yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Nook Color Android Development] Dj-Gutz:
Troubleshooting Time

Ok sorry for spamming the thread :)

But I've done some more testing and troubleshooting with some interesting and good results

I did many searches before on the powered hub thing with no luck but I've decided to try some more combinations and I found this reply from VG :

Guess what? It worked :)

This is using my 7-port hub I posted a picture of earlier

I managed to do gather some info and I really pushed it to the limits to verify that it is in fact charging ( low current and still draining but charging ) and serving as a usb-host at the same time for multiple devices without any change in current draw while sleeping ( means power comes from the hub )

- 1 USB Device , WIFI OFF , Sleep , VBUS External - BMW reports Unplugged , ~60mA drain , mV rising

- 6 USB devices , WIFI OFF , Sleep , VBUS External - BMW reports Unplugged , ~60mA drain , mV rising

Without power to the hub the numbers are way higher and depends on the devices that are connected of course

When I disable USB-HOST mode through Nook Tweaks - BMW instantly reports USB Charging and goes to positive current numbers

If I want to enable host mode again I need to cut the power to the hub and disable/enable vbus and host on nook tweaks , only then I can connect the external power and it works fine again charging and hosting

I'm hoping for a fix so I can disable/enable USB-HOST to enable actually charging the device while the hub is still connected and function when I turn it ON

I think this could be fixed at code level so if anyone wants to take a look please do

I can provide logs if needed , and reproduce the "issue" over and over again

My original cable refuses to work with the hub no matter what , I'll be trying to get a replacement cable hoping the new one will work and allow me to experiment with usb-host + high current charging
[Nook Color Android Development] Moshe5368:
Great work, DJ. Sounds like you are on to something. I don't have, at present, a "Y" cable to charge the nook while working in host mode but I don't spend that much time with it as I usually just download my photos from the camera and transfer some to a flash drive or sd card. I seem to have bluetooth stable again for my keyboard but had to drop back to n146. Something in 150 and up does not like to allow my kbd to stay connected.

It looks like the power consumption is pretty low for most of the devices you are using. If full 2 amp charging can be enabled somehow, it would be great. As it is, our little tablet that could is blowing lots of other tabs away. Good luck with the continued testing.
[Nook Color Android Development] Dj-Gutz:
I'm not using a Y cable

NOOK -> Micro-USB Cable -> Female-Female Adapter -> Mini-B USB Cable ( I think , hub's usb cable ) -> HUB

Power comes to the hub's power jack from a 5v 2a source

I'm using n152 , working great for me but I don't use BT atm :)

If we could fix the charging reporting system it would be awesome

Also , I don't think BMW reporting the right current

Why CurrentWidget doesn't work on the nook? is it something we can fix in the kernel ( battery driver? ) ? or is it a missing hardware sensor?
[Nook Color Android Development] bled82:
Hey any chance of getting a wireless usb hub to work with the nook ? some thing like the one in the link before ? Im looking to use my nook in the car and would like to have the least amount of connections as possible and have as much as i can out of site , dont plan to leave it in the car all the time will be taking it with me in and out so was hoping just to connect one cable .

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&biw=1251&bih=871&q=wireless+hub&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=6649331881417880937&sa=X&ei=nS5ETqXgKYvA8QPDyMjsBQ&ved=0CIABEPMCMAA
[Nook Color Android Development] Dj-Gutz:
I guess you would have to write drivers for it , And that would be pretty hard considering they only have windows and mac driver support

You probably need to find one with a linux driver and

1.Hope it's already supported by the drivers

OR

2.Port the driver yourself

OR

3.Hope there is enough interest for this to work , and maybe one of the devs will take care of it..

It seems like it uses WIFI so maybe if a USB WIFI adapter works ( Is it? ) , this could work too.
[Nook Color Android Development] Moshe5368:
Remember how limited the bluetooth range is on the nook. There is no internal antenna so the device will have to be within about 8" to work. Even then, not sure that the nook would drive it without some serious coding as I do not believe there are any drivers that would work
[Nook Color Android Development] Spazzvogel:
I've tried searching through here, but I'm either too tired or not smart enough today. I have a friend that's a real estate agent who is always out in the field. I've been showing him my Nook and he wanted to get one. But his concern is this; are there usb drivers in this collection that would support a portable usb scanner? And if not, do you guys think there is a scanner that might have Android support using a nook?

