Downloading from laptops

[Mike Mahar]

I have a very weird problem downloading. I can download successfully from any of my desktop machines but I can't download using any of my laptops. All of my laptops have RS232 ports on them so I'm not using any USB-RS232 converters. I have three different brands of laptops (Dell, Toshiba, Gateway) and the problem exits on all of them.

Is there some secret setting to the COM ports that I have to adjust? I've tried just about everything that I can think of. The IFI loader seems to set up the uart with its own values anyway.

The symptoms vary for different download attempts. Usually, the robots stays in download mode after the download completes. But sometimes, I get a hex dump in the terminal window.

The problem doesn't seem to happen when our executable is smaller, If our manipulator code is missing or the camera code is missing, it is more likely to succeed. Sometimes, the full download succeeds but that is rare.

Does the IFI loader use CTS/RTS or does it try to use X-on or X-off? I've messed with the buffers setting for the com ports but that doesn't seem to help either.

I find it odd that I can almost always download with my desktop machines. Most of the desktop machines are running Windows 2000 while the laptops are running XP. I have on Desktop that is running XP and that seem to download OK.

Is there some secret IFI loader setting or COM port setting or, perhaps, some XP background task that is bumping the download? The progress bar on the laptops seems to move slower than it does on the desktop machines but I haven't actually timed it.

Has anyone seen this problem? We've had it since the regionals last year.

[Alan Anderson]

The symptoms vary for different download attempts. Usually, the robots stays in download mode after the download completes. But sometimes, I get a hex dump in the terminal window.

The problem doesn't seem to happen when our executable is smaller, If our manipulator code is missing or the camera code is missing, it is more likely to succeed. Sometimes, the full download succeeds but that is rare.

This sounds like what would happen with an outdated version of the IFI Loader program. What version are you using on the laptops?

[SuperBK]

Silly question: have you tried some different cables? Are you using a full cable and not a homemade one? You could ask the cts/rts question on the IFI's forums.
Brian

[steveg]

Another thing to try is to make sure that the laptops are plugged in to AC Power when you try to download the code. I've found that sometimes that helps.

[Mike Mahar]

I've tried several different cables and there does seem to be some effect in that the few times it succeeds is when the cable is very short. All our cables are commercially made.

The loader is 1.1.0 which was update in Feb07.

The laptops are always run with the AC adaptor.

[Laaba 80]

Try going to the control panel, then click on system. Once in sytem go over to hardware, and make sure all settings are correct, and that the loader is sending the code to the correct port. We had this problem a few years and I cant remember what we did after we got to the hardware screen, sorry.
Joey

[Tapoore]

Have you tried reinstalling the loader? You probably have already thought of this, but that may work if you haven't...

[rhoads2234]

It also does wierd things on the computer if the user does not have administrative privledges. If they don't try making an accont that in admin and seeing if it will download for that account.

[Mike Mahar]

I've been to the com port system dialogs more times than I can count. I've re-installed the IFI loader several times and tried out old and new versions.

I don't recall checking for admin privledges. I'll check that out tonight.

We don't have problems downloading to the 2004/2005 controllers and we don't have problems downloading smaller executibles.

The weird thing is that it always works from the desktop machines and almost never works from laptops.

[Mike AA]

Have you tried to change the com port setting on IFI loader until it finds one that works? I've had that issue before.

-Mike

[Richard McClellan]

I had a similar problem recently. I couldn't download to the Vex controller from my laptop, but I could from several desktops. Results varied, but it would either fail to start downloading, fail halfway through, fail 1/3 through, fail 3/4 of the way through, etc. It was very strange.

I completely reinstalled Windows XP recently, reinstalled everything and it works perfectly every time, so I don't know what was wrong with it the first time.

[Mike Mahar]

I now have one of my laptops working and I'll try getting the others to work tomorrow.

I noticed that programs that were smaller than 0x8000 would download correctly while larger ones would not.

I also noticed that the IFI loader that ran on the desktop machines would print out that they were Erasing banks 1-8 but the laptop machines did not. The printed out a message that said it was erasing memory but nothing about bank numbers.

I found in the ifiloader directory in Program Files an INI file. This file has a variable called debug_level that was set to 0. I thought that I might get some insight if I raised this level so I edited the INI file to set the debug_level to 1

As soon as I did this, the loader started printing out the messages about erasing banks 1-8 and now larger executables download successfully. I was curious if this variable was set on my desktop machines. It is not set.

I went back to the laptop and changed the INI file back to its original state. The IFIloader still works!. I appears that changing the INI file somehow fixed the problem but changing it back does not cause the problem to reappear. IFIloader might write something into the registry but I couldn't find anything.

As I said, I'll try doing the same trick to the other laptops and see if that magically fixes things.