That sounds like some very thorough testing, but alas, doesn't seem to get me any closer to an understanding. I want to say that there is something about your configuration that is causing the problem, but as you have tested many different serial devices with many different Arduino flavors, I don't know. All I can say is that a lot of people use AFSoftSerial and I can't remember anyone reporting this kind of behavior. There are reports of baud rates not working quite right, but I am investigating some of these.
Are you using a special bootloader? Are you using Ubuntu by any chance?
Questions for the Arduino world at large:
- Has anyone experienced the kind of lockup in AFSoftSerial that etracer describes?
- Please let me know if you
a. notice any difference in behavior between AFSoftSerial and NewSoftSerial.
b. have successfully tested multiple instances of NewSoftSerial.
c. have any observations about baud rates that don't seem to work reliably with either AFSoftSerial or NewSoftSerial.
Mikal