I'm experiencing an annoying problem with FTDI serial devices on Linux and it has been observed on several machines and with different distributions. The issue is that the serial adapter misses characters and now with a fully updated Arch installation with kernel 4.12.4 it has gotten so bad that the serial console is completely unusable. We use serial consoles for testing embedded devices and the frequency of the problem before has been that when you run an overnight test it could happen once or twice, bad enough that we have had to switch to Windows computers for some of our logging needs.
As an example with 4.12.4. Here we have an embedded device that print the string "Button pressed: Button 3 Switch 2\n" when a certain button is pressed. What I get:
Button pressed: Button 3 Switch 2
Button pressed: Button 2 Switch 2
Button pressed: Button 2 Switch 2
2 Switch 2
Button pressed: Button 2 Switch 1
Button pressed: Button 3 Switch 2
Button pressed: Button 3 Switch 2
Button pressed: Button 3 SwitchButton pressed: Button 3 Switch 2
Button pressed: Button 3 Switch 2
Button pressed: Button 3 Switch 2
Button pressed: Button 3 Switch 2
Button pressed: Button 3 SwiButton pressed: Button 3 Switch 2
Button pressed: Button 3 Switch 2
Button pressed: Button 3 Switch 2
Button pressed: Button 3 Switch 2
Button pressed: Button 3 Switch 2
sed: Button 3 Switch 2
Button pressed: Button 3 Switch 2
Button pressed: Button 3 Switch 2
Button pressed: Button 3 Switch 2
Button pressed: Button 3 Switch 2
Button pressed: Button 3 Switch 2
Button pressed: Button 3 Switch 2
Doing the same thing under windows causes no problem and before the latest update it was working alright. If i try the same thing on a virtual Ubuntu machine it is also alright but I know that if I would run it for a long time it would also loose characters. Has anyone else encountered the same issue and perhaps found a solution? The serial port runs at 115200 1N8 and no flow control.
Thanks.
