Re: [gpsd-dev] OS X dropped. How I think about our platform priorities

[Frank Nicholas]

On Sun, Feb 22, 2015 at 6:43 AM, Eric S. Raymond <address@hidden> wrote:

However, Greg Troxel's bug report *does* seem to
be Mac-specific.  We have *a* Mac bug even if it's not your Mac bug,
and as Gary Miller points out we have nobody with strong enough Mac-fu
to fix it.

Or maybe the combination of gpsd/specific GPS/OS X brings out a bug in Greg's specific GPS?  I'm just saying we can't be sure where the issue is.

 

Then there is something very simple you can try, which is what I would do:

1. Start with the device and Ubuntu reset to a clean state.

2. Launch gpsd with the Bluetooth device on the command line and the -b
   option to prevent autobauding.

3. Observe it operating.

4. Power down the device and terminate gpsd

5. Repeat step 2.

If you find the device comes up on step 5, then we know that -b is an
effective workaround and we can finger bad Bluetooth firmware as the
cause of the problem.

--
                <a href="" href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/" target="_blank">http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>

I wasn't aware of the "-b" option.

The "-b" option resolved all the strangeness, and the bluetooth GPS works.  cgps works.  I can start/stop/start gpsd on Ubuntu, with no ill effects.  I then re-paired the GPS with OS X and it works perfectly.  I can start/stop/start gpsd on OS X, with no ill effects.  All of this testing (start/stop/start/re-pair/Linux/OS X) was without power cycling the GPS.

Whatever gpsd does without the "-b" is getting my GlobalSAT BT-318 in an unusable state.  Is auto-bauding all that's disabled with "-b"?  Is some of the probing/device type detection disabled with "-b"?  Maybe the probing is triggering the condition...