Transceive failed on Galaxy S3 with a NFC-B card

Question

I am working on an application for Android reading a contactless smart card but I have some problems with my Galaxy S3. Before to describe problems, I need to precise that on a PC, I can communicate perfectly with the card using the smartcardio API in Java and NFC readers from different manufacturers.

This card is detected as supporting technologies "IsoDep" and "NfcB" by the NFC stack. However, when I send my apdu command with "transceive", I get an exception "Transceive failed". I have tried to increase timeout but no better result.

iso = IsoDep.get(tag);
if (iso!=null) {
    try {
        iso.connect();
        // txMessage is a TextView object used for debugging purpose
        txMessage.setText("Max:"+iso.getMaxTransceiveLength()+" timeout:"+iso.getTimeout()+" connected:"+iso.isConnected());
        iso.setTimeout(2000);
        txMessage.setText("Max:"+iso.getMaxTransceiveLength()+" timeout:"+iso.getTimeout()+" connected:"+iso.isConnected());
        byte[] command = new byte[] {(byte) 0x00, (byte) 0xA4, (byte) 0x04,(byte) 0x00, (byte) 0x06,(byte) 0xA0,(byte) 0x00,(byte) 0x00, (byte) 0x00,(byte) 0x12,(byte) 0x00};
        byte[] response = iso.transceive(command);
        } catch (IOException e) {
            txMessage.setText(txMessage.getText()+"\n"+e.getMessage());
        }
}

When running this code, I get:

Max:261 timeout:309 connected: true
Max:261 timeout:2474 connected: true
Transceive failed

I have noticed that this card requires to be very close of the NFC antenna to work. I need to remove the additional plastic protection case (not the back cover) of my phone in order the card would be detected (I guess powered).

Before to post, I have read NFC typeb card not getting detected by any NFC application (like:nfctaginfo) and Android isodep.isConnected() returns false and maximum Transceive length:0 byte ,for type B card.? and several other posts elsewhere (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1705970 , http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=35960 ) but I did not find a solution.

A possible solution would be to try to communicate with an external antenna but I am not sure where to connect it? On battery connector where there is no "+" and "-"?

Another solution would be to try to communicate with the card with NfcB (NfcB nfcb = NfcB.get(tag);), but I do not know the ISO14443-3B protocol (I only know quite well APDU, T0-TPDU but not other TPDU protocols).

Just to be sure, I have updated my phone to Android 4.1.2 (instead of 4.1.1) but no better result.

I have exactly the same results with a Samsung Google Nexus S I9020 under Android 4.1.2 — moimoiici, Jun 26 '13 at 19:34
No better result with an external antenna on Galaxy Nexus S ... :-( — moimoiici, Jun 27 '13 at 09:35

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 20 '13 at 08:34

I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 too and I noticed that the connection performance for TypeB contactless cards is worse than for TypeA. Raising the timeout value seems to be a quick fix for problems of this kind, but as it didn't work for you, the problem might be with the strength of the RF-field. Have you tested if the call of transceive() fails because of the timeout or because of a connection loss? Maybe you could try raising the timeout even further, some operations might take a long time on a smart card.

Another suggestion to your problem is to remove the backcover of your S3 and place the smart card directly on the battery (the NFC antenna is integrated in there). In my experience it makes a slight difference where the chip is located on the smart card, so you could experiment with the orientation of the card. You might test this by sliding the card onto the battery from the bottom of the device to the top.

In my work with the Galaxy S3 (Android 4.1.1) I was able to connect to and transceive data to TypeA and TypeB contactless smart cards (German eID cards). I noticed that the TypeB card was lost sometimes without any reason while being idle. But I can send and receive data with it anyway. Even when the Chip on the card has to perform some computation and hence needs slightly more power from the RF field, the field of the NFC antenna seems sufficiently strong to keep the connection in my case. Maybe your card is not properly designed to work with lower power RF fields? Unfortunately to my knowledge there is no possibility to raise the power output of the NFC antenna on Android devices.

Communicating via the NfcB (NfcB nfcb = NfcB.get(tag);) does not seem to make any difference to me. I am able to comunicate via the IsoDep Object and transceive data perfectly.

Using an external or additional antenna would be worth a try. In this YouTube video it is shown how one can put an additional NFC antenna into the Galaxy S4. In the video you will notice the external antenna pins on the back of the S4. When watching the third picture here (Galaxy SIII teardown) - the one with the battery taken out - you will notice that there are additional antenna pins on the back of the SIII as well. The two golden contact pins on the left side. Googling a bit showed that these pins are named 'ANT500' and 'ANT501', so they are probably external NFC antenna contacts. If you search for "Samsung Galaxy Note2 external NFC antenna" or something similar on eBay (or any search engine), you will get the antenna used in the YouTube video. There are no official external NFC antennas for the SIII nor for the S4, but probably it will work. The antenna is not very expensive (currently around $5), so you might give it a try.

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 10 '14 at 09:48

It is definitely a timeout thing, and a compatibility thing with NXP NFC chips (like the one in the S3)

I have worked with Type B tags on an antenna with a higher Q factor than that of a typical mobile phone antenna, and when doing ISO-DEP I need to still change the default timeouts of the NFC chip that I'm using (NXP PN532). Type A modulation was developed by Phillps, now NXP. Type B modulation was developed by Motorolla, and is under license to NXP for its reader chips, so only a basic implementation is included relative the the Type A implementation.

I am not doing this on an Android, but an embedded platform, so I have full access to the NFC chip's features. Thus, only by using a more basic transeiving method that requires the application to handle the 14443-4 protocol and extending the timeout tolerance of the reader was I able to talk to a Type B tag using ISO-DEP

Android 4.4 has something called reader mode, that may have a feature that enables you to extend this timeout.

Transceive failed on Galaxy S3 with a NFC-B card

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