Gadget Serial Port Stops Responding (BBB Rev C connected to Windows 7 64-bit PC)

I received my new BBB Rev C board on Friday, and updated the Debian image last night after determining that it did not ship with the latest image. I’m seeing a problem with the Gadget Serial port (the one on the Mini-B USB port).

I have the USB cable connected to my PC (one of the USB 3.0 ports on the front as they are very convenient to reach), which is home built and running Windows 7 Home 64-bit. [That’s just enough Windows to do what I need to do.] My terminal of choice is PuTTY.

[I also have my other BBB plugged into the other front USB 3.0 port, if that makes a difference. It is a rev B running Angstrom Linux. I don’t think I am seeing this issue on it.]

Occasionally, the BBB stops responding on that serial port. At first I thought it was locking up entirely, but now that I have my monitor cooperating better with the BBB, I was able to determine that the BBB was still running. However, tried restarting the BBB, and it panicked on shutdown (something about not synchronizing due to a stuck thread). Unfortunately, I can’t find the panic log, if there is one…

This did not restore connectivity to the serial port, but a restart of my PC did. For now.

I am not familiar enough with the Gadget ports to continue trouble shooting from this point. Is it the BBB, Debian, my PC, the Gadget Serial driver, or something else?

Hi Justin,

I think it is safe to say that Debian is not the cause. Well at least not directly. I have experienced the same issue trying to use g_ether, but find the ethernet port to work perfectly.

Long story short, My BBB came with Angstrom ( RevA bought at launch last year ), and I quickly moved to Debian. For the longest time I ran from ethernet, until I had the idea that perhaps I could squeeze a bit more performance if I used g_ether instead.

What I found was similar or perhaps exactly what you’re experiencing. The connection would stop responding after a short period, and would not work again until I ping’d each way from the command line. After which the connection would shortly stop responding again. After a few days trying to troubleshoot the issue, and calling no joy I switched back to ethernet only, and have not had a problem since.

I have my suspicions that this problem is either related to to a few things but the g_ether software running on the BBB comes to mind first. Other possible suspects would be a faulty USB cable ( working well enough to provide power ), or the Windows drivers on the PC side. But I am fairly certain your ( and mine ) BBB’s are fine, as well as the PC’ they’re connected to.At least my own laptop the BBB connects to works perfectly in every other aspect.