Couldn't open COM port

[Jason Armentrout]

All of a sudden now on my laptop I get message from FreeDV that it Couldn't open com port. Even though I can use it fine on other programs. Usinb USB to serial adapter. 

So I decided to try my desktop and same message. Even did a clean install of windows with nothing but freedv. I seem to hit a brick wall. I have tried every combo of settings and nothing will work. I even tried using Hamlib, but I have never been able to make that work with Icom 756pro even though CIV works fine with Mixw?

[C van Hilten]

Did you check the driver for the USB to serial ?
After a driver update by Windows for my prolific chip I had the same
problem .
On Win xp we had never problems but with win 7 and 8 Prolific blocked
some illegal chinese chips with newer drivers and from that time on
the problems started.
Windows 8 for some reason needed again other drivers and when you have
found a working driver it could stop after an update of the driver by
windows.

Kees PA0CVH

sometimes updates the driver
Jason Armentrout schreef op 19-11-2013 2:48:

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[Jason Armentrout]

I am using the Prolific USB driver and like I said it works fine with Mixw, can key radio no problem. Not sure what else to try different. Attached is version of driver I'm using.

[Jason Armentrout]

Well, I made some progress. 

After trying various different Prolific drivers and trying different USB ports on my laptop, which I found only one works properly with the USB to serial. Others won't load driver, very strange. Must be on a different root hub.

I also found that the ser2pl.sys file (or in my case ser2pl64.sys) was missing from c:\windows\system32\drivers

Reference this forum http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_vista-hardware/prolific-pl2303-usb-to-serial-port-adapter-driver/1902e9e0-4af0-4f36-84bc-f487d4022f1f

So after reloading drivers and copying the sys file I seem to have regained control of com port. (freedv isn't complaining anymore)

Wow com ports and especially USB to serial devices are picky. I already knew this to some degree, but never had such the abnormally with FreeDV, where it wasn't happy but other programs were.

Now I need to tackle my desktop. I am using a Digi 8 port PCI serial card in that I used a long time ago. I have no experience with using this card with Win7 64bit. It worked back in the day when I had xp. I installed it in a newer computer and digi has Win 7 64 drivers and the com ports show up fine. For some reason FreeDV doesn't like these ports either. I ordered a cheapo 2 port serial card today so will give that a whirl when it comes in. Again Mixw works fine with CAT control and separate PTT via digi serial ports. FreeDV must be more picky about COM ports for some reason. I have never had so much trouble before.

Jason

N4DSL

[Jason Armentrout]

Well I think what I did earlier was a false alarm. Soon as unplugged USB to serial out and back in it quit again. 

Is anyone else using USB to serial? Does FreeDV require a real serial port? What is everyone else using for PTT?

Also what is interesting. If I set the serial port in FreeDV it will say can't open serial port then it puts radio in to TX until I close FreeDV down. 

[Tony Langdon]

On 20/11/13 10:34 AM, Jason Armentrout wrote:
> Well I think what I did earlier was a false alarm. Soon as unplugged
> USB to serial out and back in it quit again.
>
> Is anyone else using USB to serial? Does FreeDV require a real serial
> port? What is everyone else using for PTT?

Yes, I've been using a G4ZLP USB interface (which has 2 internal
USB-serial converters internally - one for CAT, one for PTT). My
interface uses the FTDI chipset on both ports. I've never had an issue
(except for unrelated RFI related lockups and resets, until I
reconfigured the wiring and added some ferrites). I've since moved
house and have a much better grounding system, which has totally
eliminated RFI issues in the shack and elsewhere.

--
73 de Tony VK3JED/VK3IRL
http://vkradio.com

[Richard Shaw]

On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 5:34 PM, Jason Armentrout <jason.ar...@gmail.com> wrote:

Well I think what I did earlier was a false alarm. Soon as unplugged USB to serial out and back in it quit again. 

Is anyone else using USB to serial? Does FreeDV require a real serial port? What is everyone else using for PTT?