Thanks for any help, much obliged
[Nook Color Android Development] DigitalMD:
I don’t know of any Android device that can support a USB scanner, but I have had good luck using apps like scan2pdf which works well on the built-in camera in my moto droid. Obviously the Nook has no camera and using a USB webcam does not give enough resolution or convenience.
[Nook Color Android Development] Divine_Madcat:
I have to say that I am really curious about the differences in people's BT success. I have had no problem using a BT headset from 2-3 feet; same with a wireless mouse. I guess some devices can be much stronger, but...
[Nook Color Android Development] Moshe5368:
I have found that the range of several BT devices I have here varies widely. My logitech keyboard has fits if it is more than 8-10 inches away. A logitech BT mouse will function with the BT dongle as far away as 20 inches. My degree is in mechanical engineering vice electrical so I can only infer that the device transmission strength plays a part in this as well. In reading the notes on the teardown of the nook, a lack of an antenna is mentioned for BT which led me to believe that range would be severly limited. As this is not my field of expertice, I would defer to the masters. I do, however, have a number of other BT capable devices here in the motorhome which I will try to pair with at various ranges (poloroid pogo printer, BB torch phone, Huawei S7 tablet,acer laptops, ect..) I will keep a log of the range capabilities of each device and share the info with anyone who wishes it.
[Nook Color Android Development] liam.lah:
What model BT headset are you using?
[Nook Color Android Development] Moshe5368:
I do not use a BT headset as I use external speakers through the usb interface. I found that the poloroid pogo printer would pair but not connect from and distance, even right next to the nook. I can pair and use BT file transfer to my blackberry torch from about 3 feet. After that it drops the connection. About the same range for the acer aspire one netbook for BT file transfer. As noted before, the range of the logitech kbd is 8-10 inches. I have had connections for BT file transfer from the nook to a Huawei s7 tablet up to 3 feet.

I ran out of devices to test but it seems that the range might have something to do with the device type. Devices with antenna seem to have better range. Just my observations.
[Nook Color Android Development] Divine_Madcat:
Jabra SP700 - the nook recognizes it as a headset (which it should), then i use its built in transmitter for my car.
[Nook Color Android Development] bled82:
Would it be possible to connect an android smart phone via usb to the nook and use the nook as a larger touch screen for the phone ???
[Nook Color Android Development] botossi:
3g dongle

Has anyone suceed using a 3G dongle/modem? i saw in some posts before that someone was willing to try, but i didnt hear more about it....

Cheers to all
[Nook Color Android Development] 12paq:
Just an FYI for us photographers who are interested in utilizing our Nook's USB and DSLRs: http://dslrcontroller.com/ Not sure what is new here other then a new website, but things seem to be moving forward.

.
[Nook Color Android Development] chisleu:
Yes anything is possible. I use my NC to control my media center. (mouse / keyboard / remote control)

It would be super laggy on fancy interfaces though. Many phones use gpu/etc acceleration to be super fast and sexy looking. It wouldn't translate over a wifi connection.
[Nook Color Android Development] Moshe5368:
@12paq, looks like a good program but the intro states it is designed for a dual core tablet. My primary DSLR is a Nikon D3100 so I am not sure it will work for me. I may try to play with it just to see what happens.

I usually use my nook to preview my photos as the larger,chrisper screen gives me a better idea of the final product and I can edit RAW data directly on the nook or just work with the jpeg image.

Nikon provides both pc and linux drivers with the camera or available through their website but have not seen any programs specific for android.
[Nook Color Android Development] whereiszack:
Does anyone know of another place to download the developer's toggle app? The link is dead for me...
[Nook Color Android Development] newellj79:
I put it in my dropbox for you. I hope green doesn't mind. You can also use nook color tweaks for this functionality now.

http://db.tt/u9HKAVz
[Nook Color Android Development] Negakinu:
Would it be possible to use the USB functionality of the Nook to hook up an external DAC? What I mean is, can you use an external soundcard/DAC through the USB host mode? Recent developments on the iPad show that it is possible, so if I could use a small usb-powered, driverless audiophile DAC on the Nook, that would make an awesome portable music rig.

