Tag Archives: teensy

ttyACM ports missing with teensy arduino on Ubuntu

So, I was reverifying my teensyduino MRF24J40 code recently, and ran into a most infuriating problem, where the /dev/ttyACMXXX devices simply didn’t exist! I could upload code to the teensy via the arduino GUI, and teensy-halfkay could see the device ok, but lsusb didn’t show the device. Weird.

I found lots of stupid terrible advice around the internet, including such insanity as “mknod blah” to simply create the devices, and even such batshit crazy suggestions like updating the rxtx jars that arduino uses. No, no, no.

I still don’t realllly know what’s going on, but someone hinted that because my device might be flooding data out the “serial” (USB CDC ACM serial) port from the instant it’s connected, the linux detection might be getting confused.

Well, I could still program the device ok, somehow, so I tried simply programming the basic teensyduino blink demo. That worked, and it started blinking, and presto, ttyACM0 got created!

NOW I could reprogram with my own mrf24j40 demo code, and I could watch the output on ttyACM0 as expected. Good news.

Except, if I unplug the device, and plug it in again, ttyACM is gone, and doesn’t come back until I reprogram with something else.

Something’s clearly broken, and it happened recently, and I’m grumpy, but at least I have a terrible workaround :(