Companion 2; write model settings from Ubuntu problems

[TigerOC]

I have a strange phenomenon which I cannot explain. I have the latest Companion 2.0.16 (same on 2.0.15) and am running Ubuntu 14.04 desktop.

I have done most of my work on a pc and it has been flawless and very easy and intuitive. I therefore picked up an old laptop and installed Ubuntu 14.04 to be able to fine tune stuff at the field. For some strange reason the laptop will not write the settings to the file on the SD card. At first I thought there was some kind of glitch so did the same thing on the pc and it worked fine. The one difference I did see was that when writing from the pc to SD card there was the first big write process progress bar followed immediately afterward by a very quick process. i.e. there appeared to be 2 operations happening.

Also strange when using the laptop is that after writing the models to the SD card and closing the models dialog box, opening the models file from the radio indicates the changes have been made. Check the settings on the Tx no changes reflected. Thought it could be a problem with the USB port so switched ports and still the same.

Not sure what is happening here. If no one has any ideas I may remove the package and re-install and see if this makes a difference.

Rob

[Kilrah]

Are you properly "ejecting" the drive in the OS?

[TigerOC]

Are you properly "ejecting" the drive in the OS?

Linux mount and un-mount (umount) devices. Under udev each device is given a unique identifier when mounted so in theory there should not be a problem in identifying the device.

It has been apparent since I started using Companion that no umount command is issued when disconnecting from the Tx. Thus there can be multiple orphan mounts open during a session if the Tx is plugged in and unplugged multiple times.

Rob

[Kilrah]

AFAIK Ubuntu handles the mounting/unmounting in a "user-friendly" way similar to Mac OS, and presents an "eject" button to the user in the file browser that the user should be using to properly unmount the filesystem...

[rperkins]

Permissions issue ?

Is the laptop booted up and the user logged in before inserting the sd card?
Can you write a new file to the sd card using the file manager or the command line?
Do you have any relevent errors in your logfile or 'dmesg'?

[TigerOC]

Checking the log file; recognizes FrSky Taranis Radio 1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
sd4:0........(sdb) write protect is off, mode sense 00 00 00 00, asking for cache data failed, assuming drive cache: write
This is repeated 4 times

I have repeated this live and each time the common error "asking for cache data failed" So this seems to be the problem causing issues. I have run fsck on the SD card and this should have sorted out anything prior to doing the latest tests.

Rob

[rperkins]

"asking for cache data failed"
Rob

I'm still curious if you can write to the sd card outside of eepe/c9x.

Not sure if the 'warning' you mention keeps the card from working but did find some relevent info when searching on your warning
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... omments/75

Sorry but i dont have a taranis to research myself.

[TigerOC]

Thanks rperkins. Tried the rmmod but it comes back with the module not present. Some of the details on this "bug" indicates that the cache applies to hard/optical drives that have a cache to aid faster write processes whereas flash memory has no cache. This may not be indicative of the problem.

[TigerOC]

Permissions issue ?

Is the laptop booted up and the user logged in before inserting the sd card?
Can you write a new file to the sd card using the file manager or the command line?
Do you have any relevent errors in your logfile or 'dmesg'?

Can copy files to sd card from desktop without any problems. So this has to be something related to the way the write process is being handled between the system and the Taranis.

[rperkins]

I agree.
Now i wonder if all linux users have this issue or is it related to ubuntu only, or possibly your hardware ?

Sorry i'm not familiar with taranis, is this sd card removed from the tx or does the tx act as a usb hub to provide access to a sd card installed in the tx ?

[TigerOC]

I agree.
Now i wonder if all linux users have this issue or is it related to ubuntu only, or possibly your hardware ?

Sorry i'm not familiar with taranis, is this sd card removed from the tx or does the tx act as a usb hub to provide access to a sd card installed in the tx ?

The tx is acting as a hub to the sd card.

BUT I have 2 identical systems except one is a pc and one is a laptop. The pc has no problems writing to the sd card. The visual difference is that whilst writing to the Tx from the laptop there is only the progress bar present. When writing from the pc immediately after the progress bar completes there is another progress bar of some kind that flashes up immediately after it. It is so quick that I cannot read it

Rob

[rperkins]

Ok
So the pc has the same version of ubuntu on it ?

[TigerOC]

Ok
So the pc has the same version of ubuntu on it ?

Correct. Version 14.04.

[rperkins]

sorry I dont know what else to say.

[Kilrah]

Little clarification needed, is the problem with the "real" SD card or with the virtual EEPROM drive?

[TigerOC]

I did an fsck on the sd card from the command line which revealed no problems with the laptop. I think there is a problem with file transfer between the laptop and the Tx.

I think there is something else underlying this. On Saturday when I loaded up the Companion software on the laptop it advised that there was a new firmware version available. I downloaded it. When I went to update flash the firmware to the transmitter the top line version number was missing and it was complaining about the version number being missing. I flashed it to the Tx and it went through fine but the version number was missing.

Last night I fired up Companion on the pc and downloaded the new version. This had the new version number on it. Just in case there was a problem I flashed the Tx again and the version number is there.

The install could be corrupt on the laptop. I am going to purge Companion from the laptop today and re-install and see if this fixes the problem.

Rob

[TigerOC]

Problem solved. Removed and purged the package. Did a new install with the latest release and works 100%

Thank you for your input.

My only comment would be that it would be helpful if a md5 checksum was available for the files and then they could be checked for integrity.

Rob

[rperkins]

Glad you got it going.