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I am really cross. I give up. — Parallax Forums

I am really cross. I give up.

HughHugh Posts: 362
edited 2014-05-15 13:37 in Propeller 1
Just by opening the drawers in my desk I can lay my hands on nine propeller boards (one demo board, one quickstart board, a project board and the rest a mixture of protoboards).

Most of these have been re-used many times and come to the end of their lives when they are too encrusted with solder and/or components to be useful. One is green from being in the sea and still works. However, far, far too many have come to the ends of their lives when they are still functioning but cannot have their software changed due to the 'No Propeller chip found on any port' problem.

I have a protoboard to which an LCD display, IR receiver, three switches, five LED's, an SD card and optoisolator are soldered. This has been in development for weeks (if not months) and all of a sudden it cannot be updated. This occurred over a matter of seconds (between two instances of hitting F10) yet I have spent all evening trying to find a solution.

I can unplug the PropPlug from this board, successfully connect to two other boards and then fail to connect to this board again. From the LCD and displays I know that the Prop chip is working but the software isn't what I want it to be.
  • The pins for the PropPlug have been straightened, bent, curled and twisted - no joy.
  • The FTDI software shows the Com port being available
  • The Propeller Tool has been reset to accept default ports- no joy
  • The voltage regulators are giving 4.99 V and 3.30 V
  • I have unplugged and plugged-in the USB connector from the Prop Plug more times than I can count - no joy.
  • I have tried every USB lead I own and every USB connector on my PC - no joy.
  • My PC has been restarted ad nauseum.
  • I have persevered when the Prop Tool has got stuck on the "Checking Com n" message
  • I have persevered when the Prop Tool has created warning dialogues behind the Prop Tool window, making them unreachable and thereby unclosable - requiring use of task manager to close it down.
  • I have been naive enough to tick the box 'send data to Parallax' when the prop Tool has crashed out, only to have it reported that the failure reporting doesn't work.(How do I report that?!)
  • I have been thrilled when F7 has found a Prop on COM n, only to be devastated when it disappears again two seconds later.
Are there any possible ways around this problem (e.g., wire up the Prop Plug to the prop chip a different way)? I have a heck of lot of time and components invested in the current board and don't want to have to add it to the pile and start again or (worse) unsolder the lot and start again.

My evangelical zeal for the propeller is ebbing away by the minute - as is my will to live!.

Comments

  • Mike GreenMike Green Posts: 23,101
    edited 2014-05-14 14:32
    Do you have a 2nd PropPlug you can try? 90+% of "No Propeller chip found on any port" is due to: 1) No power to the Prop; 2) Bad serial connection somewhere between the PC and Prop. You've checked #1. Maybe there's an intermittent problem with the PropPlug?
  • Duane DegnDuane Degn Posts: 10,588
    edited 2014-05-14 14:55
    I've found programs with a lot of serial traffic can keep a board from being found. Try hitting reset half a second before pressing F11 or F10. It almost always works for me when a board is being stubborn.

    Edit: I have some other ideas if the above trick doesn't work.
  • Peter JakackiPeter Jakacki Posts: 10,193
    edited 2014-05-14 15:54
    As Duane mentioned this can be a problem with serial traffic, or perhaps more correctly with the Prop tool. The trouble with serial chips these days is that the buffers are so deep and if your Prop is spitting out serial data that when it does gets the reset signal from the Prop tool then there's all that data in the buffer that hasn't been flushed. Try setting the serial port to the correct port which I know is harder to do on windows and issue an F7 then quickly discard that and try your F11. The other thing is to change the level of buffering on that port if you go into the port's properties (device manager, port (com&lpt), <port>, properties, port settings, advanced) and you will find the receive and transmit buffers set at 4,096. Try setting this figure very low for the receive buffer. I'm sure that's what the problem is.

    Another way is to hold the Prop in reset if you have a button for it and then release it about the same time you hit F11. All this is really only a problem in systems that are sending lots of serial data constantly.
  • Ken GraceyKen Gracey Posts: 7,392
    edited 2014-05-14 16:33
    We'd be happy to do some failure analysis on the hardware if you want to send some back to us. Often, these kinds of problems aren't what one initially thinks they are. Sometimes circuitry or power supplies damage chips, too. If we can get a closer look I bet we can assess the probably and continue to make your time investment in Parallax productive.

