PHP serial commands work only when serial monitor is open

Projects Interfacing w/ Software on the Computer
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Hello, from past few weeks I was making a PHP-Arduino project on my home PC running Ubuntu. Now finally I have to give the demonstration at college today. So I asked somebody for a laptop, made a live USB pen drive running ubuntu with all the needed settings and software. Until yesterday I think it was running fine but from today it is behaving wierd.

PHP sends serial commands only when serial terminal is open while I send the command through the webpage. When serial terminal is closed the webpage shows up to be processing forever and doesn't procede further? any ideas to save my ass today?

PS: I am using custom hardware so its not a auto reset problem

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PS: I am using custom hardware so its not a auto reset problem

Can you explain why that is the case? please post the schematics so we can verify ..

If you use another terminal program, do you see the same effects?
If so it can be "in the driver" of the serial port.