I am running Ubuntu 18.04 inside a VM using VirtualBox hosted on Windows 10. I am trying to use a PL2303HXA serial to USB cable to get the serial output to my terminal in Ubuntu. I am doing this to view U-Boot.
Whenever the serial to USB is connected, the board doesn’t boot up.
When the serial to USB cable is connected and I run
`
picocom -b 115200 /dev/ttyUSB0
`
the terminal waits for data on the port. As soon as I try to power up the board with the micro-USB cable, I get a fatal error and the serial port connection gets lost.
`
picocom v2.2
port is : /dev/ttyUSB0
flowcontrol : none
baudrate is : 115200
parity is : none
databits are : 8
stopbits are : 1
escape is : C-a
local echo is : no
noinit is : no
noreset is : no
nolock is : no
send_cmd is : sz -vv
receive_cmd is : rz -vv -E
imap is :
omap is :
emap is : crcrlf,delbs,
Type [C-a] [C-h] to see available commands
Terminal ready
FATAL: term closed
`
The board boots up only when the serial to USB cable is disconnected from the PC.
I tried to connect the serial to USB after powering up the board and that powers off the board. I am not sure why but the two connections (serial to USB and micro-USB power cable) seem to be mutually exclusive. I would appreciate any suggestions on how to resolve this issue.
Windows 8/8.1/10 are NOT supported in PL-2303HXA and PL-2303X EOL chip
versions.
"""
I don't know how VirtualBox handles USB devices -- if they pass through
to the guest OS as raw devices, or if VBox is intercepting the guest I/O
and mapping through the host OS...
Try disabling the driver in win10 before starting virtual box before starting VM then in Linux VM check which try enumerated and connect to it was the fix I think. With multiple USB devices it would change if I remember and you might Google which VB version supports SUB best, Again that was several years back
This phenomenon was easily found and described by googling
Are you plugging both USB cables directly to your PC or are you using a Powered USB Hub?
I would suggest using a powered USB hub in this case if you were not using one already or power the BBW via the barrel jack.
Did you try this using a Windows serial terminal as well?
Your fatal error is in linux terminal in virtual machine
Let us know if there is a difference and use a powered hub or power supply as was suggested
Thanks Jon, for the link. I tried modifying my current driver installation. It still shows the same error.
Although, now the board boots up but the serial connection gets dropped. The serial and power connections are somehow still mutually exclusive. The serial connection appears only when I turn off and plug out the micro-USB (power).
I got a DC adapter to power the board. Although the serial connection does not get dropped on powering up, I do not see the bootloader loading.
Some time back, I had managed to get access to the U-Boot bootloader on the serial terminal with the USB power itself. It didn’t show up again. The behavior has not been consistent. Presently, the serial connection drops out if I try to power using USB.
