Known Issues

[simon]

Bluetooth Keyboard Support
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At this time bluetooth keyboards are not fully supported, especially use of the tab and control keys. There is a fix for this scheduled for the v1.4 release in April 2011.

Pasting large amount of text in clipboard to console session
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The paste to console function will only paste the first 100 lines of text in the clipboard into the console. Normally this is about the same as the maximum you can paste to a cisco console port before the cisco console buffer (at 9600 baud) will overflow anyway.

This device is not optimized for iPhone or similar error
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Occasionally after the Apple iOS device has been in power saving mode, this error can occur. The local console session indicator will also go grey. Please disconnect the cable and reconnect it to your Apple iOS device and it will re-detect it properly. You should not lose your Cisco session, or any active remote session.

Multitasking Support
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When running on an iPhone 3GS or 4, iPad or iPod current generation, the Get Console app supports being backgrounded without disconnecting the local user session. However, a remote user connecting to an iOS device via the get-console.com remote access service will have their session paused while the iOS device has another application in the foreground. For this reason, when a remote user is connected to the console port, the iOS device user should not do too much else with the iOS device that is locally connected to the Cisco console port.

3500XL and 2900XL Switch - No Console Output
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We are aware of a bug when connecting to very old Cisco 2900XL and 3500XL switches that no output is visible on the screen. This will be fixed in the next release.

[simon]

This issue has been fixed - it requires CTS/RTS flow control to be enabled in the app, as these old cisco switches defaulted to requiring this on their console ports.

Thanks
Simon Hope

[R4+Z]

"This issue has been fixed - it requires CTS/RTS flow control to be enabled in the app, as these old cisco switches defaulted to requiring this on their console ports."

This may well fix the issue for Get Console but doesn't help when trying to use the Air Console from a PC I have tried strapping the CTS & RTS pins together which should make it work irrespective but that doesn't get round the problem. I have also browsed into the air console and tried setting RTS/CTS flow control there to no avail! This doesn't seem to be a true flow control problem as if I connect the UART (blue) cable directly to my PC, I can use it perfectly well with the equipment I am communicating with!

I would like to try upgrading the firmware of the Air Console but the link is broken!

Any suggestions for a way round this?

[simon]

if you have set the CTS/RTS flow control on your Airconsole and that doesnt fix it, try changing what your terminal program sends with its enter key - to CR+LF rather than just LF

[R4+Z]

Unfortunately the program doesn't use the enter key to call for the command prompt, it uses the / and this has absolutely nothing to do with handshaking or flow control! if I plug the UART cable directly into my PC, all works correctly. If it was a flow control issue I could defeat it by strapping on the RS232 connections! This is becoming a suspected issue with the Get Console IMHO rather than a flow control/handshaking issue!

I would love you to prove me wrong but strapping RTS to CTS doesn't work and setting RTS/CTS flow control on the Air Console doesn't work!

What else can you suggest! and have you addressed the broken link to the Firmware upgrade download page?

[daniel]

You mention that you are connecting to the Airconsole from a PC? Which software are you using on the PC? (as it will need to be configured for hardware flow control).

The settings on the Airconsole webpage are for non-RFC2217 aware clients only - if you are using the com0com Windows driver then flow control settings will be as specified in your terminal program. (e.g. in Putty it is under Connection -> Serial -> Flow Control)

[R4+Z]

It is a proprietary package for communicating with a specific make of telephone system and works with everything else I have ever used. However I can't even get it to work with Terra Term!

If it was truly an RTS/CTS issue, strapping the two together on the RS232 connection should defeat this and allow communications and as I say, if I use the UART lead directly connected to my PC, it works! so the problem isn't RTS/CTS or the UART cable would have the same problem! The Problem is in the Air Console. Yes it works from the Iphone when RTS/CTS is turned on but that is just masking the problem. The equipment I am talking to does not use flow control at all! In fact that has been a problem in the past in trying to write scripts to talk to the system! The only way to do it has been to build in pauses to make sure there is time for things to have happened which considerably slows down comms!

[R4+Z]

Well problem solved

As I suspected RTS/CTS was not the way to go! I made up an adaptor using two RJ45 mechs connected together with some jumper wire and connected pins 3 4 5 & 6 straight through for TX, RX & 2 x signal grounds (I could have got away with one signal ground but why take the risk). I then played around with the other pins until I had success (I used a meter and a physical console cable to compare conditions). The final working configuration was pin 1 strapped to pin 7 on the air console side and pin 2 strapped to pin 8 on my equipment side.

I still have a small issue to deal with as my comms package sees the equipment as being off line but that is a known issue and just requires an additional strap but I will have to dig out some old documentation to refresh my memory as to which pin. However if I ignore the offline notification I can communicate with the equipment, I just can't start a backup but I will live with that for now!

When I have refined the connections to ensure it works with all the equipment I work with, I will make a permanent adaptor by opening up an RJ45 inline joiner and modifying the connections in there, then reassembling it!

Edited to add that pins 1 7 2 & 8 are open circuit between the air console and the equipment side!

[R4+Z]

Tomorrow it will be two weeks since I first asked you to fix the firmware update link for Air Console! Could we at least have an update on what is causing the delay!

This is not a very professional response to a problem with the product as I have also sent requests via the "Contact Us" link and still no response!

[simon]

The firmware link is working now for version 1.04 of the firmware
Thanks
Simon Hope