I'm not yet allowed to post pictures but if you google "Ipad DAC" you kinda get the idea.
[Nook Color Android Development] Arbelzapf:
Dj-Gutz has successfully used his FiiO E7

See this post: http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=16229673&postcount=587

Would love to try it myself, but I don't have an E7 or any other USB DAC
[Nook Color Android Development] :
So is it pretty much a given that you have to use a USB hub for this to work? Everything I have tried sans hub hasn't worked. I don't have a hub yet, but I figured simple things like mice and keyboards would work directly connected, but for me the don't seem to want to.
[Nook Color Android Development] Moshe5368:
I use a bluetooth keyboard and a usb mouse through the powered hub. Yes, you really do need a powered hub for flash drives, sd card readers, external hd's. The hub is not expensive and allows you to expand the nook in ways you seldom thought about.
[Nook Color Android Development] tannerzion:
Charging..

Can I use a USB male+male on the hub to charge this while using it?(to connect from the hub to the normal charger), or are there other, more efficient ways to charge it?

And I know it won't charge fast, I just don't want to have to worry about it losing it's charge(will it charge fast enough not to start losing it's charge, while overclocking?).

I searched this thread for an answer but didn't really find one..
[Nook Color Android Development] Moshe5368:
There are Y cables available through amazon that will allow you to charge the nook while using usb host mode. I do not have one of these but several references are made through this thread about their availability. I usually get about 9 hours of useful life on a fully charged battery and I am overclocked to 1200 mHz. In the field, I carry the nook to preview photos from my digital camera and just transfer those directly to the nook without a hub as the camera has its own power. This is one of the few exceptions to the need for a hub.
[Nook Color Android Development] miketunes:
checking sdcard then rebooting?

I finally got a drive to mount, on CM7 build 172. One of my 4GB USB key chains does mount okay. I tried mounting a 500GB WD 3.5" drive and a Seagate 2.5" external drives. Both drives appear, says preparing SD card - checking for errors. After about 30 seconds the nook reboots. I wonder if there's an issue with mounting larger drives? I am going through a powered hub, doesn't seem to like the y adapter for me.
[Nook Color Android Development] tannerzion:
Webcam?

In order to get webcam support we need a special "nightly" build but the links are dead.

Anyone got a solution? It'd be nice to use skype with this.

Also, I couldn't seem to get the usb host on/off/whatever in the tablet tweaks area.. I'm running the latest nightly(177) and I had to download his usb host on/off app.
[Nook Color Android Development] Moshe5368:
@miketunes,how are the external hard drives formatted? There are size constraints for android as to drive size. NTFS drives are not recognized but FAT32, ext2,ext3, and ext4 are

Also, which nightly are you using? I had reboot issues with n169 and n173 when trying to access larger drives. Not sure just what the problem is but I rolled back to n160 until I can figure out what is going on. I will be experimenting with external drives on different nightly builds within the next week. I am trying to get consistent reads on a drive to carry with my camera so I can transfer images from the camera to the nook for proofing then store them on the external drive for later editing. I have been running into the reboot issues as well but they almost seem random. So far I have not found the problem but I intend to. Good luck. I will post results as soon as I have anything substantial.
[Nook Color Android Development] miketunes:
@Moshe5368 - I'm using 500gb fat32 drives. It is definitely related to the drive size, I deleted the partition and made only a small 8GB partition on the same drive and it didn't reboot. I'll try going back to 160 and see how that works.
[Nook Color Android Development] forsakenexile:
404?

404 on the file links
[Nook Color Android Development] forsakenexile:
Hey Green, Great job on this man. I remember here a while back I talked to you and Pokey in the Irc room about it. I havent had time or ability to venture on it. Good job.

