Re: [hylafax-users] Modem Initialization Issues

[Lee Howard <faxguy@howardsilvan.com>]

On 2003.08.03 22:39 jaboutboul@speakeasy.net wrote:
> Hello All and Please Help,
> 
>       I have a hylafax (hylafax-4.1.2-1rh7) server running on dual
> P3's at 1GHZ each. More specs can be found at
> http://greybunny.transcion.com . The OS is Red Hat 7.2 running kernel
> 2.4.20-19.7smp. This is a stock RH kernel. There are 3 modems all of
> the same make US Robotics/3Com 56K FaxModem Model 5610 they are
> connected to ttyS4, ttyS5 and ttyS6. The server was running fine for
> about 10 months without a problem until yesterday when we realized
> that of the 3 modems installed only one was working. I checked the
> output from dmesg and got the following:
> 
> Redundant entry in serial pci_table.  Please send the output of
> lspci -vv, this message (12b9,1008,12b9,00a2)
> and the manufacturer and name of serial board or modem board
> to serial-pci-info@lists.sourceforge.net.
> ttyS4 at port 0xdc00 (irq = 11) is a 16550A
> Redundant entry in serial pci_table.  Please send the output of
> lspci -vv, this message (12b9,1008,12b9,00a2)
> and the manufacturer and name of serial board or modem board
> to serial-pci-info@lists.sourceforge.net.
> ttyS5 at port 0xe000 (irq = 11) is a 16550A
> Redundant entry in serial pci_table.  Please send the output of
> lspci -vv, this message (12b9,1008,12b9,00a2)
> and the manufacturer and name of serial board or modem board
> to serial-pci-info@lists.sourceforge.net.

This is normal to see with 3Com/USR PCI modems.  I've messaged 
serial-pci-info a couple of times already, and it seems to make no 
difference as later kernels don't contain any new information.  In any 
case, it's an information message only, not an error message.

> Here is the lspci output regarding the modems:
> 
> 00:08.0 Serial controller: US Robotics/3Com 56K FaxModem Model 5610
> (rev 01) (prog-if 02 [16550])
>         Subsystem: US Robotics/3Com USR 56k Internal FAX Modem (Model
> 2977)
>         Control: I/O+ Mem- BusMaster- SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop-
> ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
>         Status: Cap+ 66Mhz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=medium
> >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
>         Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11
>         Region 0: I/O ports at dc00 [size=8]
>         Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 2
>                 Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA
> PME(D0+,D1-,D2+,D3hot+,D3cold+)
>                 Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=2 PME-
> 
>  This is of course repeated 2 more times.

Actually, it's not.  One is using I/O 0xdc00 and the other is using I/O 
0xe000.  The fact that they share an IRQ may be an issue, though.

> Sometimes this shows up in /var/log/messages:
> 
> Aug  3 21:43:24 greybunny FaxGetty[1399]: /dev/ttyS4: Can not
> initialize modem.
> Aug  3 21:45:43 greybunny FaxGetty[1399]: Unable to setup modem on
> /dev/ttyS4; giving up after 2 attempts
> Aug  3 21:45:43 greybunny FaxGetty[1399]: MODEM /dev/ttyS4 appears to
> be wedged
> Aug  3 21:45:43 greybunny FaxGetty[1399]: CLOSE /dev/ttyS4

We'd need more debugging information.  ServerTracing to 0xFFF would do 
the trick.

> However, the output of faxstat is:
> 
> HylaFAX scheduler on greybunny.transcion.com: Running
> Modem ttyS4 (+1.315.446.3338): Running and idle
> Modem ttyS5 (+1.315.449.3061): Running and idle
> Modem ttyS6 (+1.315.449.1898): Running and idle

In other words, they eventually all initialize just fine but probably 
have difficulty initializing simultaneously.

> Does anyone know what's going on or what happened? I am fresh out of
> ideas and  help is much needed.

I tend to believe that you'll experience this kind of trouble as long 
as those cards share IRQs.  That cannot be done because faxgetty is 
monitoring all of them at the same time and there will be conflicts.  
It's pretty much only going to let one modem (of the shared bunch) work 
at any particular time.  You need to get into your system BIOS and 
change the PCI IRQ allocation scheme.  You may also want to refer to 
your motherboard manual as some slots may be forced to share IRQs with 
other slots.  I tend to believe that sharing an IRQ with an inactive 
device (i.e. a LPT port) will be fine, but not with another active 
modem.  Unless you're doing other things with this system disabling the 
LPT port, USB ports, and on-board serial ports should be an easy step.

Lee.

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