Why are my COM ports busy? - python-3.x

Question

I have a python program I am using to talk to a microcontroler. It opens the com ports like this:
def STM32_connect():
ports = list(serial.tools.list_ports.comports())
for p in ports:
if "STM32" in p.description:
connection = serial.Serial(p.device, timeout = .01)
return(connection)
print("ERROR: No STM32 Device Found")
sys.exit()
serial_connection = STM32_connect()
And then does a bunch of things, sending and receiving data until I close the program like this with a keyboard interput:
except:
print("\n Program Interrupted...")
finally:
print("\n Closing Serial Port\n")
serial_connection.close()
This all works fine. My problem is when the python script is improperly killed by disconnecting the USB cable or powering off the board I can no longer connect to the micro on any COM port. I receive this error:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/---/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/serial/serialposix.py", line 265, in open
self.fd = os.open(self.portstr, os.O_RDWR | os.O_NOCTTY | os.O_NONBLOCK)
OSError: [Errno 16] Device or resource busy: '/dev/ttyACM2'
During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "flextester.py", line 1, in <module>
from flex_usb_class import *
File "/home/---/Code/RobotFlexTester/flex_usb_class.py", line 30, in <module>
serial_connection = STM32_connect()
File "/home/---/Code/RobotFlexTester/flex_usb_class.py", line 25, in STM32_connect
connection = serial.Serial(p.device, timeout = .01)
File "/home/---/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/serial/serialutil.py", line 240, in __init__
self.open()
File "/home/janey/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/serial/serialposix.py", line 268, in open
raise SerialException(msg.errno, "could not open port {}: {}".format(self._port, msg))
serial.serialutil.SerialException: [Errno 16] could not open port /dev/ttyACM2: [Errno 16] Device or resource busy: '/dev/ttyACM2'
I can change COM ports and I receive the exact same error at a different ttyACM port. But I can connect to the same device on the same port if I try to run a different python script. The problem seems to somehow be locked to the initial test script but ps -a does not show it to still be running. The problem goes away without me doing anything after about 30 seconds - 1 min.

Answer 1

the 30s to 1min delay are due to the internals of RS232 protocol. see the closing_wait option ( default 30 sec ) in setserial command ( http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/zesty/man8/setserial.8.html ) when disconnecting USB cable and connection is killed the protocol waits for the time specified in the closing_wait option until it closes the port / session. session_lockout forbids attaching a second process to an open port...