I tried updating to test it out on my own device, However, the links to your files are 404. Do you have them uploaded anywhere else?

Thanks in advance.
[Nook Color Android Development] newellj79:
What is it your looking for?
[Nook Color Android Development] Taosaur:
If you're running CM7, all you need is a nightly more recent than 136 and the Nook Tweaks app from the market. USB Host is built in.
[Nook Color Android Development] eungholee2:
sd card?

hmmm.. out of curiousity, has anyone tried an sd card reader? it'd be superb for backing up photos on the go, or viewing them after a photography session!
[Nook Color Android Development] Moshe5368:
I routinely use a card reader through a powered hub to back up data from the nook. I use sd cards for storage and read my compact flash cards from my camera. The hub powers the card reader with no problems.
[Nook Color Android Development] skwalas:
I can use a vivitar 50in1 reader directly (no hub) but have occasional random dismounts. Still, works just fine otherwise. An unppwered hub is enough to mask the power requirements of my USB flash drives.
[Nook Color Android Development] BobK46:
I have the same card reader and have had no probelems, although I have not used it for extended periods of time.
[Nook Color Android Development] blewis87:
I bought a $0.99 card reader on ebay, but unfortunately it wouldn't work. Didn't try it with a hub, but I bet it would if I did.

Anyone find a $1-2 card reader that worked for them? I see the vivitar is a bit spendy for card readers.
[Nook Color Android Development] BobK46:
The vivitar 50 in 1 reader is realatively expensive because of its ability to read almost any card.

If you are only interested in reading microSD, the VIVITAR micro sd reader is available at Amazon for prices from $5.00 to $14.00. And will work without a hub (at least it does for me)
[Nook Color Android Development] tannerzion:
Charging Problem..

I just got an externally powered usb hub, and my mouse and keyboard will only work when external charging is off... If I turn it on, I'll need to reboot the Nook before I can get the keyboard and mouse to work again..

Also, another question.. How would I make the mouse more sensitive?

Question three: how would I disable the onscreen keyboard?
[Nook Color Android Development] MXIIA:
It seems I cannot get this to work. I do recall it working on nightly 150, but I'm now on 177 and when I turn usb hosting on via either the included APK or Nook Tweaks my nook freezes.
[Nook Color Android Development] Moshe5368:
I am running n160 and the usb host mode works well. I had n177 loaded but had issues with wifi and BT so went back to 160 for now. Host mode works very well with 160.
[Nook Color Android Development] therkr:
Is it safe to use this already?

I mean the OP posted frying usb port issues...do they still prevail?

This would certainly affect my buying decision for the NookColor.

Thanks.
[Nook Color Android Development] Moshe5368:
Host mode works very well now. The OP was refering to early attempts to charge the nook on the vbus while using the host mode. There were early attempts to make custom cables for this purpose.

The changes to cm7 incorporated by dalengrin and others have made host mode very stable. I use it on a daily basis with flash drives, sd card readers, and direct connections to my nikon camera for transfer of photos directly from the camera to the nook.

I also use a usb mouse through a powered hub and have had pretty good luck with external hard drives. The nook has exceeded everyones expectations as a very capable device.

I have attached a few pics of my current setup. Mouse support is great and the bluetooth keyboard works well. Good luck whichever way you choose to go. If I can be of any assistance, please let me know.
[Nook Color Android Development] therkr:
Thanks a ton! I'll get this thing right away. :D

Anyways, how is host mode implemented in CM7. As in you have to manually enable/ it automatic. Do drives mount automatically?

any luck with printers? :S

Btw, those are nice pictures there.
[Nook Color Android Development] Moshe5368:
Host mode is enabled using the nook tweeks app. The nook will see and mount the first drive you connect (as in flash drives, sd cards, ect). I have not been able to access more than one flash drive at a time but that is usually enough to work with. I usually go to mounts/storage and manually unmount each drive before removing it. Maybe not strictly necessessary but I always do it for safety of my data.

