Bug 190190 - HotSync with Palm Pilot (Tungsten E) often does not work
Summary: HotSync with Palm Pilot (Tungsten E) often does not work
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
Classification: Red Hat
Component: udev
Version: 4.0
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
: ---
Assignee: Harald Hoyer
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2006-04-28 16:56 UTC by Aleksandar Milivojevic
Modified: 2008-08-18 15:05 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2008-08-18 15:05:42 UTC
Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Aleksandar Milivojevic 2006-04-28 16:56:44 UTC
Description of problem:
When trying to hotsync with my Palm Pilot (Tungsten E), very often the HotSync
fails.  In KPilot I see:

08:18:53 End of HotSync

08:18:53 HotSync Completed.
08:18:58 Pilot device /dev/pilot does not exist. Assuming the device uses DevFS.
08:18:59 Trying to open device /dev/pilot...
08:18:59 Could not open device: /dev/pilot (will retry)
11:51:22 Device link ready.

And than it just sits there instead of HotSyncing with Palm.  The only way to
get it working again is to exit from kpilot (and also daemon), and start them
again.  After restarting several times, eventually it will sync.  I'd estimate
that every time I hit HotSync button on my Palm, I have about 20-25% chance that
things will work.  And 75-80% that I'll need to restart kpilot.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
kdepim-3.3.1-2.1

How reproducible:
75-80% of HotSync operations

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Start kpilot
2. Connect Tungsten E via USB
3. Hit HotSync button on Tungsten E
  
Actual results:


Expected results:


Additional info:
I've setup udev to automatically create /dev/pilot symlink.  The link is created
every time HotSync button is pressed (checked).

Comment 1 Aleksandar Milivojevic 2006-05-01 13:20:52 UTC
After some more debugging, I found that this really wasn't problem with kpilot.
   I attempted to to close this bug report with NOTABUG.  Got error message
saying I must be reporter to be able to do that (well, I am, and I was logged
in).  Anyhow, if somebody else can do it, it would be nice.

I'll document this in case somebody hits the same problem in future.  What
happens is that udev is not creating devices and /dev/pilot link the same way
every time.  When syncing works, it looks like:

$ ls -l /dev/pilot /dev/ttyUSB*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root         root      7 May  1 08:23 /dev/pilot -> ttyUSB1
crw-rw----  1 root         uucp 188, 0 May  1 08:23 /dev/ttyUSB0
crw-------  1 amilivojevic uucp 188, 1 May  1 08:23 /dev/ttyUSB1

When it doesn't work it looks like:

$ ls -l /dev/pilot /dev/ttyUSB*
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root         root      7 May  1 08:12 /dev/pilot -> ttyUSB0
crw-------  1 amilivojevic uucp 188, 0 May  1 08:12 /dev/ttyUSB0
crw-rw----  1 root         uucp 188, 1 May  1 08:12 /dev/ttyUSB1

The device that should be used for syncing is always /dev/ttyUSB1.  You can see
that in later case not only symlink points to the wrong file (easy to fix by
editing udev rules), but the ttyUSB1 is not readable by console owner (me in
this case).

Not sure if this is udev bug, or I just need to fix some config files.  If I
find solution, I'll followup with comment.

Comment 2 Aleksandar Milivojevic 2006-05-01 20:41:40 UTC
The solution was to change my custom udev rule from

BUS="usb", SYSFS{product}="Palm Handheld", KERNEL="ttyUSB*", SYMLINK="pilot"

to:

BUS="usb", SYSFS{product}="Palm Handheld", KERNEL="ttyUSB[13579]", SYMLINK="pilot"

Now, the link always points to correct device (odd numbered).  Or at least this
will work as long as I don't have any device that creates single ttyUSB entry,
pushing my Palm to use even numbers for second device...

Comment 3 Than Ngo 2006-05-02 13:01:15 UTC
Milivojevic, it looks a bug in udev. Thanks for debugging.

Comment 4 Harald Hoyer 2006-05-02 13:57:19 UTC
> Or at least this will work as long as I don't have any device that creates single
 > ttyUSB entry, pushing my Palm to use even numbers for second device...

Problem!

Comment 5 Phil Knirsch 2008-08-18 15:05:42 UTC
This request was evaluated by Red Hat Engineering for inclusion in a Red
Hat Enterprise Linux maintenance release.

Red Hat does not currently plan to provide this change in a Red Hat Enterprise
Linux update release for currently deployed products.

With the goal of minimizing risk of change for deployed systems, and in
response to customer and partner requirements, Red Hat takes a conservative
approach when evaluating enhancements for inclusion in maintenance updates
for currently deployed products. The primary objectives of update releases
are to enable new hardware platform support and to resolve critical
defects.

However, Red Hat will further review this request for potential inclusion
in future major releases of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.


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