• Registered: 2010-07-30
  • Posts: 4

Topic: Claiming libnfc to support touchatag (ACR122) invalid?

I just bought a few touchatag NFC readers because they are listed No.1 on the page of supported devices. But I'm having really big issues with all touchatag readers on multiple computers! I need to kill the pcscd process by hand because the reader 'hangs' all the time.
So how valid is the statement that this reader is fully supported?
After doing some investigation, I found out that this is because libnfc has a direct dependency on pcsc-lite, which lists the reader as unsupported (http://pcsclite.alioth.debian.org/unsup … 072F0x2200).

So please, could we at least update the hardware section of libnfc.org to warn people about buying touchatag readers?

What can I do? Update the reader's firmware? Update pcsc-lite? Bypass pcsc-lite? Or should I buy different readers?

By the way, I am using a Mac with Snow Leopard installed.


Thanks,

Matthijs

  • Registered: 2010-07-30
  • Posts: 4

Re: Claiming libnfc to support touchatag (ACR122) invalid?

Oh, when running nfc-list, this is the output.

[~] $ nfc-list 
nfc-list use libnfc 1.3.4 (r338)

Connected to NFC reader: ACS ACR122U 00 00 / ACR122U102 - PN532 v1.4 (0x07)
  • Registered: 2009-12-24
  • Posts: 51

Re: Claiming libnfc to support touchatag (ACR122) invalid?

Hi mlangenberg

PC/SC-lite is really unstable on GNU/Linux and even more on FreeBSD.  I have to launch the daemon with a single SC device connected and only then plug-in another device (and sometimes run pcscd -H by hand for it to detect the new one).  I am not sure that Roel use much theses devices, and maybe he just did a quick test, saw it worked, and give on...  I can't edit the website, so may I ask you to private-mail Roel and provide him the URL where the Touchatag is recommended and a link to this page to make sure he don't miss this?

It's holliday-time so I am not sure about him beeing working right now

Thanks!
Romain

  • rconty
  • Administrator
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2009-04-22
  • Posts: 642

Re: Claiming libnfc to support touchatag (ACR122) invalid?

Hello,

mlangenberg wrote:

I just bought a few touchatag NFC readers because they are listed No.1 on the page of supported devices.

Which page are you talking ?
http://www.libnfc.org/documentation/har … patibility starts with SCM devices.
BTW, devices listed in first doesn't seems there are best devices...

mlangenberg wrote:

But I'm having really big issues with all touchatag readers on multiple computers! I need to kill the pcscd process by hand because the reader 'hangs' all the time.

I have sometimes the same issue under GNU/Linux, but it remains usable.

mlangenberg wrote:

So how valid is the statement that this reader is fully supported?

libnfc works perfectly with these devices when PCSC works fine.

mlangenberg wrote:

After doing some investigation, I found out that this is because libnfc has a direct dependency on pcsc-lite, which lists the reader as unsupported (http://pcsclite.alioth.debian.org/unsup … 072F0x2200).

More precisely, ACR122U with firmware >= 2.0 and <= 2.06 are bogus. ACR122U with 1.xx version is marked as "should work", which means that device works with pcsc-lite but its not officially supported (i.e. author doesn't have the device or don't spend time to check if this device fully works).
Your Touchatag is an ACR122 with a "custom" ACS 1.xx firmware. You are not affected by the bug you point: I have a ACR122U with 2.04 and I can confirm that this reader doesn't work anymore with pcsc-lite: pcscd (daemon) reject it at connection time.

mlangenberg wrote:

So please, could we at least update the hardware section of libnfc.org to warn people about buying touchatag readers?


Sure, please point the concerned page and I will wrote a note.

mlangenberg wrote:

What can I do? Update the reader's firmware? Update pcsc-lite? Bypass pcsc-lite? Or should I buy different readers?

  * Firmware is not easily updatable, you will need a ST7 programmer and a valid firmware...

  * Update pcsc-lite could really improve your experience, if we consider that new release is more stable than previous one.

  * Bypass pcsc-lite could be interesting but it will need to rewrote a more powerfull libnfc's driver to handle the actual PCSC part, which is not easy.

  * Buy a different reader could be the point if previous actions failed, but you should that none of these devices are bugless...

Romuald Conty