Possible Crazyradio 2.0 PRX issue

[gaalb]

Dear Bitcraze team!
For a while now I've been using a pair of Crazyradio PAs to stream Optitrack motion capture data between computers that don't have access to a common network. I did this using the interface defined in crazyradio.py, which has worked perfectly. Recently, I've had to order more Crazyradios for a similar purpose, but since the Crazyradio PA is being replaced with the Crazyradio 2.0, I opted to order Crazyradio 2.0s instead. It was my understanding that after following the Getting started with the Crazyradio 2.0 guide, and setting up my brand new radios to emulate the Crazyradio PA, they could replace the old ones. However, I ran into an issue: using the same code as before, my Crazyradio 2.0s can't seem to receive data in the same way that the Crazyradio PA does in PRX mode.
I'm running python 3.10.12 on ubuntu 22.04. I initialize the transmitting and receiving radios like so:

from crazyradio import Crazyradio
class RadioStreamer:
    def __init__(self, devid=0, mode=Crazyradio.MODE_PTX, channel=100, data_rate=Crazyradio.DR_2MPS):
        self.radio = Crazyradio(devid=devid)
        self.radio.set_channel(channel)
        self.radio.set_data_rate(data_rate)
        self.radio.set_mode(mode)      

class RadioReciever:
    def __init__(self, devid=1, mode=Crazyradio.MODE_PRX, channel=100, data_rate=Crazyradio.DR_2MPS):
        self.radio = Crazyradio(devid=devid)
        self.radio.set_channel(channel)
        self.radio.set_data_rate(data_rate)
        self.radio.set_mode(mode)

Afterwards, I send my data in arrays using the send_packet method of the transmitting radio, and receive them using the receive method of the receiving radio. This has worked so far when both the transmitting and receiving radios were the old Crazyradio PA, but it seems to me that the Crazyradio 2.0 when configured to emulate the Crazyradio PA cannot receive the packets in this configuration. Specifically, the read command in the Crazyradio.receive method on line 302 of crazyradio.py times out:

    def receive(self, timeout=1000):
        """ Try to receive a packet or return None, if nothing was received within 
            the specified timeout. Only valid if radio is in PRX mode."""
        try:
            if (pyusb1 is False):
                return self.handle.bulkRead(0x81, 64, timeout)
            else:
                return self.handle.read(0x81, 64, timeout=timeout)  # this times out on Crazyradio 2.0
        except usb.USBError:
            pass

This happens only when a Crazyradio 2.0 is receiving:

• Crazyradio PA Tr -> Crazyradio PA Rec works fine (as it has before)
• Crazyradio 2.0 Tr -> Crazyradio PA Rec works fine
• Crazyradio PA Tr -> Crazyradio 2.0 Rec times out
• Crazyradio 2.0 Tr -> Crazyradio 2.0 Rec times out

Do you have any ideas on why this may be happening and how to remedy it? Obviously, this is only the outline of my code, and the devil may well be hiding in the details. If no easy solution is found, I will extract the relevant parts of my project into a minimal example, and provide it for you for testing, but I'm hoping I just overlooked something obvious.

Thanks a lot for your help!
Botond Gaál

[ataffanel]

Unfortunatly what is happening here is not an evil detail but the elephant in the room: PRX is not implemented on Crazyradio2 yet, it is just a stub.

Your use case is awesome by the way, I always wanted to use Crazyradios for communication between PC but never had a reason to do it :-).

So unfortunatly for now the only solution would be to use Crazyradio-PAs for the PRX role and Crazyradio-2 for the PTX role. Hopefully you have enough Crazyradio PA.

I think we should just implement PRX mode. I do not know when I will have time to get to it though, likely not before 2 weeks. I made an issue to track progress.

[gaalb]

Hey @ataffanel !

Thanks for your response!

So unfortunatly for now the only solution would be to use Crazyradio-PAs for the PRX role and Crazyradio-2 for the PTX role. Hopefully you have enough Crazyradio PA.

This is exactly what I've been doing so far, but it's a headache when I forget about it and plug the radios in the wrong way 😄 . Anyway, I'll keep an eye on the issue on the firmware's repo and I consider this thread resolved.