Hi,

When you are using an i2cread PBP does it in a open collector fashion. That means for a 1 it sets the pin to an input and for a 0 it sets the pin to an output with 0. This ensures that the i2cread routine can read the acknowledge from the peripheral. As it might hold the line low itself. It is obvious that the port directions are handled by PBP itself. What is really important are the pull-up resistors on the SDA and SCL line. Without them the open collector line is erratic!!!

Hope this helps

Regards

Sougata