Bitcraze Forums

I'm running the Crazyflie client app in the Ubuntu VM. I've successfully connected to the Crazyflie. Good flight data comes in and my gamepad controls thrust.

However, I always get disconnected within about 60 seconds with this error:
Connection lost to [radio://0/80/250K]: Dongle communication error (ackStatus==None)

Other info:
The Crazyflie is strapped to a little block, sitting on a table 4 feet from the dongle at all times. So probably not a range issue.
My host machine for the VM is my laptop running either Win10 or Debian Linux 8.5 (I get exact same disconnect behavior on both).
I followed the steps here [https://www.bitcraze.io/getting-started ... yflie-2-0/], including:
-- I ran "Update all projects" before running the client app.
-- I updated the Crazyflie firmware to 2016.02.
Dongle is v0.53 (I haven't tried to update its firmware).
I've had no connection problems when controlling Crazyflie with my Android tablet via bluetooth.
The client app terminal spits out a bunch of info that I'm happy to copy-paste here if it'll help.

It's my eventual goal to download the client source, make code modifications, and rebuild it (add external location control with a webcam, or something along those lines). In the absolute worst case, I may try to debug this radio disconnect at the code level.

I am having virtually the same problem. Connection through the dongle is very reliable for updating firmware in bootloader mode, but the connection times out quickly for normal operation, or refuses to connect at all. Often, while trying to scan for devices at address 0xE7E7E7E7E7 I get the the message...

INFO: cflib.drivers.cfusb:Looking for devices...
INFO: cflib.ctp.radiodriver:v0.53 dongle with serial N/A found
INFO: cflib.drivers.cfusb:Looking for devices...
(python3:3376): Gtk-CRITICAL **: IA__gtk_widget_get_direction: assertion 'GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed

The result is no interfaces available to connect to under "Select an interface", and therefore no way to connect to the radio or the CF.

I purchased my CrazyFlie 2 about a year ago, and used it successfully through the Android app, and occasionally through the VM. Like undersan I would like to work with the code and begin making my own changes. This is, after all, why I chose to purchase CrazyFlie over other, less versatile drones.

The documentation on Bitcraze.io is far improved over when I purchased the CrazyFlie, but is still lacking for anyone with issues connecting through the VM. Please reply to this post, and please consider updating your documentation by appending https://www.bitcraze.io/getting-started ... #inst-comp with details of how the CrazyFlie Client works, and fixes to common problems.

Regards

+1 for an improved documentation, in particular on how to get running without the VM. Using the VM for development is fine, but using the CF without the VM gives a better experience. I could contribute a write-up for Ubuntu, if needed.

Running the client natively on your host OS should fix the dongle issues. However, I am not sure where the issues in the VM are coming from. Did you install the "VirtualBox Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack" for USB 2.0 / 3.0 support?

I think this bug was introduced in the newest WM and should have been fixed by this commit. So be sure to update to the latest cflib and cfclient.

And next problem, documentation is hard we have learned. You can find information on how to install the cfclient and cflib natively in the readme.md. Is that what you might be looking for?

Thanks for the feedback we will consider updating the getting started guide.