Today I had troubles with my Omnikey CardMan 6121 smart card reader.
For some reason it will not detect the card inside and was unusable.
/var/log/messages was filled with Card Not Powered messages:
Dec 18 11:17:55 localhost pcscd: eventhandler.c:292:EHStatusHandlerThread() Error powering up card: -2146435050 0x80100016
Dec 18 11:18:01 localhost pcscd: winscard.c:368:SCardConnect() Card Not Powered
Dec 18 11:18:02 localhost pcscd: winscard.c:368:SCardConnect() Card Not Powered
I've found the solution in RHBZ #531998.
I've found the problem, and it's purely mechanical. Omnikey has simply screwed up when they designed this reader. When the reader is inserted into the ExpressCard slot, it gets slightly compressed. This is enough to trigger the mechanical switch that detects insertions. If I jam something in there and force it apart, then pcscd starts reporting that the slot is empty.
Pierre Ossman, https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=531998#c12
So I tried moving the smart card a millimeter back and forth inside the reader and that fixed it for me.
This smart card is standard SIM size and I wonder if it is possible to use dual SIM smart phones and tablets as a reader? I will be happy to work on the software side if there is an open source project already (e.g. OpenSC + drivers for Android). If not, why not?
If you happen to have information on the subject please share it in the comments. Thanks!
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