Candas1/Hoverboard-Web-Serial-Control

Console not working in macOS using Chrome

justinotherguy opened this issue · 9 comments

justinotherguy commented

Guten Tag,

after discovering this very useful tool I figured, it won't work for me in macOS.

My environment:
macOS 10.15.7 (19H15)
Chrome Version 87.0.4280.88 (Official Build) (x86_64)

I've tried the console with Linux (Mint 19.3) with Chromium and it works on that.

The behaviour:

  • I open https://candas1.github.io/Hoverboard-Web-Serial-Control/
  • I leave all settings to default
  • I click on the flash
    • a popup appears that lists all me serial ports
    • I select the desired one and click on "Connect"
      -> the popup disappears (as expected)
  • in the console view the flash icon does not change to "disconnect"
    -> nothing else happens

Is there anything else I need to do?

Regards from Baden, J.

Candas1 commented

Hi,

Unfortunately I could never try it on anything else than windows or android.

What do see in the console if you right click and select inspect option in chrome?

justinotherguy commented

yes, sure:

serial.js:149 Uncaught (in promise) DOMException: Failed to open serial port.
connectSerial @ serial.js:149
async function (async)
connectSerial @ serial.js:111
connect @ serial.js:102
onclick @ (index):88

Does that help?

Candas1 commented

Sorry I am not a Linux expert.
Is there a chance you don't have proper permissions for that port?

Candas1 commented

Another comment. I think the serial connection should also work from macos

justinotherguy commented

Sorry I am not a Linux expert.
Is there a chance you don't have proper permissions for that port?

I can open the port fine as the same user on the same machine (in terminal via screen and from VS code).
So, I think this should not be a permission issue. (This should also answer your second comment).

But... :)

...based on your questions I've checked, whether I can use the serial port with Chrome for a different app.
And so I came across https://www.espruino.com/ide/ -> https://www.espruino.com/Quick+Start+BLE
They explain, that Chrome's flag "experimental-web-platform-features" needs to be enabled:
chrome://flags/#enable-experimental-web-platform-features

That was all that was missing :)

So - thanks for pointing me in the right direction; maybe you want to add that hint to your docs.

The thing I don't understand:
why does it work in Chromium without this flag turned on?
So...I just downloaded Chromium for macOS - it also requires the flag to be set.
So it seems, this is not required for Linux or only on macOS.

Candas1 commented

Actually I had documented that this flag had to be enabled, but then I used something called Chrome origin trials, that let's you use those features without enabling. So I removed it from the documentation. If the api is not enabled I show a message in the log view also. It wasn't displaying in chromium?

justinotherguy commented

well:

  • no, I don't see a message in the log view
  • I don't use Chromium, I use Chrome (not sure this makes a difference to you)
Candas1 commented

This is where I check if serial API is available.

Hoverboard-Web-Serial-Control/js/index.js

Line 64 in 70c65b3

if ("serial" in navigator === false) {

Do you mind checking why it's not showing up in your case? You should be able to query this property from the console. Then I will be able to improve how I handle such cases.

Candas1 commented

Are you downloading the code and executing locally ?

This is what I get if I run the tool locally in Microsoft Edge:
image

If I execute it from the github pages it just works without activating it:
https://candas1.github.io/Hoverboard-Web-Serial-Control/