    Send to: Ken Gracey
    Parallax
    599 Menlo Drive
    Rocklin, CA 95765

    I'll cover USPS back to you, too.

    But I'd first suggest we follow the above advice to see if we uncover other answers.

    Ken Gracey
  • groggorygroggory Posts: 205
    edited 2014-05-14 16:36
    Ken Gracey wrote: »
    We'd be happy to do some failure analysis on the hardware if you want to send some back to us. Often, these kinds of problems aren't what one initially thinks they are. Sometimes circuitry or power supplies damage chips, too. If we can get a closer look I bet we can assess the probably and continue to make your time investment in Parallax productive.

    Send to: Ken Gracey
    Parallax
    599 Menlo Drive
    Rocklin, CA 95765

    I'll cover USPS back to you, too.

    But I'd first suggest we follow the above advice to see if we uncover other answers.

    Ken Gracey

    I love Parallax.
  • prof_brainoprof_braino Posts: 4,313
    edited 2014-05-14 17:56
    Are you using windows? How many virtual comports has it assigned? With nine prop boards in your drawer I guess the number might be nine or higher. I was testing 20 quickstarts for a robot building class, things started gettting flakey when the comport numbers got too high.

    I did the reset comports thingie

    https://code.google.com/p/propforth/downloads/detail?name=ResetComports.bat

    and the problems went away. I don't know if this was the actual problem, maybe I was just disorganized, but once the number of virtual comprts was back to one or two, I didn't notice the problems any more.

    The other thing was I removed a bunch of extra USB devices. As the others has said, the serial communication can get messed from the PC side. In particular, a guy had a cheap USB printer that interfered with his prop. Turns out it was the crapware constantly asking if the printer was low on supplies. Removing the offensive printer allowed the prop to work again.
  • PJAllenPJAllen Banned Posts: 5,065
    edited 2014-05-14 18:37
    Hugh wrote: »
    My evangelical zeal for the propeller is ebbing away by the minute - as is my will to live!.

    Well, given that, all I can really add is... Jump! :zombie:
  • mmowenmmowen Posts: 38
    edited 2014-05-14 22:42
    I heartily agree with the "love Parallax" sentiment. Excellent products. Excellent documentation. Excellent support.
  • HughHugh Posts: 362
    edited 2014-05-15 00:05
    Thank you all, not only for your replies and suggestions but for not ignoring my spleen-venting in the first place.

    I hereby retract my negative comments - this failure was, in fact, nothing to do with any Parallax product, hardware, software or documentation...

    With the exception of a different Prop Plug I tried all of the suggestions without any luck. I tried re-installing the FTDI drivers - no change. I tried a different computer - no change. When I ran Prof_braino's batch file I noticed a Com port in Device Manager named 'Blackberry [virtual something-or-other]' (or similar). Uninstalling the Blackberry Software package cured the problem. It was also on the second computer I had tried; it is something to do with a Blackberry tablet with which one of my children had dallied before plumping for an iPad.

    Ken: your response was perfect and typical of one of the reasons we all love Parallax. :thumb:

    P J Allen: Yes, life without the Prop would not be worth living. (I told my wife that I was nearly suicidal because this project wouldn't work. When I returned wearing a ginger wig, a big red plastic nose and astride a unicycle, she asked "You're not going to do anything silly, are you?")

    Lessons learnt:

    1) Keep the faith in Parallax
    2) Don't let children near any technology you might want to expect to function correctly in the future.


    Thanks again,
    Hugh
  • Sir GawainSir Gawain Posts: 32
    edited 2014-05-15 10:10
    For me, when I was plagued by this problem, it was that I was using a laptop which I thought would be great, because it ran Windows 7.
    Alas, although it did, I needed a faster laptop - the problem disappeared.
    Occasionally, I would just have to wait something like 2 minutes for Windows to recognize it (the board).

    Now I use a MacBook Pro with BootCamp,
    and with that problem gone, love love love the Prop.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2014-05-15 11:37
    Huge,

    Lessons learnt:...
    3) Don't use Windows for anything you actually want to work reliably.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2014-05-15 13:37
    PJ Allen wrote: »
    Well, given that, all I can really add is... Jump! :zombie:

    @PJ: I always thought that Van Halen's song "Might as well Jump" would be a poor choice of "hold music" for a suicide hotline.

    @Hugh: Happy to hear you're back in business.
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