Replay log on linux is grey (5.3.1)

Hello, I am having an issue with Replay log in ioninja 5.3.1 (amd64) on linux. I may be doing something simply wrong.

What I did:

• purchase subscription, ok
• install ioninja repo under OpenSuSE TW, and install ioninja, ok
• download tdevmon-3.3.11-linux-amd64.tar.xz, ok
• compile tdevmon.ko and autoload with permissions as in the kb article, ok and it loads ok
• run tdevmon --monitor /dev/ttyS0 to monitor my pc serial port, ok
• record some serial comms from a serial mouse, this works wonderfully!
• I am using Serial Monitor with the Replay log layer.
• save the session, and also save a portion of the recorded log, ok

What I expected

• be able to replay a portion of the log, to simulate some comms

However, my issue:

The replay log item in the Session menu is grey. When I am in the Session tab, the play button at the top right is also grey

Then I tried

• checking permissions, running as root or as user
• with or without starting /usr/local/bin/tdevmon in a terminal
• installing a full KDE desktop in case of Qt dependencies (originally using GNOME, and tried xfce)
• looked for this type of error being reported - didn't find it, yet
• obviously plenty of rebooting, verifying, and looking at the ioninja system log and system logs, also running ioninja from a terminal to look for any messages/errors.

Any help is appreciated, I hope I missed an obvious thing.

Thank you!

@mick-reed More information: This is using Virtualbox 6 with a W98. The serial mouse that I am testing is working correctly with the W98 vbox, both on Linux and Windows. I can get ioninja to monitor the serial comms on either OS. The serial mouse correctly works with this vbox on either OS.

However I am not able to use the Replay log function in Windows 10 Pro or in Linux. This leads me to believe I am doing something wrong with ioninja. Since I have purchased a subscription, I believe that all of the functions I need should be available.

Apparently Replay log is not supported except with ioninja hardware. The below snip from the ioninja website seems to state the opposite. Clarification is requested. "Let's imagine..."

Hello Mick,

You have access to all the IO Ninja capabilities, and Replay Log doesn't require IO Ninja hardware.

First of all, let's make sure there are no misunderstandings about what Replay Log is capable of and which scenarios it can be used in.

After capturing a log of communications, the "Replay Log" plugin can send previously captured TX or RX packets with respect to timestamps, i.e. transmit them again inserting the same delays between packets as observed during the original comm session. In order to do that, the target session (the one you attach Replay Log to) should be writeable. You can't replay a log over a monitor session such as Serial Monitor or Serial Tap, simply because those sessions are read-only and can't transmit. This is why the "Replay" button was grayed out.

However, you can first capture a log using a Serial Monitor session, and then replay it using a Serial session. For example, there is a device attached to a serial port on your machine. Capture all the input from this device using Serial Monitor, then replace this serial device with another USB-to-Serial adapter and open this second adapter from a Serial session. This second Serial session can be used to transmit packets in lieu of your device. Now you can attach the Replay Log layer and replay the log previously captured by Serial Monitor, thus repeating all the commands originally sent by your device.

Hope this clarifies the matter!

@Vladimir thank you so much! This is what I was missing. I did start a serial session finally, and I was able to replay a bit of log with that session. I didn't realize that Serial Monitor wasn't writeable. I'm very pleased with this outcome and will continue now that I can fully utilize ioninja like I had wanted to.