Yes, I use a (real, not fake) PL2303 based USB to serial adapter mostly without issue. I've only had two problems with it and only one of them is FreeDV related.

1. My opticoupler needs a little more juice than either RTS or DTR can provide alone so in FLDigi I use both, problem solved. In FreeDV you can only use one or the other. Not really FreeDV's fault, but a more FLDIgi type setup would be nice.

2. Since I have BOTH RTS and DTR hooked up the default serial logic in FreeDV causes my radio to go permanently into transmit. I've fixed this for myself by tweaking the code to make FreeDV respect the RTS/DTR=+V checkbox regardless of which keying method is used, but the patch is only applied to the Fedora builds.

Also what is interesting. If I set the serial port in FreeDV it will say can't open serial port then it puts radio in to TX until I close FreeDV down. 

Sounds like something else is trying to grab the port? Not sure on Windows, on Linux ModemManager is bad about that and the only good solution is to uninstall it.

Thanks,

Richard

KF5OIM 

[C van Hilten]

Jason Armentrout schreef op 20-11-2013 0:34:

> Is anyone else using USB to serial?

Yes I used usb/serial interfaces to PTT my IC 706 on FREEDV.
With some other PA s we had a lot of negative experiencies. It depends
on the windows version.
All my quit old interfaces (also quit cheap chinese types) worked on
windows XP with prolific drivers .Although I believe that not all chips
are prolific.

Windows 7 32 bit works also with my older interfaces

But from Windows 8 the problems begon. I believe also windows7 64 bit
gives problems.
The problem is introduced by prolific . On internet you can read that
they changed their drivers to stop illegal chinese interfaces to work.
As a consequence the newest prolific drivers therefore don t work with
the older interfaces also not with legal prolific chips..
You have to find out which older drivers will work. You can find them
still on internet.
But then there is another problem : after coupling a usb/serial in an
usb connection windows looks for the driver.
If its the first time you connect an interface to that specific USB port
windows installs the latest driver from windows update and the latest
drivers don't work with older prolific( or prolific like) chips


Windows 8 needs the latest prolific chip type HXD and then worked also
with FREEDV ,all other types give code 10 and a yellow warning
The also quit new Prolific chip HXA runs on windows 7 (32bit) but not on
windows 8.

Our experience is thatFREEDV is much more sensible to the usb/serial
interface or driver then other programs as Airmail and RMS express (for
winlink or winmor).
The Winmor ( and winlink) program RMS express has a simple terminal
hidden under the help tab.
With that program you can simply test whether a led parallel on the PTT
line switches on and off with the connect tab.
But thats not a guarentee that Airmail or FREEDV also work with that
settings when using the PTT tab is my experience Why ??? I don't know.
It seems also that after closing some programs the serial comport is
not closed, Then you need to start up windows again ...

I heard that FTDI interfaces have less problems but also then you can
have PTT problems.

> Does FreeDV require a real serial port?

The answer is NO. Of course its much easier but laptops with serial
interface are outdated.

73 PA0CVH

[Jason Armentrout]

Thanks for the info on the prolific. I have two different Prolific usb adapters. One is a cables to go with is supported by 64bit and never had any issues with it with other apps and use it with Hyperterminal all the time.

I can't believe FreeDV doesn't like my Digi 8 port card either. Digi makes quality stuff for commercial market.

I have ordered a 2 port PCI generic card and a FTDI chipset USB adapter and I will see how I fair with those. Too bad I have to do that since both the Digi and Prolific work with everything else, never had issues with either one before.

[Steve]

I did some browsing at sparkfun and adafruit and neither have any cheap USB, WiFi, or Bluetooth solutions. Most leave out the DTR/RTS pins.

A bunch of industrial solutions are available in the $200 USD range.

I seem to recall a screen app solution where a small screen comes up and you stick a detector over it with a suction cup and it operated the PTT through a simple circuit, but I couldn't find a link.

The PC I use the most has only USB, Bluetooth, and WiFi, so that's why I was looking for that kind of solution.

[Jasmine Strong]

You could do it trivially with a Teensy, about a dozen lines of code, and a MAX232.

