Inobu,
I've taken a look at the whole thread and now see things that have been buried beneath your speculation about the way NCE USB communications work. Four things stand out to me:
1) A complete absence of JMRI system log transcripts from either you or Larry. We need to see those in both the working and non-working cases.
2) An "Unable to connect on ttyxxxx" message is not pointing to an NCE communications issue but an operating system level issue with the USB port, unrelated to the way NCE does communications.
3) The statements "You only have to do this on the initial install", "(Leave the Power Cab unconnected)" and "Start JMRI Panel Pro. (It will try to configure itself and you will have to change some settings.)". This could point towards some issue in what I understand to be an auto-configuration script in Steve's RPi distributions.
4) A total lack of reporting of the behaviour of two important NCE USB status indicators; the USB and CAB indicator LEDs. These provide vital troubleshooting information to both Ken and I, particularly when accompanied by system logs.
We need to put aside your speculation about how NCE communications work, your speculation that "This seems to be an inherent problem with the Power Cab as well", any suggestion that users should adopt your quite clumsy "workaround" as the solution and you, me, Ken and Steve work cooperatively to solve this problem properly.
Inobu, the ball is in your court to provide logs of both the non-working and working cases, along with accompanying information about the NCE Status LEDs' behaviour. You have the hardware and knowledge to perform these tests so please help us solve this cooperatively.
Larry, if you can provide any logs as well, they'd be much appreciated.
Dave in Australia
