[NTLK] Connection woes!

Don Zahniser dzahniser at rochester.rr.com
Sun Nov 22 17:47:56 EST 2009


On 11/22/09, Boyer Jason wrote:

>Once the connection has failed, I have to embark on an arduous reset
>process, in order to try to reestablish communication.  This involves
>rebooting the software, rebooting OS X, unplugging the Keyspan, and
>restarting the Newton.  I'm not sure what the magic combination is, but
>eventually I can get them to talk again, for just a minute or so before
>it times out again.
>
>I suspect the problem may be in Newton Connection.  

I have experienced issues in which Newton Connection fails in its
connection and leaves a process running.  Simon squashed the worst of
these, but it still happens once in awhile to me.  Suggestions:

 - Keep Activity Monitor running and note what processes start up when
you run NCX.  See if any of them continue to run when you have problems
and NCX is supposedly quit.  You can force-quit the process that
continues to run and see if that allows you to restart a connection.

 - NCX logs data while it is working.  I have gotten in the habit of
having Console open to monitor what NCX is 'saying', especially if I am
doing something that I haven't tried before.  Some of what it puts out
is gibberish to me, but there are messages that may indicate whether it
is communicating correctly with the serial or ethernet ports.  For
example (in my interpretation):  'Net service will publish' appears to
be indicate that NCX is 'listening' to the ethernet connection.  When
you initiate a serial connection, the log says 'Net service did stop'. 
NCX also puts out plain text messages when it starts to read a package,
and when it starts to install it.  The package name may be different
between the two (what it is named on the Mac and what it is named on the
Newton).  There are other messages that are more cryptic to me, but when
I finish successfully installing a package via serial, there are a bunch
of '<-- helo' lines, followed by a 'Net service will publish' line.


 - Don





More information about the NewtonTalk mailing list