Don’t recognise that EQMOD cable..
So have to set permanent COM ports for your devices so the same ones are used every time, as it sounds like that is the issue, also try with just one device connected at a time, and restart and if it works try another until you hit the problem on re start, GPS dongles can be troublesome..

Hi Chris,

if you are still having port issues, here is one way to do persistent naming.
I havent tried this on an rpi (mine just arrived in the mail yesterday),
but tried it on two different laptops running ubuntu OS. Note that when lsusb lists connected
devices the ID portion shows productId:vendorId in that order in the form XXXX:YYYY.

*open a terminal on your rpi, change to root user, cd to the udev rules folder, list existing rules
sudo su
cd /etc/udev/rules.d
ls -l

*create a new rules file (eg., 95-cygeqmod.rules) and enter the following line. This should assign your eqmod cable
to be recognized as port /dev/ttyUSB.CYG (CYG for Cygnus, but you can call it anything as long
as it is unique). Based on your lsusb posting:

ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="10c4", ATTRS{idProduct}=="ea60", SYMLINK+="ttyUSB.CYG"

*save the file, unplug your cable, plug it into any usb port and list with lsusb to ensure
the symbolic link works. Try plugging into a different usb port and list. Start up kstars and see
if it recognizes the device. I had the same issue with a conflict between my ASI camera and my eqmod cable:
once unique port names were persistently assigned under udev rules, no more issues. You may notice that
in the rules.d directory, there are other rules placed there by your install of indi/kstars.

further overview of how udev rules works:
linuxconfig.org/tutorial-on-how-to-write...-udev-rules-in-linux

- Dean

Thanks Dean,

I have created a udev rule as you suggest. Trying to connect generates a different error.

Trying to connect from Kstars generates the following...

2019-05-18T15:47:31: [ERROR] Failed to connect to port (/dev/NEQ6). Error: Port failure Error: Inappropriate ioctl for device. Check if device is connected to this port.

After a restart, if I enter ls -l /dev/NEQ6 in the terminal I get
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 May 18 16:38 /dev/NEQ6 -> bus/usb/001/008

Any more ideas. This is driving me nuts.

Chris

There was an issue in the port mapping quite a while ago, are you on StellarMateOS v1.3.5?

At any rate, if you can wait. SM OS v1.4.0 will be released tomorrow or Monday.

Thanks Jasem,

I'm am using 1.3.5 but I'll wait until 1.4.0 no problem.
It's forecast cloudy the next couple days so no problem.

Chris

can you change your rules file to include
MODE="0666", KERNEL=="ttyUSB*"

you can put it between commas just before the SYMLINK+=

-Dean

Thanks for your suggestions Dean,

This is what I have at the moment...

#EQmod
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="10c4", ATTRS{idProduct}=="ea60", KERNEL="ttyUSB", MODE="0666", SYMLINK+="NEQ6"

Have I made any errors??

Chris

wild card on the ttyUSB ... ttyUSB*
and try "ttyUSB.NEQ6". if you unplug and run lsusb and then plug in and
run lsusb is your puter registering a signal? If so, its not a hardware issue,
its a software issue.

Many many thanks to everyone for all the advice offered. I very much appreciate the support.

I have finally found success!!!
I just need some clear skies and a good target.

I though it would be worth posting with my findings.
After update to StellarMate 1.4.0 I still had no success with the usb-serial connection. In addition, the update seems to have broken the web manager.
So I'm back to 1.3.5 again which is working well.
I have a new USB-Serial cable, this time with a genuine FTDI chip, and this has worked "out of the box". Since it has a different vendor/product ID from my GPS then I don't even have to use the Serial assistant or any UDEV rules.
It would seem that the CP210x chip does not play well with StellarMate.

Hope this info is useful for others.

Chris

I experience the same problem, intermittently. I am using a direct serial interface on the Pi board, UART5 to be precise, mapped to ttyAMA1. This port is hardwired to the NEQ6 controller board, through level converters. Another port, UART0, is used for GPS and is mapped to ttyAMA0.

The error I get (in Kstars control panel) is: "Port /dev/ttyAMA1 is already used by another driver or process."

What I would like to know to help me debugging is what exactly is causing the software to output this message?

The problem may be HW related, but could equally well be an Ubuntu/Raspberry driver issue.

Thanks,
Arjan

In INDI, when a driver opens a serial port, it sets as exclusive and then performs the handshake process. If handshake is successful, the driver is connected. On failure, it closes the port and releases all resources associated with it. Now, other drivers can open it and claim exclusivity. So this message is produced when two more drivers are trying to open the same port while another driver has a lock on it. The best long term solution for this is to use serial port mapping so that each driver connects to a specific end point (e.g. /dev/mount) and Auto Search is Disabled.

Hi Jasem,

Yes, I understand this process, so the warning is only issued when the device is already taken.
What I also see is failure to synchronize with the NEQ6 controller via the serial interface, I suppose this message is issued only after obtaining access to the serial device?
In that case, the warning might be caused by me hitting the Connect button, while the EQMod driver was still in the process of synchronization with the controller: I should leave it alone...

My conclusion therefore is that there are actually HW issues, since sometimes the connect actually succeeds: time to get my oscilloscope out.

Thanks,
Arjan

Edit: I found a loose pin upon visual inspection of the serial i/f, duhh.