I have two PC systems at home, a desktop and a laptop. Both are windows 7 machines. My first connection to my Spirit Pro was with my desktop and that worked right off the bat. I found out later that it was connecting on Com4. But I really need to use my laptop so I can do field programming changes. On my first attempt to connect to my laptop, it didn't work. So I read some of the info in the manual and played around with changing the COM port in device manager. My laptop reports that COM3 and COM4 are in use. I am not sure what is using COM4 but COM3 is some Intel thing that I think is part of the system. I think the interface installed itself on COM5 but the Spirit software did not see that. So I tried selecting COM2. The first time, that worked but I came back later to reconnect and then it didn't work. So next I tried selecting COM6 and this has worked the last few times but the software shows it is connecting on Com2 even though I have COM6 selected in Device Manager.

So all this leaves me feeling uneasy. I am never sure if the software will connect or not from one time to the next on the laptop. The software doesn't let you tell it where to connect. When it doesn't connect, it only shows a COM3 which as I said above is in use by the laptop system.

So what can I do to make the connection process with my laptop more reliable?

Any chance down the road, you guys will build the device with a real USB port and not a USB to serial converter?

Hello,

I am not sure if I understand what is happening in your computers.
We are using the same method from the beginning, which is quite long time now (years).
I have to say that nobody had a similar issue as far as I know.

Normal situation is that you will connect the cable to your computer, start the unit, after initialization start the software and that is all. You do not have to tinker with any ports at all. This is how it should work.

If you can see that unit is using a different port than you can see in device manager than this is very strange. This could only happen if the software is running all the time while something/someone is changing ports in the operating system.
Normally the ports are not changing at all. On the same computer there should be same port.

The USB interface has Silabs CP2102 chip so that can be recognized in the Device Manager in the COMs & LPTs quite easily.

What could happen (with some notebooks under Windows) is that operating system has internal COM port for bluetooth device. This device is sleeping and basically is doing nothing and is unused. This could make a troubles with detecting the unit. Disabling this device in the COM ports can solve this problem (or turning bluetooth off or changing COM port to the higher number).

Each computer could assign different COM port, but that is normal. Once they are assigned the OS should remember how it was assigned.
Technically it should not be possible to see a different COM ports than these that are available and are not used.

If you can't see it then something is still using this port. Did you closed the software correctly previously?

Once you start the software, it will learn which port was used (where the unit is). It should always automatically detect the unit. So when you will close it and start again, it will directly try port that was used previously.

We do not plan to change the USB interface to a HID - this will cause incompatibility between platforms. We want to support as much platforms as possible. Current solution can work basically everywhere.

Maybe I dont understand the problem correctly, but for sure there should be none So I believe that what is wrong can be resolved. The USB connection is the most reliable.

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Spirit System developer

well i will be trying it more over the weekend so I will see if I still have connection problems. But like i said, at first the laptop didn't connect. I did the same thing with both systems. Install the software and connect per the instructions. The desktop worked right away. The laptop did not connect until I messed around with the COM ports.

One issue though is that when it doesn't connect the software seems to hang so I am not sure how to stop it (without a hard reset) so i can change the COM port and try again.

I did order the wifi unit. I think it is very cool you guys offer both BT and wifi adapters. So if I keep having issues with the USB cable, I will have the wifi to fall back on.

Ah, so the problem is caused by the bluetooth module in your notebook.
This is reason why it does not work. Once the software is started it is scanning for the COM ports and units.
Unfortunately in Windows, when COM port is assigned to Bluetooth it is usually in the sleeping condition.
And once the software try to access it, the operating system does not allow to continue.

When you will disable COM port for the bluetooth, all will work always correctly. Or just turn off the bluetooth, this can make it work as well.
Unfortunately this error started to occur from Windows 7 in a certain cases and although we have tried to make workaround, the OS block the software completely.
So the only solution would be to find which COM port should be completely ignored.

But what I have described earlier will make it work for sure.

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Spirit System developer

Still having difficulty but I think I found a way to make it work. I have to start the software as admin. It does not seem to work if I don't do that. Here are some other things I tried.
I disabled Bluetooth. That didn't help.
I found out which driver was using COM4 and uninstalled it.
I have set the interface port to COM2, COM4, and COM6 all of which look to be available.
I tried starting from scratch by uninstalling the software and drive and reinstalling.

I currently have it working on COM2. Even with admin startup, i can't seem to get it to work on COM4 which should be clear now.

The software just stays stuck in "Please wait, scanning for devices" when it doesn't work.

So for now, it seems it will work on COM2 if I I run as admin.

Also, it pops right up on my Desktop on COM4.

Hello,

sorry for delayed reply.
Could you please take a screenshot from Device Manager with all devices in the COMs & LPTs?

Whatever problem is, it will be there. If there would be just one COM port from your USB interface, it must work for sure. As I said earlier, some adapter is blocking the access and it does not allow for software to continue anymore.. If you can disable this device, it will work always properly.

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Spirit System developer

I will make the screen shot when I get home. But understand, I am not even talking about the USB interface anymore. I am talking about the WIFI interface. So far, it will not work with the PC App on my laptop. The PC App won't launch. It gets stuck on that searching screen. I followed the instructions for the wifi. The app came up first in Demo mode. I clicked control W and selected the wifi IP. Then when I tried to restart the software, it just hangs. So I don't see what this has to do with COM ports anymore. But I did try un-installing the USB cable driver. That didn't help. Previously I tried disabling BT but that also didn't help.

Like I said before, this is not huge problem because the WIFI adapter works just fine with my laptop if I use the web interface or using my phone. It is just for completeness I am trying to figure out why the software hangs. It is probably the same reason I was having problems with the com port. I had found a work around for that by launching the software "Run as admin". That did not help with trying to connect with the WIFI.

I understand. Unfortunately as I said, when the OS is blocking software during scanning it is happening just because of one COM port that is "sleeping".
So at that point it has nothing to do with Wifi.

Once sorted, everything will work.

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Spirit System developer