PropTool 2.9.3 fails loading a (not too) large P1 program

Ding-Batty

This is about the "Error: communication stalled due to system problem" that seems to happen sometimes. I started seeing that failure after installing V2.9.3, but only for some of my programs, and it seemed to happen only with the largest program images.

In fact, the large program is loaded, but PropTool reports a communications failure.

I have reduced the problem to a simple test program, which has a large LONG array in a DAT section, and when the size is increased by one LONG, the failure is triggered.

Program (also attached as no_op_memory.spin):

CON { General constants }
  _CLKMODE = XTAL1 + PLL16X
  _XINFREQ = 5_000_000

DAT
  ' Make the binary image big. Too big, and P1 load fails in PropTool 2.9.3 on
  ' a Windows 7 machine with the latest FTDI drivers.
  'KeepMemory     LONG 0[6083]    ' Loads OK
  KeepMemory     LONG 0[6083 + 1] ' Fails

  ' PropTool error dialog:
  '   "Error: communication stalled due to system problem"

' ========================================================================
PUB Main
  repeat  ' wait forvever.

This happens after a fresh install of 2.9.3. It does not happen with the old PropTool 1.3.2, nor the other Spin compilers.

My system:
Window 7, 32GiB memory
latest FTDI drivers, downloaded today from the FTDI website (I had originally allowed the PropTool installer to also install its USB drivers, but I saw the driver version seemed to be from 2016.)

I tried quite a few settings variations for the COM port (Advanced settings), but nothing seemed to help.

I saw that Prof. Braino (@profbraino) had reported this back in Aug. 2023, and I was surprised that no one responded.

Ding-Batty

A little more info:

I've tried both USB2 and USB3 ports -- no difference.

I'm using a Propeller Board of Education, item 32900 Rev. B

VonSzarvas

Tip! If you report this issue to support@parallax.com you would catch the attention of the PropellerTool author. Jeff is covering that desk at the moment

Ding-Batty

@VonSzarvas said:
Tip! If you report this issue to support@parallax.com you would catch the attention of the PropellerTool author. Jeff is covering that desk at the moment

Thanks! E-mail sent.

lab_ges

Hi @Ding-Batty, just wondering if you ever got this resolved?
I have a Windows 11 machine that does this all the time when talking to P1 hardware, it times out and gives the "Error: communication stalled due to system problem" message but the programming is obviously still communicating at this time, if i wait tim ehte programmer LED stops blinking it will have worked OK.

I tried this on a windows 10 laptop, same problem?

I have moved to SPINTOOLS for most things because of this problem and also the flaky serial port handling in Proptools 2.xx but for some updates I need to use the .eeprom extension and that is only supported by Proptools.

Ding-Batty

@lab_ges said:
Hi @Ding-Batty, just wondering if you ever got this resolved?

Back in April, Jeff Martin got back to me (after some e-mail issues), that he was able to reproduce the problem and would look into it, but thought the actual issue might be hard to track down.

lab_ges

@Ding-Batty thanks for that, I guess I should wait and see.
I have an old Windows 7 laptop and it doesn't have the problem, looks like I will stick with SpinTools as much as posible.
@"Jeff Martin" Hi Jeff, any progress on serial port timeouts on a P1? It seemes to be a very common fault with Propeller Tool 2.9.3 at least. Thanks.