Has anyone here actually gotten either the supplied emptool and/or upgclient programs to work under Linux using the serial connection?

When I got my original Mk II, I tried and tried to talk with it using serial on Linux but neither of the utilities could ever "find" the player. Since it was a fairly new product, I assumed it was a bug in emptool. So I took my player to a friend's Windows machine and it was able to talk to the empeg via serial without any problems. Once I got past the initial configuration, I've sucessfully used ethernet under Linux ever since.

Recently I received my new Mk 2a and am again trying to both assign it an IP address using emptool as well as upgrade its software using upgclient. Here I am over a year later, using a different computer, a different player, a different cable, and newer software versions and the same problem I had before is still present!

Here is a sample of the output I get when trying to upgrade the player:


[root@linux Images]# upgclient -p /dev/ttyS1 -s 115200 car2-consumer-v1.03.upgrade
empeg-car Upgrade client.
empegupgrade: Using upgrade file 'car2-consumer-v1.03.upgrade' to device '/dev/ttyS1' (115200 baud)
Checking upgrade file integrity [100%]
Pumping player software
Upgrade file checked [100%]
Upgrading flash (bootloader)
Finding unit [100%]
ERROR: 5 empeg unit not found
Upgrade aborted due to errors [ 0%]
Upgrade failed :-(


I have tried deleting the serial port lock file in /var/lock/LCK..ttyS1 and power cycling the player, yet the exact same thing happens everytime.

I am positive this serial port is working properly under Linux-- I have successfully tested an external modem, serial mouse, and Palm Pilot hooked to it. I am using the supplied null modem cable that came with the RioCar. If I go into minicom on the linux system and reboot the player, I can see the kernel messages scrolling past just fine.

At this point, I'm beginning to wonder if emptool and upgclient's serial support is seriously broken and always has been. Please tell me I'm wrong as I'd love to get this working!

I use upgclient all the time from my desktop machines...

I have had issues finding the empeg from my old laptop, and hacked download.c to work from the laptop by not waiting for the penguins string and just starting to send stuff to the empeg instead... so there may be an issue with the linux code finding the empeg from serial ports that are slow to keep up and may miss sections of output from the empeg... This laptop also has issues with talking to the empeg over minicom etc... usually losing bits of output due to the empeg not using flow control...

Not sure...

Cheers

Kim

upgclient works fine for me on /dev/ttyS0 (kernel 2.4.9-ac9, Debian woody).

I usually use Ethernet for emptool, but I do remember successfully using serial for some small uploads (mainly just to prove to myself that it works).

I gave up on USB, though - it would normally start off okay, but hang after a couple of MB. Haven't tried it on 2.0b3 yet.

Ok, I finally got it working by changing the serial port settings prior to running it

stty -F /dev/ttyS1 raw speed 115200

For some reason when my system boots up it has the serial port set to 9600 baud and to strip the 8th bit from each character (istrip option). I had kind of assumed emptool and upgclient would set the proper port settings for me like I've seen other programs do, but I guess they don't.

I had kind of assumed emptool and upgclient would set the proper port settings for me like I've seen other programs do, but I guess they don't.

They do as far as I can see. You can see where it does it yourself if you look in lib/protocol/connection_unix.cpp in the emptool source code.