diff --git a/portsh/portsh.py b/portsh/portsh.py
index 87f98b6..aa555ea 100755
--- a/portsh/portsh.py
+++ b/portsh/portsh.py
@@ -207,17 +207,17 @@
         if got:
             trace('(got %s)' % s)
             return got[:-len(s)]
-    raise port.ModemError("didn't find %r after 10 tries")
+    raise port.ModemError("didn't find %r after 10 tries" % s)
 
 
 PY_SCRIPT1 = r"""
-stty sane; stty -echo; python -Sc '
+dmesg -n1; stty sane; stty -echo; python -Sc '
 import sys, zlib
 print "%s-READY\n" % "SPLITTER";
 b = sys.stdin.readline().strip()
 exec(zlib.decompress(b.decode("base64")))
 assembler("SPLITTER")
-'; printf %s-EXIT-97\\n SPLITTER; stty sane; cat
+'; printf %s-EXIT-97\\n SPLITTER; stty sane; dmesg -n6; cat
 """
 
 def main():