Category: EtherCAT
Just to expand on what Grotius and Hakan have pointed you in the right direction as they are totally correct for how things are done today, and you are thinking of how it was done the old way.
I remember your name and I'm sure you were using "ec-debianize" and you are most likely still use to the old way of how it was done. Things changed a few years back as "ec-debianize" has been deprecated and therefore the "sudo update-ethercat-config" command is no longer used.
Just to clarify a little further, you don't have to do a reload for how things are done today whether you do a full source build or Rod's Repo install. Neither way requires a reload after the install as once you do all the "systemctl enable and systemctl start" commands from the install, then it works over and over and what is confusing you is that you are use to doing a "sudo update-ethercat-config" after setting up the ethercat.conf file. Trust me, it's fully burned into my brain also... I will never forget that command LOL.
Also this command was used for 2 purposes back in the day. #1 was for loading the ethercat.conf file and getting E-CAT working from a fresh build, but #2 it was also if you had a setup with startup hardware/permission issues. So, if you did an "ec-debianize" build and once everything was installed but yet when you did a "ethercat master" you would get a "Failed to obtain number of masters... ", so you could do a "sudo update-ethercat-config" to get it reloaded and working. For some reason, an ec-debianize build would once in awhile not work on start-up and this was an easy quick fix instead of doing a reboot of the system over and over until the master worked. If you have this issue with Rod's Repo install or a source build and need to do the same type of fix, use the "sudo chmod 777 /dev/EtherCAT0" command as this will do the same as "sudo update-ethercat-conf" to get the master up and working. None of the other commands will work for this problem as I have checked all the different ways. I have several setups that work flawlessly, but I have 2 with hardware issues and this is the quick fix to get the master up.
Hope it helps.
Robert
@Grotius and Hakan: Alway's glad to see you guys here helping us all.