SerialUSB locking up after long string

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SerialUSB locking up after long string

(17 posts) (5 voices)

Started 4 years ago by CidVilas
Latest reply from StephenFromNYC

12 Next »

CidVilas
Member
I am using Maple Rev5 board and 0.0.9 Maple IDE. I am also connected to a Mac OSX with Snow Leopard.
The test application is simply using SerialUSB and echoing what it receives back to the terminal.
```
void loop() {
  if(SerialUSB.available()) SerialUSB.write(SerialUSB.read());
}
```
In this example, i am able to echo whatever text i send to it through the MapleIDE's Serial Terminal. The problem is that if the text sent is too long it just locks up. The most inconvenient part is that IDE locks up and i have to Force Quit. Anything not saved is lost.
For Example:
"Hello World" Displays just fine and allows for another line to be sent
"asdf asdf asdf asdf asdf asdf asdf asdf asdf asdf asdf adsf" Although untested at the moment, will likely lock up Maple. (I am at work and dont have a specific string of text to test.) When this happens, the terminal will not close, and the IDE is no longer responsive. Also the MapleRev5 board will stop responding. (If led was blinking, it no longer blinks.) I have to either reset the board through the Reset button, or in some cases disconnect and then reconnect the USB cable to recover, and then Force Quit and restart the Maple IDE application.

What lead me to this sort of test is the Arduino Firmware i am trying to port, Tonokips Reprap Firmware, will lock up just the same after maybe 6 lines of GCode, which is comprised of approximately 100 characters +/- 20. (I dont have the specific numbers on me at the moment.)
I assume that SerialUSB is either:
- Waiting for another character through SerialUSB.read()
- The terminal is waiting for another character, but Maple doesnt have anything to report
- Maybe a driver on my Mac is just glitchy and locks up both IDE and board

Anyone have any insight? Thanks ahead of time!
Posted 4 years ago #
StephenFromNYC
Moderator

Hello-

CidVilas, thank you for taking the time to provide more details about your development system and the problem. My experience is with Windows XP and IDE 0.0.9 (and the snapshots; see below), but I think I can give you some advice.

The SerialUSB functions are working much better now than in IDE 0.0.7, which is when I started using my Maple Rev 3 board. Things are not perfect, but the LeafLabs team is aware of SerialUSB bugs. It has been a priority for them.

Have you tried using the February 13 snapshot? This fixed some bugs in SerialUSB.print().

On Windows XP I experienced a problem with SerialUSB.read(), but it was not fixed in the snapshot. Apparently, the Feb snapshot fixed a problem with SerialUSB.read(), but not my problem.

Here is the link to find the snapshots:

http://static.leaflabs.com/pub/leaflabs/maple-ide/

Apparently, the March snapshot was not intended for public release, but instead of removing it they just created a README.txt file which warns against using it.

Let us know if things work out!

Stephen from NYC (full disclosure: I am not a member of the LeafLabs staff)

[my current development system (old, but still working)]

Posted 4 years ago #
StephenFromNYC
Moderator

Hello-

CidVilas, I am familiar with RepRaps and 3D lithography, but what is "Tonokips Firmware"?

Sorry for all the questions.

Thanks!

Stephen from NYC (full disclosure: I am not a member of the LeafLabs staff)

Posted 4 years ago #
CidVilas
Member

Tonokips is just one of the many arduino firmware flavors available for reprap systems. Tonokips is typically used with arduino mega and a RAMPS board. The software used on the PC side with Tonokip is RepSnapper.
No worries about the questions! I'm sure I'll be asking plenty more of them as the project goes on ;)

Posted 4 years ago #
poslathian
LeafLabs

StephenFromNYC, thanks for filling in for me on the usb issue! CidVilas, please do use the snapshot releases, as they come with improvements to the SerialUSB. We have been doing our best to improve it with each release, and the last snapshot had a rather major patch to serialusb installed. I also recommend, for when you are scuttling large amounts of data through the usb, you try and use the low level usb api (see https://github.com/leaflabs/libmaple/blob/master/libmaple/usb/usb.h) which requires a working knowledge of pointers but works much more quickly than SerialUSB and has the ability to actually send multiple bytes in a single packet.

add "usb.h" to the top of your sketch and use:
uint32 usbSendBytes(uint8* sendBuf,uint32 len);
uint32 usbBytesAvailable(void);
uint32 usbReceiveBytes(uint8* recvBuf, uint32 len);

sendBytes will return the number of bytes sent, which may be less than the number you intended! (so check the return value and try again!). receiveBytes will return the number of bytes received, which may be less than the number of bytes you asked for (so again, check the return value and try again!). These functions are asynchronous, simple in implementation, and worth the extra complexity when working with large strings.

If anyone finds bugs in the serialusb, please do post with as much detail as possible! The snapshots improvements will obviously be baked into the next major release

Posted 4 years ago #
CidVilas
Member

I see that the latest snapshots are only for windows. Any plans for Mac OSX snapshots?

I cant figure out exactly how the usb.h would work. Am i still going to have to perform some specific work host side? Or will it be seamless for the host and the client (Maple) be the only change?

