CHIRP

Hmm, the error you're getting means chirp is getting absolutely nothing back from the radio. Any chance you're selecting the wrong serial port or don't have the radio connected?

What version of the Baofeng software are you using (at the very bottom of the window).

in windows have no problem closing chirp and opening Baofeng and connecting to the radio, same port number

and of course in Ubuntu there is only one TTYUSB to choose.

I will try a different computer and see what happens.

Synopsis of my testing:
Machine #1 Dell Precession Workstation 4500 - 8g ram I7 CPU - standard serial cable connected to a prolific USB adapter
Ubuntu 11.04 - attempt to connect with chirp using TTYUSB0 and no response from radio
VmMware workstation 8, load Windows XP Pro - chirp install.exe, USB adapter assigned to comm 8 attempt to connect and no response from radio
attempt to connect with Baofeng software connection a success.

Machine #2 Acer Netbook N270 processor 2g ram
Ubuntu 10.04 - attempt to connect with chirp using TTYUSB0 and no response from radio
Virtualbox 4, - windows xp pro, used chirp win32.zip, usb adapter assigned to com1, no response from radio
I found that during all of this testing the radio became very hot to the touch, I unplugged it and restarted the virtual box, about 30 minutes later I tried again and chirp connected and read the radio properly.

I then went back to machine #1 repeated all tests with all of the same results as my first round of tests.

hope this helps, Thank you

First off, please try today's daily build as I relaxed the serial timeout, which may help.

If your radio is getting hot, something is wrong. Is it going into transmit mode by chance? Unfortunately, they seem to not contain any of the normal RFI suppression on the serial line, and thus if you have the programming cable plugged in an try to transmit, the radio will continue to key itself indefinitely until you unplug the cable or turn it off. This would explain (a) the radio getting hot and (b) the radio not responding (because it's transmitting).

This could be related to something else having the serial port open and/or your virtualization software. When I pass my serial port through to my Windows VM, the radio briefly blips into transmit mode. Sometimes it is quick enough and it stops transmitting, but other times it is too long and the radio will stay keyed until I stop it. You may want to check for this behavior and do something to mitigate it.

Sorry, no change in today's build.

Okay, any insight about the transmitting issue?

If I plug in my cable, key the transmitter manually for about a half second, it will stay keyed and then I see the exact behavior you do. If I power cycle the radio to stop it from transmitting, then it works.

Today's testing went like this:

laptop in the docking station gives me an actual serial port. Serial cable connected to wouxun radio read from chirp, no problem. read from UV-5r, no problem.

now back to the USB adapter, read from the wouxun, no problem, read from the UV-5r, error radio not responding.

So there is something in the USB adapter that does not bother the wouxun, but the UV-5R does not like, I guess I will try a usb cable from wouxun.us and see what happens.