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[Smokie]

wil try tomorrow
gr Henk

[Jonesdee]

Hi Tom

Tried 7.5 on 2 PCs with the same issue as already reported - EEprom Corrupt or Blank and failure to write due to connection failure.

Will watch progress and re-try later tonight or tomorrow.

Many thanks for all your efforts on our behalf when you have so much else going on right now!!!

Cheers

Dave

Edit: Should have added that V7.4 works fine on both PCs

[TCWORLD]

Tried 7.5 on 2 PCs with the same issue as already reported - EEprom Corrupt or Blank and failure to write due to connection failure.

Which OS are you using? I wonder if it is specific to the OS.

[almcl]

Well the upload appears to have been a success. If you now try disconnecting the USB and reattaching it, and the click the Configure button from the main screen does it run the configuration?

Afraid not.

It just says:
:O11
Awaiting Response...
null
Failed to recieve response.
Read Failed!! Connection unavailable.

Tried powering down and disconnecting but the with the same result.  Fortunately can still upload V7.4 and everything works again.

The latest debug file is attached. 

[PhilCrompton]

Hello Tom,

Same situation here. Firmware update seems to work fine but then it fails to connect. Have attached the debug output.

One other annoyance is that after you click the Done in the configuration screen it does not close the COM port. The light on the AstroEQ is flashing like mad. This means that the Config test step cannot work successfully unless you unplug the USB cable and plug it in again before you click the Next button on the "Configuration Stored Successfully!! screen

Kind regards and good luck.

Phil

p.s. OS is Windows 7 Ultimate SP1, 32bit.

[TCWORLD]

One other annoyance is that after you click the Done in the configuration screen it does not close the COM port. The light on the AstroEQ is flashing like mad. This means that the Config test step cannot work successfully unless you unplug the USB cable and plug it in again before you click the Next button on the "Configuration Stored Successfully!! screen

The config utility does close the COM port once it has configured - or at least it should do (it does on mine). The link light on the AstroEQ will keep blinking regardless, its basically just showing that the USB host knows it is there.

There seems to be something weird going on that I can't recreate. My PC is Win7 x64 and it works fine having tried both the x64 and x86 versions of Java 1.8.0. I've also tried a Win7 x86 virtual machine trying both JRE 1.7.0 and JRE 1.8.0, as well as a Win10 x64 virtual machine with JRE 1.8.0 and all of those also work fine.

When you try to run the config, in the debug window how long does it take between printing "Awaiting Response..." and printing "null"? Is it on the order of 10 seconds, or is it instantaneous?

[Jonesdee]

Tried 7.5 on 2 PCs with the same issue as already reported - EEprom Corrupt or Blank and failure to write due to connection failure.

Which OS are you using? I wonder if it is specific to the OS.

Possibly Tom, both machines are running Win 10 Home with latest updates installed.  Unfortunately I don't have Win 7 running on anything at the moment.

Please excuse my ignorance but can I simply copy and paste the debug log to a text file to send it to you (or is it saved somewhere)?

Debug Log for firmware upgrade attached

[TCWORLD]

One last new version for the evening - attached to original post.

If that doesn't work I'll give up for the night and have another look into it over the weekend.

[Jonesdee]

Hi Tom

Downloaded the latest version and attempted to upgrade from 7.4 which I had restored using the previous config utility.

It failed with the message Read Failed!! Connection unavailable.  Debug log attached . .

Cheers
Dave

[TCWORLD]

I've just realised I'm being completely thick!

I'm in the process of adding some smarts to allow the ST4 port to be used for an "Advanced" hand controller (basically it will be a bit banged SPI to some smarts somewhere), as well as the "Basic" hand controller (a push button to GND on each ST4 pin). The 6th unused pin on the ST-4 port with the help of a resistor is used to determine which if any hand controller is connected.

The reason I am having no problems is because I've been testing with the V4.6 hardware board I have in front of me. This already contains the necessary resistor to make the detection process work. I realise now that those of you using an older hardware variant, or one of the Mega variants will not have that resistor installed which is confusing the firmware into thinking you have plugged in a hand controller and so it disables the serial port and thus doesn't respond to the config utility! I've confirmed the issue with an Arduino Mega board I have lying around.

Until I have finalised the advanced hand controller interface and had a chance to explain where to add the new resistor, I have commented out the section of code which detects the advanced hand controller. It is still possible to use the basic hand controller as that doesn't require the resistor to function.

When everything is finalised I think I will end up having two firmware versions, one with the advanced interface for those with the necessary resistor, and one without for those who do not wish to solder on a resistor.


Those who were having the issue with the read failing, please download the latest version attached to the first post in this thread. The problem is now corrected.

I must build up an old version controller to test with as well as the new one in future.

[TCWORLD]

I've also just thought of a possible reason why the Arduino Mega boards suffer from not being able to load EQMOD during the configuration process without unplugging and plugging back in (@ PhilCrompton what you are seeing).

After configuration is done, the firmware uses the watchdog timer to reset the MCU to pull it out of programming mode and load the new configuration. The old Arduino Mega bootloader was badly written when it comes to the watchdog and it basically gets stuck in a loop because the bootloader doesn't bother to clear the watchdog timer when it starts. When the AstroEQ firmware enables the watchdog it sets the timeout to about 65ms, whereas on the Mega boards the bootloader will take about 2 seconds before it decides to do anything with the watchdog. This puts the bootloader into an endless reset loop. (more here: http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=249195.0)

Over the weekend I'll modify the firmware so that it sets the timeout on the watchdog to be 4s on the Mega variants so that there is time for it to get through the bootloader and into the AstroEQ firmware (which will reset the watchdog correctly). This won't affect the ATMega162 versions because when I modified the bootloader for it I fixed the watchdog bug.

[Jonesdee]

I've just realised I'm being completely thick!

I'm in the process of adding some smarts to allow the ST4 port to be used for an "Advanced" hand controller (basically it will be a bit banged SPI to some smarts somewhere), as well as the "Basic" hand controller (a push button to GND on each ST4 pin). The 6th unused pin on the ST-4 port with the help of a resistor is used to determine which if any hand controller is connected.

The reason I am having no problems is because I've been testing with the V4.6 hardware board I have in front of me. This already contains the necessary resistor to make the detection process work. I realise now that those of you using an older hardware variant, or one of the Mega variants will not have that resistor installed which is confusing the firmware into thinking you have plugged in a hand controller and so it disables the serial port and thus doesn't respond to the config utility! I've confirmed the issue with an Arduino Mega board I have lying around.

Until I have finalised the advanced hand controller interface and had a chance to explain where to add the new resistor, I have commented out the section of code which detects the advanced hand controller. It is still possible to use the basic hand controller as that doesn't require the resistor to function.

When everything is finalised I think I will end up having two firmware versions, one with the advanced interface for those with the necessary resistor, and one without for those who do not wish to solder on a resistor.


Those who were having the issue with the read failing, please download the latest version attached to the first post in this thread. The problem is now corrected.

I must build up an old version controller to test with as well as the new one in future.

Well done Tom !

[almcl]

The latest version (downloaded this morning) works fine here, Tom.

Well done! (Again!)  Your customer service puts commercial players to shame.

Looking forward to hearing about the 'stand alone' handset-only capability. 

[Smokie]

tested the new version this morning

not working see print scr

gr,Henk

[TCWORLD]

tested the new version this morning

not working see print scr

gr,Henk

Make sure you upload the firmware first. You are probably running the old version as it is not responding to one of the new commands.