-J.

[Richard Shaw]

On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 1:42 PM, Steve <coupay...@gmail.com> wrote:

I did some browsing at sparkfun and adafruit and neither have any cheap USB, WiFi, or Bluetooth solutions. Most leave out the DTR/RTS pins.

 

Is ~$6 cheap enough?

http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=103&cp_id=10311&cs_id=1031104&p_id=3726&seq=1&format=2

Mine seems to be a real pl2303, not the knock off and it's cheap enough not to take a chance on ebay.

Richard

 

[Dave Morton]

The prolific web site has Windows driver information at 

http://www.prolific.com.tw/US/ShowProduct.aspx?p_id=225&pcid=41 

There's a zip file to download that contains (in addition to driver software) a program to check for genuine prolific chips. It looks like you can just expand the zip file to get to the checker program. 

I used it a year or more ago to verify that USB to serial adapters were not counterfeit. 

Dave 

W7DMM 

[C van Hilten]

Be aware that under windows 8 only prolific HXD chips are checked as
genuine. A HXA chip is seen as open com port.
You have to use windows 7 to see that your HXA chip is a genuine HXA

Dave Morton schreef op 20-11-2013 21:24:

[Steve]

I have a Dynex cable that shows up in Linux as "Prolific Technology, Inc. PL2303 Serial Port" and seemed to work well in Win 7 when I ran that earlier in the year.  It seems to do fine on Ubuntu 13 also.  Sadly, it cost more than this Ten-Tec RX320 I picked-up at a swap meet to interface with :-)

[Stuart Longland]

On 21/11/13 07:29, Steve wrote:
> I have a Dynex cable that shows up in Linux as "Prolific Technology,
> Inc. PL2303 Serial Port" and seemed to work well in Win 7 when I ran
> that earlier in the year. It seems to do fine on Ubuntu 13 also.
> Sadly, it cost more than this Ten-Tec RX320 I picked-up at a swap meet
> to interface with :-)

That's the hard bit, is they frequently don't tell you on the box what
chipset the device has, let alone whether it's genuine or not.

I've got an ATEN-branded USB-serial adaptor, and an IBM-branded USB
IEEE1284/serial adaptor. Both allegedly use Prolific PL2303 chips for
the RS-232 port; the IBM adaptor uses some other Prolific chip for the
IEEE1284 port.

They work fine in Windows XP and in Linux: unless you're bit-banging
SPI, then they're hopeless. I haven't tried either in Windows 7 yet,
only bought a new laptop running Windows 7 on Tuesday and it came with a
serial port built-in, so I probably won't have much need for them there.

Regards,
--
Stuart Longland (aka Redhatter, VK4MSL)

I haven't lost my mind...
...it's backed up on a tape somewhere.

[Jason Armentrout]

Just received a FTDI chipset USB to serial and finally it works!

When I first plugged it in it was setup as COM13, since I have the Digi card installed. Wouldn't work on that com port so I went into device manager and changed it to COM1 and it started working! 

Here is the one I bought on Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006AA04K0/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

$15 and Prime free shipping, nice!

[Rudy Benner]

Yup, FTDI is the answer, went through that process myself. Prolific nightmares.

 

The USB to serial converter I bought has 4 (four) serial ports, nice.

 

ve3bdr

[Jason Armentrout]

Just thought I would add, I got my $5 Chinese knockoff 2 port PCI card today and after finding the correct drivers it works fine as well. Go figure, A high dollar digi card won't work but the cheapo works fine.

The drivers that came with it on CD wouldn't work, but did some digging online and found they were same card as this

http://www.sybausa.com/productInfo.php?iid=1123

You can get on on ebay here

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190978963310

[Steve]

I have an old PCI bus computer in the closet, but my Raspberry Pi can outrun it, and has oodles of I/O options :-) Ah the good old days...

On Monday, November 25, 2013 6:41:42 PM UTC-6, Jason Armentrout wrote:

Just thought I would add, I got my $5 Chinese knockoff 2 port PCI card today...