Can not flash on Linux

[koraxnyx]

Affected Version

0.5.1

Describe the Bug

Just to let know that I could not make the firmware utility work on a Fedora 43 Linux vía Chrome, it throws a:

NetworkError Failed to execute 'open' on 'SerialPort': Failed to open serial port.

After selecting the device. I could flash without a glitch on a Windows machine. Just so you know.

Thank you for your work, the reading experience is very good.

Steps to Reproduce

• Connect to a Linux machine.
• Launch Chrome.
• Try any option, like flashing or one of the debugging tools.
• Select device on the Chrome popup.
• Get error. NetworkError: Failed to execute 'open' on 'SerialPort': Failed to open serial port.

Expected Behavior

That you can connect to the device.

[varo6]

Ok I managed to flash it. If your reader is powered off, (with the background cover) turn it on. AND the most important part, you must open your browser with root permissions. The problem is because of not enough permissions.

[Eloren1]

@koraxnyx status?

[imcrazytwkr]

This is not a bug and the proposed solution is not entirely correct, even though it works. Ideally, after plugging the reader in, it should be solved like this:

1. Do the ls -lh /dev/ttyA* and check whether it has been assigned a non-root group and that this group has write access allowed
2. If not, as root create a /etc/udev/rules.d/71-ttyusb.rules config:

ACTION!="remove", SUBSYSTEMS=="usb-serial", TAG+="uaccess"

3. Reboot the computer or force-reload udev rules: sudo udevadm control --reload
4. Repeat the step (1) to figure out the necessary group. While it should be uucp, this group is merely recommended by systemd spec so you may have a different one on your distro, especially if it doesn't use systemd. I'm assuming systemd presence because the OP is running Fedora.
5. Add your user to the group: sudo usermod -aG '{{ usbserial group from step 1 }}' "$USER"
6. Re-login into your account or reboot the computer so that user session notices and implements the group list changes.
7. Open any Chromium-based browser that has webUSB stack enabled and flash the reader.

Additionally, udev page on Archwiki may be of help for every systemd-based distro. More specifically, sections 5.3, 3.4 (for rule ordering) and 2.4.

[Sunspark-007]

Not a deal-breaker because I have a Windows machine too which worked fine, but I tried it on an immutable Linux distro first where the browsers are flatpaks. It was able to pair, but it wasn't able to do anything. Error message.

Maybe a note should be placed on the webpage that this only works on Windows?

[maikotui]

Flatpaks are unreliable for anything outside of standard web browsing. With the solution provided by @imcrazytwkr, I was able to get my device to flash using a non-flat browser. I'm guessing if you used FlatSeal to modify permissions to allow your browser access to raw USB devices and file access to the /run/udev directory, you'd be able to get your flat installed browser to work.
With that in mind, I don't think a note saying it only works with Windows would be correct. I'd suggest a note that Linux devices may need additional setup for to allow raw USB access with a link to this issue might be more precise.

[andrewb1269]

Another solution to this (I ran into the same problem with the web flasher):

1. Add your user account to the dialout group

sudo adduser [your_username] dialout

2. Reboot your computer.

I think we should add these steps for Linux users to a "FAQ" or "Linux Users Troubleshooting" section. I doubt this will apply to anyone else (Windows or MacOS users).