try setting your debug level to 2 (not 2048, which will give only
ALOHA and Multipoint Object debug output) for port data flow debugging 
info.  Debug levels in Xastir are tested bit-by-bit for various debug
statements, and setting a higher number doesn't guarantee you get the debug 
info you need unless the right bits happen to be set --- debug level 4095
will give you *ALL* the debug output, but 4096 will give you nothing (because
we don't use that bit).  To get multiple types of debug output, "AND" together
the bit values for each type.

The bits are defined in the DEBUG_LEVELS file:

1       General basic debugging (any system)
2       Messages, WX, Objects, and Items, Port Data Flow
4       X Object Debugging
8       X Window Object Debugging
16      Map Debugging (maps.c)
32      Language Debugging (maps.c)
64      Database Object Debugging
128     GPS Interface Detailed debugging
256     station and trail display detailed debugging
512     Map import/export function debugging
1024    Internet Transaction debugging
2048    ALOHA radius and Multipoint object debugging.

4096    Levels 4096 and above will require modification to the
        main.c:Change_debug_level_change_data() function to change
        the bounds checking, and are available for future use.


-- 
Tom Russo    KM5VY   SAR502   DM64ux          http://www.swcp.com/~russo/
Tijeras, NM  QRPL#1592 K2#398  SOC#236        http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?DDTNM
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