Dear Georges, The modem-manager probes serial ports with random AT commands causing communication errors in a wide range of devices which use the serial port, most common ones being embedded development tools such as for the Arduino , PIC etc. This issue has been reported in many forums - https://mail.gnome.org/archives/networkmanager-list/2013-October/msg00038.html - https://askubuntu.com/questions/1231894/modemmanager-conflicts-with-arduino - https://github.com/ubuntu/ubuntu-make/issues/4
In case of ExpEYES, random communication errors, and subsequent data loss occurs during data acquisition tasks if Modem Manager is running in the background. Perhaps there is some way to place a lock on the active serial port to prevent MM from probing it. One suggestion that needs to be rigorously tested is to blacklist the serial device of ExpEYES(VendorID:ProductID) for Modem Manager so that it will ignore it. https://askubuntu.com/questions/1231894/modemmanager-conflicts-with-arduino The user community is currently in the range of a few thousands, and is expected to grow, so a solution must be quickly resolved after studying which serial devices Modem-Manager automatically likes to probe, and to keep ExpEYES ( ID 04d8:00df Microchip Technology, Inc.) out of that list. More about ExpEYES - https://expeyes.in/ - https://csparkresearch.in/expeyes17/ - https://csparkresearch.in/expeyes17/blog Regards, Jithin On Wed, Jun 30, 2021 at 9:36 PM Georges Khaznadar <georges.khazna...@free.fr> wrote: > Dear Andreas, > > I added in Cc: the authors of Expeyes hardware and software. > > Hello Jithin, Ajith! the context about the bug report with serious > severity is below. > > ---- > > I ignored that a statement like "Conflicts: modemmanager" would create > problems with buster->bullseye upgrades. Currently, binary packages > conflicting with modemmanager are: eyes17, python3-expeyes, > firm-phoenix-ware. The first one, eyes17, will be the most used. > > This statement was added because boxes of the Expeyes family do not > communicate correctly by their serial link when modemmanager is > installed. I did not investigate further, to know the precise reason of > the incompatibility. > > I got e-mails of some users of previous versions of expeyes packages, > who could not activate their boxes, and my reply was to uninstall > modemmanager or upgrade to the new version of eyes17 package. > > The number of Expeyes users is currently growing in Kerala (a southern > state of India), and they rely on *eyes17* package, some with a Debian > machine, most with an Ubuntu machine. This community is growing since > Eyes17 box has become an officially encouraged scientific device, to be > distributed to all high schools in the state, together with training. > > I cannot withdraw the confict statement without damaging this user > community in the future. > > Hence the next question: > ------------------------ > > How would it be possible to keep expeyes packages in the soon-to-come > Debian/Stable distribution? > > The package modemmanager is recommended by widely used packages, like > network-manager, while eyes17 is recommended by no package. > > I do not know how many users do really need modemmanager, or use modems. > > However I know better the profile of users who use eyes17: they are > students and teachers, wo interact inside a high school. Then, the link > with Internet is generally provided by some router or some wireless box, > and no modem is used. > > @Jitin, @Ajith: > can you give please an estimate of the user community for eyes17 now, > and in a near future? > > Best regards, Georges. > > Andreas Beckmann a écrit : > > Package: python3-expeyes > > Version: 4.8.7+repack-4 > > Severity: serious > > User: debian...@lists.debian.org > > Usertags: piuparts > > Control: affects -1 + eyes17 > > > > Hi Georges, > > > > while investigating incomplete buster->bullseye upgrades, I came across > > the Conflicts: modemmanager in python3-expeyes. Why was that added? > > It is not mentioned in the changelog and the git commit introducing it > > doesn't explain it either. > > Should this have been a versioned Breaks instead? > > > > The modemmanager package still exists in bullseye, so what should be the > > desired buster->bullseye upgrade outcome for buster systems with both > > modemmanager and python3-expeyes installed (that happens e.g. when > > installing eyes17/buster with --install-recommends)? > > > > > > Andreas > > -- > Georges KHAZNADAR et Jocelyne FOURNIER > 22 rue des mouettes, 59240 Dunkerque France. > Téléphone +33 (0)3 28 29 17 70 > > -- jithin