When you mount a flash drive, nook tweeks will check the drive for errors before mounting. Just takes a few seconds then you will see the nook tweeks icon in the notification bar. Using your file manager, navigate to /mnt/usbdisk to access the drive. Enjoy.
[Nook Color Android Development] Moshe5368:
Sorry, I missed the question about printers. So far, no luck with the printers as most android apps do not have the option to print. I have not tried some of the new apps out there to print. Thanks for the compliment on the pics. They were just a few I took to help another user set up his system.
[Nook Color Android Development] Cybore:
Sorry if these questions have been answered already,

Just to confirm, the frying port issue has been addressed then? No damage will occur from charging the nook or hooking it up on pc while on host mode?

There's a vbus setting in n color tweaks... any downsides of using that vs regular usb host mode? It seems that setting would be safer since it allows the user to charge the nook and use usb host at the same time.

I was able to connect a keyboard and use it fine in the newest nightly without an external power source and a usb adapter I recently bought. I'm Just a bit paranoid that the setting will somehow not save or I will forget to disable it and damage my nook in the process.
[Nook Color Android Development] Moshe5368:
The frying issue has been addressed and is no longer a problem. V-bus is used in conjunction with host mode to charge the nook while using host mode. With the battery life I get from the nook, there is no reason for me to charge when in host mode. I use a bluetooth keyboard so only use host mode to transfer files or access a hard drive or mouse. While a mouse is nice, I use the touch screen most of the time.

Host mode is quite safe and will really expand your options with the nook.
[Nook Color Android Development] bassrebel:
has anyone had any luck getting the xbox 360 controller to work???
[Nook Color Android Development] tannerzion:
Anyone have a link to the kernel? I want webcam support.
[Nook Color Android Development] therkr:
Anyone tried connecting an ext USB DVD ROM?
[Nook Color Android Development] Moshe5368:
@tannerzion, I believe the encore kernel we are using to compile the nightlies is found on kernel.org

@therkr, there is currently no support for external DVD drives as the codecs are not available to directly access DVD's. This is why we use a program such as handbrake on the pc to convert dvds to a suitable format for the nook.

While usb host mode has given the nook the ability to access many devices that were not available at the start, you should remember that we are starting with an e-reader. As there was no camera installed in the nook, webcam support is problematic but still a possibility.

My experience tends to be more on the hardware side than the software side as I am relativly new to android. Hope these answers help.
[Nook Color Android Development] mystichobo:
hey guys, thinking of getting a NC to use on the train.

Has anyone tried USB host mode with a 3g dongle?
[Nook Color Android Development] newellj79:
No go.

Tenchar
[Nook Color Android Development] Moshe5368:
For those folks needing internet access through a 3g device, I might suggest a method I have found to work for me.

While there are those folks who have had some success tethering to a phone, I use a portable wifi hotspot for access. I use a verizon usb 3g dongle through a "mifi" device which is battery powered. It is capable of being configured as a secure wifi point and the device is small enough to carry with you. There are other solutions to wifi but this is one I have used.
[Nook Color Android Development] iflip:
This feature may make me go and buy 1 of these! So if I plug my camera in or a memory card via card reader, this will read my files?? ? And how much ram does this thing have?
[Nook Color Android Development] newellj79:
512...

Tenchar
[Nook Color Android Development] Moshe5368:
Using USB host mode through nook tweeks, a powered hub will allow you to access flash drives or sd cards through a card reader. If your camera is self powered (as most are) you can connect the camera through a micro usb to usb adapter directly to the nook to transfer photos to the nook. I use this method to proof photos from my Nikon D70 when out in the field. You can PM me if you like for specifics on this.
[Nook Color Android Development] iflip:
Well then. I'll just have to put the nook on my christmas list.
[Nook Color Android Development] -sandro-:
Hello,

is it possible to change the keyboard layout? I'm using an Italian keyboard and the the characters created with "shift" are all wrong. I'm sure it must be some android core configuration, do you know what file should I change and how?
[Nook Color Android Development] jameshmiller:
Move usbtty permission to ueventd (android_device_bn_encore)

This is in nightly 206. Does this help with getting USB GPS working? I haven't seen anything new on it. I have a GPS dongle I would love to use on the nook.