IFI Loader usually hangs midway thru load

[gnormhurst]

I am struggling with IFI loader intermittently hanging. The progress bar makes it part way across and then it hangs. Even with the default code from the web site! Sometimes it makes it all the way, the terminal window pops up and the code runs. But it takes about 3-5 tries to get a successful load. This is slowing down development. By the time it actually loads and runs, I have sometimes forgotten the change I was trying! :confused: But that's mostly due to middle age...

By "hanging" I mean that the progress bar stops moving, I click on the "X" to kill the program and I get a dialog box that tells me that the program is not responding, which lets me kill it. I then re-launch IFI Loader and try again. After 3-5 cycles of this, it usually succeeds.

I started with version 1.0.6 on Windows 2000 Pro SP2 on a Dell Latitude CPi 366 MHz 128 MB with a "real" serial port. I upgraded W2K to SP3 (because Dashboard would not install otherwise), then reinstalled IFI Loader to see if that would help -- no change. I called David Maxwell at IFI, a nice guy who tried to be helpful but could not think of much more than "try the new version" (1.0.7), which I did, but no change, it still hangs 4 out of 5 tries.

I'm out of ideas. What can I try? Could another app be touching the COM port in the background? How would I know? Are there COM port settings I can change? Buffer settings? Can I slow down the serial port on the RC to 56K? A reliable loader at half the speed would be a big improvement!

-Norm

[sscanf]

Hi Norm,

I'm not really a windows guy but we have no choice.... I'll suggest the obvious before anyone else does:

1. Make sure nothing else is running, including the stuff that is displayed in the little box in the lower right hand corner. I had to kill off my plam hotsync manager to get the loader to work (but it didn't work at all until then).

2. Check the cable, try a different cable.

3. Check the port/pins (my brother once had a little tiny piece of celophane create a miserable day for him). Try a different one if possible.

4. Check the battery on the controller. Maybe its borderline?

5. Hold your breath and cross your fingers.

It seems like the port settings can't be tweaked (parity, etc.) so that couldn't be a problem. Right? This is what has given me problems when dealing with other controllers.

Good luck.

Dan Rasmussen

[gnormhurst]

1. Make sure nothing else is running, including the stuff that is displayed in the little box in the lower right hand corner. I had to kill off my plam hotsync manager to get the loader to work (but it didn't work at all until then). Yes, I had the same problem -- IFI Loader coudn't find the port until I killed off another app that was looking for serial input.



2. Check the cable, try a different cable.

Yup, did that.



3. Check the port/pins (my brother once had a little tiny piece of celophane create a miserable day for him). Try a different one if possible.

I feel bad for your brother! The cables have been in and out of both ends many times; I'll check it, but I kinda doubt it.



4. Check the battery on the controller. Maybe its borderline?

Changed the battery already. I'll double check the voltage. What does "borderline" mean (how many volts)?




5. Hold your breath and cross your fingers.

I do that a lot. It's like spinning a roulette wheel every time I hit "Download".



It seems like the port settings can't be tweaked (parity, etc.) so that couldn't be a problem. Right? This is what has given me problems when dealing with other controllers.

Me, too. David Maxwell at IFI agreed that the port settings on the RC are fixed. I wanted to slow it down, because I think my laptop's serial port doesn't really do 115Kbaud properly.

My next two steps are to try a Bafo BF-810 USB to serial converter, then try another PC.

Good luck.

Dan Rasmussen

Thanks, Dan!

[Ryan Cumings]

We were having the exact same problem with our programming laptop (actually we've had problems with every programming laptop). My solution was to annex the workstation that 3d studio max group uses which has given us better luck.

[gnormhurst]

An update: I moved all the tools to another laptop, an IBM running windows 2000 service pack 4, and now the IFI loader works fine. David Maxwell at IFI suspects, as do I, that the serial port on my Dell Latitude CPi was not working properly at 115Kbaud, even thought it worked fine with Dashboard (which David says runs at 19.2Kbaud).

The new laptop solves the problem, but it is someone's main computer, which makes it inconvenient for them. So I will try a Bafo BF-810 USB to serial converter with my Dell and see if that will work, bypassing the bad serial port.

Note that the Bafo converter is one of two that IFI lists as "known good" converters for this task. Apparently some are not up to it!

-Norm