Thank you!

Posted 4 years ago #
StephenFromNYC
Moderator

Hello-

CidVilas, check the snapshot directory (listed above) again. The February 2011 IDE snapshots with the improved Serial.USB functions include:

1) linux (32-bit); a tgz file
2) mac os (10.6); a dmg file
3) win (xp); a zip file

I am not giving you the direct link to the compressed 32-bit Mac OS X file, because I want these instructions to be as useful to as many users as possible.

I have not tried the low level USB API functions suggested by poslathian. (EDIT: I fixed the link above in poslathian's hyperlink so it does not include the closing parenthesis).

However, the SerialUSB.write(buffer, length) function works well, especially when the length is 64 (the size of the USB buffer). The SerialUSB.print(char) function may not send the character until the "timeout" value is exceeded.

For speedy USB transmissions one strategy is to divide your long string using a 64 byte buffer sending the entire buffer with a single SerialUSB.write(buffer_buffer_64_char, 64) command.

Let us know how things work!

Stephen from NYC (full disclosure: I am not a member of the LeafLabs staff)

[my current development system (old, but still working)]

Posted 4 years ago #
CidVilas
Member

Oh! I see it now. The extensions of the Snapshots are cut off so i could not see that there was a Mac version there. Thank you. :) Maybe put the Mac label at the beginning so it doesnt get cut off. Ill try again and post later.

Posted 4 years ago #
CidVilas
Member

The Screenshot 2-13-2011 did not solve the problem. I can send, in 10 character increments, from 0 to 50 characters without problem. After sending 70 characters it locked up. Sometimes it locks up at 50 characters too.
Still unsure why.

Posted 4 years ago #
mbolivar
LeafLabs

Sample code, please?

Posted 4 years ago #

CidVilas
Member

This is what im using:

char character = ' ';

void setup() {
  pinMode(13, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {
  delay(10);
 while(1) {
 if(SerialUSB.available()) {
   digitalWrite(13, HIGH);
   character = SerialUSB.read();
   if(character == '*') SerialUSB.print("\n Break \n");
   SerialUSB.print(character);
 } else {
   digitalWrite(13, LOW);
 }
 }
}

Posted 4 years ago #

StephenFromNYC
Moderator

Hello-

CidVilas, I am glad you found the February 2011 Mac OS dmg SNAPshot (not screenshot) file. I prefer the current naming convention, because the complete version number is visible (for all supported OS).

I do not know which browser you use with Mac OS, but Firefox shows the name of the file in the lower left hand corner of the browser window when the cursors passes over a hyperlink. If you see a web page with two or three files with the same software "version", just use the mouseover trick to see which file applies to your system.

A few observations:

The February 13 snapshot has a bug in SerialUSB.read() which occurs if you are reading more than one character (which you are *not* doing in your sample code).

If I am counting correctly SerialUSB.print("\n Break \n"); sends 9 characters at a time and not ten. Are you counting SerialUSB.print(character); as the tenth character?

As I mentioned above SerialUSB.write(buffer, length) seems to work reliably for me (using a Windows system) for sending large amounts of data.

See the questions and code described in this topic (go to the second page):

http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=639

If all your characters are 8-bit characters you will not have to worry about bit-shifting (in the example, gbulmer's code was a solution to sending 12-bit values).

I still have not had the time to test the low level USB API described above by poslathian. If you get to it before I do please post your results.

Thanks!

Stephen from NYC (full disclosure: I am not a member of the LeafLabs staff)

[my current development system (old, but still working)]

Posted 4 years ago #
CidVilas
Member

In the serial terminal in MapleIDE I type '1234567890' at a time and I type '*' to clear and create a new line.
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890
the above line sent to the device will lock it up, while
123456789012345678901234567890
Will not lock up and echo back after plenty of sends.

I hope that makes sense. I don't really understand the low level application. And I can't design the application around the device. I want to design the device around the application so having to recombine strings on the host side wouldn't work for me unfortunately. :)

Posted 4 years ago #
StephenFromNYC
Moderator

Hello CidVilas-

I think adding a 3D printer to the list of Maple projects would be cool. If you can describe what you need at the host and device ends perhaps other users can help you with the coding. Remember, you are the "Tonokips Reprap" expert. What is GCode? All we understand is the Maple. Some users are also Arduino experts.

Besides the test code which you have shared what else have you tried and what works?

For example, what characters are received/sent by the host system, what type of calculations are performed by the Maple board, and what type of other hardware (eg. motors, sensors, heaters, fans) are controlled by the Maple board?

At a more basic level, why are you trying to switch to a different microcontroller board? Is there something the Maple can do which the Arduino will not accomplish?

Here is a discussion of USB concepts: http://forums.leaflabs.com/topic.php?id=692

Not everything I say in the USB discussion is correct, so be critical of what you read. However, the one important USB concept which you should focus on is the "data packet".

Stephen from NYC (full disclosure: I am not a member of the LeafLabs staff)

Posted 4 years ago #
gbulmer
Moderator

G-code is a data interface format used to drive CNC machines.

Posted 4 years ago #

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