Ubuntu An error occurred while communicating with TellStick

[spwilkinson]

Hi,

I was running tellstick on an ubuntu 11.04 server that unfortunately died! I've bought a new server and installed ubuntu 11.10. Fortunately I had the config file from my old machine so I simply copied it over and then issued the following commands

tdtool -e [NUMBER] where number was the device number specified in the config file.

I recieved this error message:
Learning device: 1 Front_House_Light - An error occurred while communicating with TellStick

however I could hear the plug socket ticking (the sound it makes when it receives a message) and so I thought it was working. I then issued this command:
tdtool -n 1

But I received this error message:
Turning on device 1 Front_House_Light t - An error occurred while communicating with TellStick

However the device did turn on. My problem is that the status that's shown when I do tdtool --list shows all devices as OFF.

Could this be something to do with my copied config or the new version of tellstick? I hadn't upgraded to 2.1 on my old machine
Or could it be a problem with the new version?

Any help is appreciated as I have other programs that query the result of tdtool --list and so if the information there is incorrect I have no way of knowing if my lights are on or off!

Thanks

For reference, here is my config file

Code: Select all

deviceNode = "/dev/tellstick"
device {
  id = 1
  name = "Front_House_Light"
  controller = 0
  protocol = "arctech"
  model = "selflearning-switch"
  parameters {
    # devices = ""
    house = "1"
    unit = "1"
    # code = ""
    # system = ""
    # units = ""
    # fade = ""
  }
}
device {
  id = 2
  name = "Back_House_Light"
  controller = 0
  protocol = "arctech"
  model = "selflearning-switch:nexa"
  parameters {
    # devices = ""
    house = "2"
    unit = "2"
    # code = ""
    # system = ""
    # units = ""
    # fade = ""
  }
}
device {
  id = 3
  name = "Living_Room_Light"
  controller = 0
  protocol = "arctech"
  model = "selflearning-switch"
  parameters {
    # devices = ""
    house = "3"
    unit = "3"
    # code = ""
    # system = ""
    # units = ""
    # fade = ""
  }
}

[prerieriver]

Hi there,

I had also the same error when running tdtool. But additional to your result, it does not control the Nexa at all.

Home Automation finds the Nexa Receiver, but it is not able to control it.

After booting the computer, the error was gone. But still it does not control the receiver.

My linux is Ubuntu 10.04 LTS:
uname -a : Linux telllinx 2.6.32-36-generic #79-Ubuntu SMP Tue Nov 8 22:29:26 UTC 2011 i686 GNU/Linux

When I run dmesg after plugging the tellstick in it tells:
[ 1295.464058] usb 5-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 7
[ 1295.656867] usb 5-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 1295.664183] ftdi_sio 5-1:1.0: FTDI USB Serial Device converter detected
[ 1295.664239] usb 5-1: Detected FT232RL
[ 1295.664245] usb 5-1: Number of endpoints 2
[ 1295.664251] usb 5-1: Endpoint 1 MaxPacketSize 64
[ 1295.664257] usb 5-1: Endpoint 2 MaxPacketSize 64
[ 1295.664263] usb 5-1: Setting MaxPacketSize 64
[ 1295.666472] usb 5-1: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[ 1295.807974] ftdi_sio ttyUSB0: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now disconnected from ttyUSB0
[ 1295.808518] ftdi_sio 5-1:1.0: device disconnected

So it seems that the tellstick found, but after that it is immediatelly disconnected.

I installed the telldus software by following the instructions from the website. Does anybody have a solution to this?

I bought the tellstick because there was Linux supported programs, but it seems that it wasn't so easy install after all.

[prerieriver]

I got it working, so I answer to myself (hopefully this helps some other newbie also):

I uninstalled the 2.1 core, and installed 2.04 packages. After this I got no errors. But still I was not able to control the PB-3 series Nexa set I bought with tellstick. I edited the /etc/tellstick.conf file, and ofcourse I didn't read any documentation before trying to control the devices. I got one Nexa working with setup this setup:

device {
id = 1
name = "Device 1"
protocol = "arctech"
model = "codeswitch"
parameters {
house = "A"
unit = "1"
}
}

It was starnge, because I was able to control one switch with this setup. But only one. Ok, then I red the switch package and found the switches being "selflearning-switch". So I changed the correct type. But when I changed the "house" parameter from A to i.e 112233, it didn't work. The command man is really handy. That's how I found the -e option (learn). But still it didn't succeed. Then I moved the switch about 5 cm away from tellstick and plugged it in and ran the tdtool -e 1. That was success.

So shortly here are the steps I took to get it running with Ubuntu 10.10 and selflearning-switch set PB-3:
- Installed the telldus version 2.04
- Edited the telldus.conf as instructed in this article http://wiki.excito.org/wiki/index.php/H ... _Tellstick
- Plugged the Nexa to outlet, distance to tellstick about 5 cm and ran the tdtool -e [device number]

That was all needed tasks. It works really good. I thought that I will never say this, but this Swedish product family is really great package, also the linux support is really excellent. Only minus is that it is not invented & manufactured in Finland... Nope, just kidding. Had to say that since I am finjävla.

Hope that this helps some other newbie...

[spwilkinson]

For those interested, and in addition to the response above, I've now managed to get my tellstick working.

It was relatively straightforward in that all I did was remove 2.1.0 and then reinstalled 2.0.4.

Rather annoyingly, my error is well known, and discussed here - http://www.telldus.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 1479#p9293

Quite disappointing that something so fundamental isn't displayed within a more prominent post on the forum. The link above is buried within another post, hence it took me a while to find.