Bluetooth serial port problem

[GigiG]

Hi all, I got the same problem here reported:
https://community.activestate.com/forum/bluetooth-serial-port-problem
I have ActiveState Tcl 8.6.1 and a program that try to connect a device with HC-06 module via Bluetooth but the error message is still here:
"couldn't reopen serial 'COM6': invalid argument"
Any suggestion? Thanks
Gigi

[Harald Oehlmann]

Hi Gigi,
thank you for the message. The noticed patch by Rolf Schroeter was
incorporated in TCL in 2014-02-25:

https://core.tcl.tk/tcl/tktview/2413550fffffffffffff

Please try at least tcl 8.6.4 or 8.5.17

Enjoy,
Harald

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[GigiG]

>
> Please try at least tcl 8.6.4 or 8.5.17
>
> Enjoy,
> Harald
>
>

Yeah, it works with tcl 8.6.4.1. Thanks.
Anyway, it seems that after closing the port with "close $portID" the error go back (invalid argument) and I have to power off and power on the HC-06

[GigiG]

> Yeah, it works with tcl 8.6.4.1. Thanks.
> Anyway, it seems that after closing the port with "close $portID" the error go back (invalid argument) and I have to power off and power on the HC-06

After several attempts I can confirm that probably the port is not properly closed. Even if I try to reopen the port with other serial monitor (like Arduino IDE) the port is detected as 'busy'.

[Harald Oehlmann]

Please:
- try most resent versions
- file a bug on core.tcl.tk/tcl

This area is difficult, as it dempends on the quality of the virtual com
port driver.

Thank you,

[Philip Hoffman]

I'd like to see if I can re-create this issue. I do need the following though:

- information about the specific Bluetooth hardware you are using, including where I can buy it off Amazon.
- A code snippet that reproduces the issue.
- operating system you are using and the version.
- installed any drivers to support the Bluetooth hardware?

I think that about covers it...

[Harald Oehlmann]

Philip,

thanks jumping in. I remember you helped at time woth the bug in
tcl8.6.4. Would be glad if you could help now to.

Thanks,

[GigiG]

Hi all, after some further attempt it seems that //./COMX or \\.\COMX works fine both in opening/reopening and closing serial ports. COMX alone however sometimes give strange behaviour in reopening. I'm unable to reproduce exactly the symptoms, in fact this was happened when I changed the port number from COM11 to COM6, in order to have COM[1-9]. Anyway noe it works. Thanks.
I will take this opportunity to say that I got another strange behaviour regarding these virtual serial ports. I have a code that uses the following lines:
foreach p $result {; # list of available serial ports
set free [file readable //./$p]
if $free {; # do something ...

It works well if the COM ports availables are physical (USB cables) but using a BT dongle (virtual ports) it takes some time to check (the Tcl application freeze) and [file readable $p] returns zero. Is this normal or I'm using the command the wrong way.

Gigi

[Philip Hoffman]

Gigi,

Okay great, using //./COMX or \\.\COMX did work fine for opening and closing on a serial port. Whew!

There is still a bug about it failing with COMX, not sure why the behavior differs (they are all supposed to be recognized as native serial ports). I'll get one filed soon enough.

> I will take this opportunity to say that I got another strange behaviour regarding these virtual serial ports. I have a code that uses the following lines:
> foreach p $result {; # list of available serial ports
> set free [file readable //./$p]
> if $free {; # do something ...
>

What happens if you call open and use catch to see if any errors raise instead of using readable?