PHY malfunction causes licensing confusion
BruteForce
confusion to our clients.
The client has registered a valid license key for the adapter and
worked normally for many days or weeks. One day, for no apparent
reason, the Unibrain evaluation code dialog is presented to the user
whenever she tries to run a FireAPI application. The user runs the
FireAPI Authorize application in an effort to reenter his license key
only to be presented with the GUID 0101010101010101.
Rebooting the PC or putting the adapter in another slot does not solve
the problem.
This is a classic "usability bug", in that the software misleads the
user to believe something else is wrong. That's why initially the
problem was internally labeled as the "GUID Corruption" issue.
I apologize for the confusion, but we don't get the chance to play with
broken adapters too often.
The real cause of this problem is a serious PHY malfunction. The
miniport driver (UBOHCI.SYS) does not test for proper PHY operation
when starting the device, so the 1394 adapter appears to be normally
started in Device Manager.
Attempting to do any operation from FireCommander will fail, usually
with the STATUS_1394_BUS_RESET error. In a read transaction that would
produce the following error message: "Read transaction was cancelled
due to a bus reset".
When this PHY malfunction has occured the adapter itself will not cause
a bus reset when attached to a 1394 bus, nor will it operate as a
repeater node.
Please follow the steps below to check for this condition:
(1) Does the suspect adapter attach properly to the bus?
Using a PC with a working 1394 adapter open FireViewer. Connect the
suspect adapter to the PC's adapter using a 1394 cable (use each port
in turn on the suspect adapter). Does the problematic adapter appear on
bus displayed by FireViewer?
(2) Does the adapter work properly as a repeater?
Try to connect 2 PCs using the suspect adapter as a repeater between
them. Use FireViewer to verify that the bus is properly structured and
that both PCs have the same view of the bus. Use FireCommander to do a
couple of config rom reads from one PC to the other.
Attach a camera to the adapter of PC1 and use Firei on PC2 to display
the image and control the camera. Switch to MS 1394 drivers (using
UBSWITCH) and try the same test.
(3) Do the MS drivers work properly with the adapter?
Swtich the PC to MS stack. Attach one or more cameras. Do they appear
on device manager? Connect two PCs and setup the IP addresses so that
they are on the same subnet. Try to ping from one PC to the other.
A fix for this problem will be available shortly. UBOHCI.SYS will test
the PHY when starting up the adapter, and in case of malfunction it
will FAIL the start operation.
Dimitris Staikos