Re: [coldsync-hackers] Sync broke under linux 2.4

[Andrew Arensburger <arensb+CShackers@ooblick.com>]

On Thu, Jun 14, 2001 at 09:27:43PM -0400, SkiingYAC wrote:
> I've tried using both mandrake's rpm of coldsync 2.1.0 and compiling the 
> new 2.1.2, but with both I have the same problem.  Coldsync reads my 
> .coldsyncrc and opens /dev/palm (which is linked to /dev/ttyS0), I press 
> the hotsync button and both coldsync and my palmIIIxe sit there, then 
> coldsync gives me "slp_read: bad checksum: expected 0x3a, got 0x03." 
> once or not at all, then it sits there doing nothing.  I've tried 
> different speeds, specifying /dev/ttyS0 at the command line, etc.  An 
> strace shows that it reads data from the serial port, and setting -d 
> slp:5 -d cmp:5 gets the output below.

	SLP packets (SLP is the lowest level of the HotSync protocol)
begin with the sequence 0xbe, 0xef, 0xed. The "Got bogus character"
message means that ColdSync is waiting for an SLP packet to come in,
but got something other than the sequence it expected. You can see the
0xef and 0xed in the output you sent.

	It looks as if the serial port is dropping characters. The
obvious suggestion is to make sure that your Palm is sitting snugly in
its cradle and that all connectors are clean.
	If this is a dual-boot machine, you can try syncing under *BSD
or Windows. If that still doesn't work, then it's probably hardware,
and you can try checking the cables, cradle, and serial port.
	I believe people have reported similar problems under Linux,
but I don't know of any fixes or workarounds. Personally, I suspect
that there's a bug in the Linux serial driver, but I don't have any
hard evidence to back this up. You can try reducing the speed at which
it syncs and see if that makes any difference.
	If you feel like investigating this possibility, you can try
sending data over a serial line and counting how many characters get
dropped. Then submit a bug report to the kernel developers.

	If you run ColdSync with "-d slp:6", it'll display all of the
packets that it sends and receives, and you can get an idea of the
percentage of bad packets. If it's low enough, perhaps you can just
ignore the problem.

> I tried coldsync hoping it would 
> work better than pilot-xfer, which worked *fine* under 2.2, but never 
> worked under 2.4.  It would do the same thing, sit there and wait after 
> telling me to press the hotsync button.

	Most likely, it's running into the same problems as ColdSync,
but isn't telling you about it.

> statserial shows "data set 
> ready" changing to 1 when i put it on the cradle, and "clear to send" 
> changing to one after I've pressed hotsync on the palm/cradle.  Looks 
> like the palm tries to connect 3 times.  Sometimes the it doesn't say 
> "got a header...slp_read..." but it always gives the bogus character 
> messages.

	Is the kernel the only thing that you've changed? If so, that
would tend to indicate that something got hosed big time between 2.2
and 2.4. I'm not sure what to suggest, other than trying to confirm or
deny that there's a bug in the serial driver and fixing it.

-- 
Andrew Arensburger                      This message *does* represent the
arensb@ooblick.com                      views of ooblick.com
	    Didn't I buy a '51 Packard from you in Cairo?
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