Nvda no longer supports BRLTTY with Alva series

[exatropix]

Steps to reproduce:

Once BRLTTY 6.1 was installed, I established contact with the Alva braille display. I select BRLTTY as the display in NVDA but nothing happens.

Actual behavior:

Expected behavior:

The display remains inactive and BRLTTY is deactivated on NVDA.

NVDA logs, crash dumps and other attachments:

System configuration

Afficheur Alva abt380
Brltty 6.1
nvda 2024.1

NVDA installed/portable/running from source:

NVDA installed

NVDA version:

2024.1

Windows version:

10

Name and version of other software in use when reproducing the issue:

Other information about your system:

ALVA connected via serie to usb.

Other questions

This always worked well until NVDA 2023.4.

Does the issue still occur after restarting your computer?

It's the same after reboot.

Have you tried any other versions of NVDA? If so, please report their behaviors.

no

If NVDA add-ons are disabled, is your problem still occurring?

no tested

Does the issue still occur after you run the COM Registration Fixing Tool in NVDA's tools menu?

I don't know how to do that.

[seanbudd]

Welcome @exatropix ,

We are unable to process this issue as it stands.

NVDA logs, crash dumps and other attachments:

Please reproduce this issue and provide a log file of the behaviour. Ensure your log level is set to debug in general preferences.

If NVDA add-ons are disabled, is your problem still occurring?
no tested

Does the issue still occur after you run the COM Registration Fixing Tool in NVDA's tools menu?
I don't know how to do that.

Please test these two scenarios.
You can restart NVDA with add-ons disabled through the exit menu.
You can follow the user guide for more information in running the fixing tool.

Kind Regards,
NV Access Software Developers

[LeonarddeR]

Cc @bramd

[seanbudd]

Could you please report this to brltty as well?
https://brltty.app/contact.html

[bramd]

@exatropix If BRLTTY is selectable in NVDA's list of braille displays, this means the BRLTTY API is running, otherwise it would not show up as a selection. Please check the following:

• Do you see more than one brltty.exe process in Windows Task Manager? If so, multiple instances are somehow active. Exit them all and start just one
• Does BRLTTY show the startup message to the display? If not, the connection between the display and BRLTTY might not work and you need to fix that first
• A log from the BRLTTY side might also be helpful here besides the NVDA logs, could you please post those to this issue so we can investigate further?

[Adriani90]

@exatropix are you having this issue with BRLTTY 6.6 as well?

[seanbudd]

Closing until further information is provided from the author

[exatropix]

If NVDA add-ons are disabled, is your problem still occurring?
Yes

Does the issue still occur after you run the COM Registration Fixing Tool in NVDA's tools menu?
Y
es

[exatropix]

If NVDA add-ons are disabled, is your problem still occurring?
no tested
Does the issue still occur after you run the COM Registration Fixing Tool in NVDA's tools menu?

I try with the las version of NVDA without success.

[CyrilleB79]

I am in contact with @exatropix and have more information from him:

• Disabling the add-ons does not solve the issue
• Running the COM fixing tool does not fix the issue
• Running NVDA 2024.3 does not fix the issue, i.e. the issue has first occurred with 2024.1 and is still present in the last version.

I have sent him detailed instructions in French to get a log; I'll let you know.

Re-opening for investigation.

[CyrilleB79]

In addition to the information provided before, here is a log in debug mode with portable NVDA 2024.3.

nvda.log

This log shows the selection of brltty, some error and NVDA switching to No braille, probably due to these errors.

[CyrilleB79]

FYI the current step with @exatropix is to install latest brltty (6.6).

[SaschaCowley]

@CyrilleB79 @exatropix which version of brltty are you currently using? Did this definitely work in NVDA 2023.4?

[CyrilleB79]

@CyrilleB79 @exatropix which version of brltty are you currently using? Did this definitely work in NVDA 2023.4?

After e-mail exchanges with @exatropix:

• The working configuration of @exatropix is brltty 6.0-1 with NVDA 2023.3.4.
• The following configurations do not work:
  • NVDA 2023.3.4 and brltty 6.6
  • NVDA 2024.3 and brltty 6.0-1
  • NVDA 2024.3 and brltty 6.6