Asantetalk locking up?

[karrots]

I recently connected a Macintosh Classic (7.5.5) to Ethernet via an Asantetalk bridge. I can successfully mount a file share from a Basilisk II VM and copy some files from the Classic to the VM.

There are two odd things. 1) originally when I tried to mount a share from the Classic into the VM it would fail on the last step. From VM to Classic it worked fine. I could transfer files from the Classic to VM.

2) Day two I tried to copy files from the VM to the Classic and its super slow. Often the share disconnects in the middle of the transfer. To get the devices to see each other again I have to reset the Asantetalk device.

Any thoughts do I just have a bad bridge? Similar things happen connecting from Classic to a netatalk server.

The switch I have the Asantetalk connected to shows a 10/half link with no errors.

 

[NJRoadfan]

There is a one line patch for netatalk's atalkd to fix lockups with AsanteTalk and DaynaTalk bridges. As for Basilisk II, its networking driver thingie is just really slow and buggy particularly with AppleTalk DDP.....like slower then LocalTalk speeds when communicating with a netatalk server over Ethernet. Its a one-line patch for netatalk.

--- etc/atalkd/main.c	Sun Jul  9 07:03:31 2017
+++ etc/atalkd/main.c	Thu Jul 16 17:07:10 2020
@@ -582,7 +582,7 @@
 		    }
 
 		    /* split horizon */
-		    if (rtmp->rt_iface == iface) {
+		    if (rtmp->rt_iface != iface) {
 		        continue;
 		    }

 

[karrots]

This worked....mostly.

It still disconnects part way through the transfer but I get more transferred now. The speed is more of what I would expect. The TX/RX lights on the bridge blink wildly for 30-45sec then it stops and eventually the Classic complains about the file server being disconnected.

Edit: The bridge doesn't seem to be crashing though. I can see all devices still registered on both sides of the bridge. Before I couldn't see the bridge or the LocalTalk side when using nbplkup. I am able to reconnect the share just by opening the chooser again. Before I had to restart the bridge first.

 

[NJRoadfan]

The AsanteTalk bridge is a very fussy device. The order of powering on devices is critical with these for some reason. The manual says to turn on all localtalk connected devices before turning on the AsanteTalk box.

https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_id=4856

On the netatalk side make sure /etc/netatalk/atalkd.conf is setup using the -router switch and has a zone name assigned.

 

[karrots]

I'll check that out. I'm aware of the bootup order. If you don't get that right nothing shows up using nbplkup. I also found somewhere that later firmware versions don't have this issue.

As mentioned the registration in the AppleTalk network doesn't go away anymore like it did when the device was hard locking.

I was using the -router flat but no zone name assigned. I'll add that and see how things go.

 

[NJRoadfan]

Found some notes regarding the AsanteTalk and netatalk. Make sure the netatalk server is on before turning on the AsanteTalk box.

From: http://appleii.ivanx.com/a2server/a2server_lan.html

The AsanteTalk must be powered on while netatalk is up and running, or it will enter a mode where it won't operate correctly. (On the AsanteTalk, you will know it entered the right mode if the TX light blinks a lot during power-up. If it instead pulses only two or three times, then goes dark for a little while, and then pulses very rapidly for about three seconds, you'll need to remove power, make sure netatalk is running, and try again.)

 

[karrots]

Thanks, I'm aware of that quirk. If the blink pattern doesn't happen it doesn't work at all. This works for a while then just stops.

In the past day, I found my old Farallon EtherMac Multiprint adapter. This seems to work without registering on the AppleTalk network. I get the same disconnect problem. I'll see if I can turn up logging on my Netatalk server and see what's happening.

 

[trag]

It might be worth checking the AC adapter to make sure it is still putting out good power.   Also, I have an AsanteTalk (really a MicroAsantePrint) here which failed, dead and the failed component is the internal voltage regulator.   I mention this because the kind of problems you're having could be caused by power issues.

 

[karrots]

So I looked at debug level logs on netatalk. It seems to be some kind of timeout. After which atalkd kills the process. I swapped my Classic II out of storage and it's working fine with the Farallon adapter no file share disconnects. So maybe the Classic is too slow with 7.5.5 on it. I'll have to try again with 7.1 (what's on the original HD).