OH3.X Alternative Java serial provider

[Tuny (Sebastian)]

By default, the serial connection on the openHAB system is done with nrjavaserial.
Unfortunately there are some issues with this provider, so some (unstable) COM-connections can lock up after a while. See here:

Serial ports getting blocked after some re-connecting

In my case I had big problems with the connection to my smart meter trough an optical probe. As “workaround” I had to restart the whole openHAB instance after some hours. This was very frustrating.
Now there is a “real workaround”, which I found here in the forum more or less by accident.
So I want to share this here. I am very happy with it. On my system it is working since weeks without any issues. It should work with all bindings that need a serial connection.

The way it is done is very simple. See following steps:

1. Download .jar file:
   Z-Wave USB stick not working after OH 3.1 update - #14 by splatch

2. Put the file into your addons folder. See here:
   Installation of Add-ons | openHAB

3. Login to openHAB Console. See here:
   The Console | openHAB

4. Check if the PureJavaComm provicer is active:
   openhab> bundle:list | grep ConnectorIO
   Result should be like this:
   351 x Active x 80 x 3.0.0.202107051005 x ConnectorIO PureJavaComm serial port provider

5. Reboot your system.

6. Now you should be able to change the port identifier in the thing configuration:
   purejavacomm uses different port identifiers (ttyUSB0) from rxtx (/dev/ttyUSB0). So in my case the prefix “/dev/” is no more needed in the configuration.
   

7. Your serial device should already get online and work like expected.

If you see exceptions in log or it is still unstable just uninstall rxtx bundles (la -l|grep rxtx, then remove bundle without rfc in the name).
bundle:uninstall XXX
Where XXX is the ID of your bundle.
See also here:

The Console

So at the end it should look like this.

openhab> la -l|grep rxtx
339 x Installed x  80 x 3.2.0.M3                x mvn:org.openhab.core.bundles/org.openhab.core.io.transport.serial.rxtx.rfc2217/3.2.0.M3

If you use rfc ports at the same time then they will fail without main part of rxtx.

This is it. Any comments on this are very welcome.

Please beware, I am not a Linux or openHAB specialist.
So everything I said before can be wrong. I am just explaining a way how to work with a different serial provider. In my case I am a lot more happier with the alternative.
All thanks and credits to @splatch who developed this. Thank you very much.

[maxheartrate (Max)]

Hi @Tuny,

thank you very much for your workaround. I followed all your steps and it looks like I have ttyUSB0 available in OpenHAB now. However, I still receive the “No provider for port ttyUSB0 found” error. The smartmeter readout in OpenHAB won’t even start anymore, even after a reboot.

I wonder if I screwed up my configuration by following this advice:
https://github.com/openhab/openhab-addons/issues/11489

I stopped the service as it didn’t work but after that I keep getting the “No provider” error all the time. I tried reinstalling the smartmeter binding but no luck yet.
cat /dev/ttyUSB0

cat /dev/ttyUSB0

gives me readings from the optolink.
Any ideas?

EDIT: I followed this advice

[3.0 M3] Problem with Serial device / Smart Meter Binding

Solved: I had to manually install the feature openhab-core-io-transport-serial-javacomm: open openhab-cli console run “feature:install openhab-core-io-transport-serial-javacomm” Issue should be resolven

Now I get a reading from /dev/ttyUSB0 again. ttyUSB0 still gives me the error message. I wonder how long it will work now until I get the error again. The workaround does not seem to be active. I can see the port ttyUSB0 in the thing configuration but it says “No provider found”.

[Sascha_]

Please try to restart and also clear the cache

[maxheartrate (Max)]

Thank you, @Sascha_ . I cleaned the cache and have the smartmeter on ttyUSB0 online now. Let’s see if the problem has been fixed now.
Thank you all for being such active community members. Happy new year!

[JensH]

I had problems with serials too after some time, on github there is a snapshot of nrjavaserial 5.2.1 solves this problem for me:

---

To update the bundle on the Karaf Console to a snapshot build with the fix (in my fork) use:

bundle:update nrjavaserial https://github.com/wborn/nrjavaserial/releases/download/5.2.1-20220113/nrjavaserial-5.2.1.202201130000.jar

Originally posted by @wborn in Serial ports getting blocked after some re-connecting · Issue #1842 · openhab/openhab-core · GitHub

[John_Doe (JD)]

Hi,

I have tried with the new version, but still have problems with the connection to the smartmeter binding.

smartmeter:meter:cac42147b1’ changed from OFFLINE (COMMUNICATION_ERROR): Termination sequence is wrong to ONLINE

and after a while i get the error:

smartmeter:meter:cac42147b1’ changed from ONLINE to OFFLINE (COMMUNICATION_ERROR): Termination sequence is wrong

[JensH]

I just needed a restart after installing snap and works fine. Maybe depends on used stick? Mine is amb8465-M

[John_Doe (JD)]

I did that, unfortunately it did not help

[Tuny (Sebastian)]

I also tried but did not have success.

When I look at the bundle:list it shows me V5.2.1 of nrjavaserial:
255 x Active x 80 x 5.2.1 x nrjavaserial

Is this correct? Or has the Version look like this “5.2.1-20220113”?

[JensH]

After installation
Xxx│ Active │ 80 │ 5.2.1.202201130000 │ nrjavaserial

[splatch (Łukasz Dywicki)]

Try update <bundle-id> file:<file location>. Updated bundle should be retained across restarts unless you do clean of data dirs.

[wborn (Wouter Born)]

@Tuny

Unfortunately there are some issues with this provider, so some (unstable) COM-connections can lock up after a while.

@JensH

I had problems with serials too after some time, on github there is a snapshot of nrjavaserial 5.2.1 solves this problem for me

A nrjavaserial 5.2.1.OH1 release with a fix for this annoying issue is now integrated in 3.3.0-SNAPSHOT build #2849 or newer.