usb serial device problem

[andy baxter]

andy baxter wrote:
> I have been working on an electronics project which uses an arduino 
> board - a small board with a microcontroller on it that plugs into a usb 
> port and sends and receives data as usb serial. The program on the board 
> sends strings like '0, 19, 25' etc. When I monitor the usb port using 
> the monitor built into the boards development program, this is working 
> ok, but when I try 'cat /dev/ttyUSB0' (or run a program I'm trying to 
> write to interpret the data on the computer), it just opens and closes 
> the file without printing anything. Can anyone help with this, or 
> suggest a better place that I should ask for help?
>   
P.S. I have discovered that this problem only occurs after having run 
the (java based) arduino development program. If I reboot after running 
it, the usb device behaves properly.