Ah ha!!   :-)  I appreciate the feedback!

Thanks!!

Emmanuel Lecharny wrote:

Hi,

I see you are posting mails here, may be expecting some help from the only guy who knows hwat's inside this part of the code : he is enjoying 3 weeks off in China atm...

Just to give you some feedback :)

boB Gage wrote:
Found a work-around for my immediate issue, but it speaks of a much deeper problem in the Mina and/or rxtx layers.

I have added a static lock around my chunk of code that calls the IoConnector.connect() method. I have locked code lazily, so the critical code includes the bulk of my open() method; this consists of building the IoConnector, configuring it, calling connect(), and waiting on the ConnectFuture returned (if not null). It may be that a much tighter lock is all that is needed -- that is beyond the scope of my work-around.

With no two ports attempting an open operation concurrently, the symptoms (Exceptions and loss of the serial port) have stopped. I have two tests going on (different pieces of hardware), and both have passed 12 hours now without showing any problems.

Apparently that maybe-collision the logs were hinting at was a real collision (though I misnamed IoSession.open() as the culprit) -- whether it's Mina or rxtx is beyond my knowledge. But apparently two threads attempting to open different serial ports at the same time *can* cause fatal problems. [ It's very timing based; I've seen runs go 6 hours before failing; seen others fail in under 10 minutes. ]

A repeating (ie unrecoverable) SerialPortUnavailableException is the one consistent symptom. I cannot explain why early tests got a single PortInUseException first, nor why later tests got a recoverable SerialPortUnavailableException before complete failure -- but the RejectedExecutionExceptions were definitely unrelated red herrings.

It seems likely this is a serial-specific issue, as I have run many similar tests using socket connections without seeing this behaviour.

Thanks again for all the help!!
boB

PS.  Opps, keep forgetting to say:   Mina 2.0.0-M6,   RxTx 2.1.7 r2



boB Gage wrote:
Have made some more progress on this issue. The RejectedExecutionException's were my fault and have been eliminated. [ Executor handling periodic requests was getting shut down and re-started, rather than destroyed and recreated. ]

I still, however, have the case where after some un-constant number of successful serial port open/timeout/close cycles I start seeing SerialPortUnavailableExceptions.

With my newest code I'm seeing a new pattern (twice in two runs):
  * A number of successful open/timeout/close cycles on the port
  * A single SerialPortUnavailableException
  * Several more successful open/timeout/close cycles on the port
* A series of SerialPortUnavailableExceptions, one for every connection attempt until the program is stopped and restarted.

Two pieces of new behavior here. 1) I've never before seen the port go unavailable and come back again (the first single exception). 2) I'm no longer seeing a PortInUseException at the edge of the port going unavailable.

Some more factoids that may or may not help:
* With one serial port, this problem is very rare (I've seen runs over 24 hours). With each additional serial port, the occurrence rate goes up. * Logs make it look like the problem *MIGHT* be a collision between two IoSession.open() calls happening concurrently (different ports, of course). Could there be something non-thread safe in Mina's serial layer and/or the rxtx library it's using?? * The message text of the SerialPortUnavailableExceptions reads "Serial port not found"

Thanks in advance,
boB Gage



boB Gage wrote:
I'm seeing three different exceptions on the serial ports and am unsure what they exactly mean.

Can anyone provide details as to *why* each of these may be throw:
  * PortInUseException
  * SerialPortUnavailableException
  * RejectedExecutionException

I have seen each of the preceding exceptions while trying to open a serial port. The first two make the open fail, the third does not (though the open operation has not completely succeeded either -- no data flows on the port.)

There are two specific cases that I have seen, both while attempting to connect to a device that's temporarily unavailable (ie powered off):

1) My program opens the port, times out, closes it, waits, and tries again (proper behavior). This cycle continues fine for awhile (time varies) then a single PortInUseException is thrown. On the next, and every following, attempt a SerialPortUnavailableException is thrown. The SerialPortUnavailableException continues until my program is shut down and restarted -- then it immediately can open the port again.

2) Same situation, same timeout cycles, but for some reason a RejectedExecutionException is thrown. The "open" still returns true, but no data flows on the port. Eventually the attempt times out. One the next, and every following, attempt the RejectedExecutionException is thrown and the behavior does not change.

In both cases, turning on the far end device after the first exception has no affect. The port, once failed stays that way. Stopping and restarting our program has immediately cleared up the issue each and every time. Unfortunately, stopping & restarting our problem is not a viable solution.

I have seen timing changes have some effect. With a 5-second delay between connection attempts only 27 attempts succeeded (timed out) over a period of about 8 minutes before throwing the PortInUseException. Changing that delay to 20 seconds, over 220 attempts were made over a period of 6+ hours before the exception was thrown.

Any clues???????

Thanks in advance!!!







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