I'm new to processing but I'm excited about the possibilities.

I'm trying to open a com port to COM10, which is a virtual port to a bluetooth serial protocol device.  I can open that port with TeraTerm Pro and get data from my device, but processing can't seem to open it.

I'm seeing that Serial.list() takes about 10 seconds to return!  I get:
COM1 COM2 COM9 COM10 COM11

When I try to open the port to COM10 (Serial.list()[3]
 port = new Serial( this, Serial.list()[3]);
It never seems to open.

I saw on the technical ref pages that if you find that Serial.list() never returns it might be because the exec bit isn't set for the serial .dll.  Does that have anything to do with this?

I'm running WinXP Home, fully updated.  I've tried noodling with processor affinity and all that, but I can't seem to get it to work.

Ideas?  Help?!

Fry,

Thanks for your thoughts on this.

I can tell you that a program as stupid as Hyperterminal is able to connect to this port without complaint.  It must present itself as a very generic COM, so I'm doubting that the problem is between bt driver & XP.  I'm wondering if rxtx is being too clever?  (no insult meant to rxtx here.  now the thing about hyperterminal-- I /meant that/.)

I can open this port with any bit rate (I think) because it doesn't matter.  It does seem like the bt driver is doing something very complicated, but that seems like it's all on the back end (it actually initiates an rf connection to my hardware and everything just seems to work ... which I find amazing given the complexity of bluetooth.)

I can also say that if I just play around with the graphics example code everything seems to work speedily.  The problem does seem to be centered around serial.*

Oh, yes, and I don't think it's just taking a very long time, because I've left it sitting for quite a while haven't seen anything come thru.  Also, my hardware lights up when a bt connection has been initiated and I'm never seeing that.

I don't remember if I was ever able to fix this, but the general gist of it is that the operating system is super slow generating this list if you have Bluetooth Serial Port Profile devices installed on your system.  

I think what may be happening is that the OS calls down into the BT SPP driver asking for some parameter or other about it.  The BT driver thinks, "oh, somebody is asking about the serial device that's tied to this virtual COM port, I'll go out and see if I can contact the device."  When the BT driver is unable to make contact with the device (typical) you just end up waiting for a bunch of radio timeouts and retries.

So, a possible solution is to uninstall unnecessary BT COM ports and that should make the whole thing speed up.  If that's not an option then sorry!

Good luck!

hello,

I have been using Processing since tonight!

I get the same result with the serial.

The original code is

Code:

 serial = new Serial(this, Serial.list()[12], 9600, 'N', 8, 1.0); 

that takes 32 seconds

My USB Xbee explorer board is on COM30.

so I wrote
Code:

serial = new Serial(this, "COM30", 9600, 'N', 8, 1.0); 

or
Code:

serial = new Serial(this,"COM30", 9600); 

and that takes 16 seconds ( now it take 24 sec, I got a lot of stuff running on my computer )

I will read about mdfogarty comment on RealTerm. I hope to find a solution for this, I am interfacing with the arduino.

I was planning on making a .exe file but I get a blank screen for 24 seconds and more before I see all my interface. Do you think there is a way to write "loading" so people know that my program is doing something instead of thinking I am a bad programmer
Even if I draw a line before calling serial, it is a blank window.


Thanks!