BKG NTRIP client seems not to open com ports with higher numbers, e.g. COM11 or COM17

[carsten.stoeber@…]

We are using the BKG client to provide correction data streams to uBlox f9P receivers. We now faced the issue that it seems we can not open serial connections for com ports with higher numbers, e.g. COM17. This has been observed on multiple PCs.

The issue was discovered after we changed the test PC which needed re-installation of GNSS receivers (leading to different com port mapping for the same receivers compared to the old PC). The BKG client version was 12.xxx but we also now updated to the recent version.

On the PC multiple GNSS receivers are connected and the correct ports are used, i.e. RTCM corrections can be provided on this ports theoretically. While we can successfully open the connection to ports like COM4. Stopping the client and using the same settings for higher ports (multiple receivers are connected at same time with same settings) leads to the connection is not being accepted.

In the below example we automatically try to open the connection which fails. Than we manually just change the com port number from 17 (receiver 1) to Com5 (another receiver) and it immediately works (the name of the file coincidentally has "...Com5.bnc" in it on, on another PC it is between com11 not working and com4 working).

25-04-03 11:29:59 ========== Start BNC v2.13.2 (WIN32) ==========
25-04-03 11:29:59 Panel 'Serial Output' active
25-04-03 11:29:59 RS01: Cannot open serial port

25-04-03 11:29:59 RS01: Get data in RTCM 3.x format
25-04-03 11:29:59 Configuration read: tests/Gnss/RTK/BNC_Template_NTRIP_viaPort4022ToCom5.bnc, 1 stream(s)
25-04-03 11:32:09 ========== Start BNC v2.13.2 (WIN32) ==========
25-04-03 11:32:09 Panel 'Serial Output' active
25-04-03 11:32:09 RS01: Get data in RTCM 3.x format
25-04-03 11:32:09 Configuration read: tests/Gnss/RTK/BNC_Template_NTRIP_viaPort4022ToCom5.bnc, 1 stream(s)

[stuerze]

Dear Carsten,
I'm sorry for the late answer, In case of'team', nobody seams to gets a hint regarding a new ticket..
But I cannot really help in this because I have no PC with such high portnumbers.
I think its is not relatesd to BNC but to Windows. Maybe this helps:
​https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/howto-specify-serial-ports-larger-than-com9-db9078a5-b7b6-bf00-240f-f749ebfd913e

Best regards, Andrea.

[anonymous]

Thanks for your answer Andrea.

FYI: We just opened this ticket because we really like the BKG client. We do not have such a big number of physical com port but many GNSS receivers emulated several com ports via USB to serial emulation.

The used PC is just a normal one but several GNSS devices are connected via USB. Devices like an uBlox f9P use 3 serial ports per device via USB to serial emulation, so already with four f9Ps connected one runs into this kind of problem. Furthermore Windows handles some com port driver installations per USB connector, so even with just one device connected you face such issues when multiple other devices were connected before. On my own PC the automatically generated com port mapping currently maps to port numbers >30 for newly connected GNSS devices. We have solved the issue on our side by changing the assigned port number manually. The problem with this kind of solution is, that it can confuse the data connection in case we do not change also the old connection which was automatically registered at the affected port.

As said, we think it may be a dedicated BKG client issue because all other applications work fine with the higher com port numbers. No solution is needed from our side, we just wanted to inform you because other users may face the same issue.

Thanks for your efforts to support such a good tool.