Getting this to work

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glenn
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Getting this to work

Post by glenn »

I beginning to get pretty irritated here.

I have several goteks with cortex software, no problem to program those with the flash loader.

Now I purchased a license för hxc, and tried to program it with my "normal" windows computer (I am normally a linux user, but have a windows machine for the times software only exist for windows), a pretty standard C2D with windows7 64bit.

It worked fine, I thought, found the serial port, found the server, found the license, found the gotek, i clicked "program" and it started to count.. to 49..

EVERY single time it stopped at 49/100, I can repeat this how many times I want, it ALWAYS stop at exactly 49.

WTF ?

Mailed jeff, and got the reply (the full reply)

"try another serial adapter or another machine."

..so I tried another serial adapter I had laying around.. same problem.

..so I tried another gotek unit.. same problem.

..So I tried another (win7) machine.. I couldnt even get to the counting-part

I got the suggestionn that the software was so crappy it didnt work on 64bit (really, 2016 ??) , sounded strange, but I digged up an old laptop with win7 32bit.. same problem, doesnt even s tart to count..

I got the suggestion that it doesnt work on win7 at all, XP works best..

..So I tried on my old EPROM-burner computer (that have to run XP since the eprom burner software doesnt work on newer versions) and I got a similar as on my normal win7, it find the serieal port, it find the server, it find the gotek, i click program and i starts.. and stop after 1/100 (instead of 49/100)


I start to get pretty tired, especially since I can download the cortex software with the flash loader on all of those computers, with the same gotek, the same serial adapter..

Is it just me that have those problems ? to me it looks like the serial bridge software is crap, except for the fact that it doesnt work on any configuration I tried, it also cannot save the server/login/pw, im SOO tired of cut'n'paste those TIME AFTER TIME.. another crappy thing is that when it fail for some reaso, it have to be completly restared, and well, you guessed it, i have to type or cutnpaste everything in again, also it doesnt give out decent error messages or write to any logfile, it basically sucks.

Anyone have an idea what I can do ? I want at least ONE gotek with the software I paied for..

I have tried three versions of OS, two different goteks and two different serial adapters, NOTHING works.

The ONLY thing left is to try a serial adapter with another chipset (the ones I used had the same chipset), I ordered one from ebay now, but I do not have much hope..
Last edited by glenn on Tue May 24, 2016 1:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yrouel
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Re: Getting this to work

Post by Yrouel »

I flashed my goteks with a genuine ftdi adaptor and the process worked perfectly. I admit the first time I was a bit confused by the software but since you are able to actually start programming it I think it might be a problem with your serial adaptors.
If you happen to have an arduino with a DIP atmega around you can use it as ftdi usb serial adapter.

glenn
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Re: Getting this to work

Post by glenn »

I use a PL2303 adapter, cheap ebay one, still it works fine with flash loader and cortex software..

The one I ordered now is FTDI, bur probably not genuide I guess.

If I can find it I should also have a homebuilt RS232->TTL adapter I built with a MAX chip when I was playing with PIC programming years ago..
Last edited by glenn on Tue May 24, 2016 10:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

mondo1976
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Re: Getting this to work

Post by mondo1976 »

Used a super cheap FTDI FT232RL USB TTL and Windows 7 32-bit on two Goteks with absolutely no problems.

I hate to say "sorry, works fine here" (I know how annoying that is) but at least you know that it's possible on Windows 7 with a $2 TTL.

Jeff
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Re: Getting this to work

Post by Jeff »

Seriously glenn... Get a decent serial adapter. The problem is your serial adapter and its driver not able to support a full duplex serial communication (That's why it stop at 50%...).
The HxC Flasher software is working with all 32bits and 64bits Windows versions.
The X64 driver of your crappy serial adapter is not working correctly. It even generate blue screen on some machines...
I hope that you choose another adapter with a different chipset.

One workaround : Use virtualbox and XP to avoid to use the crappy X64 driver. the 32 bits version seems to work better.

For the save thing : It should work, but you have maybe located the flasher software somewhere with a path with special/unicode characters... I didn't test all unicode path possibilities so try to move the software folder to the root of your hdd.

Jeff
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Re: Getting this to work

Post by Jeff »

https://www.reddit.com/r/networking/com ... uses_blue/
I have 6 USB serial adapters. Some older PL2303, some newer, and 2 FTDI chipset ones.

The FTDI work flawlessly on any OS.

The PL2303 older ones work on 2000, XP, and linux. Vista, 7, 8, and 10 blue screen on them.

The newer PL2303 ones work on linux, and 7, but blue screen on 10 (untested on 8 ).

The FTDI chipset ones work... every time... on any os.

glenn
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Re: Getting this to work

Post by glenn »

As I said I ordered a FTDI-based adapter now (or more likely a chinese copy, genuine FTDI chips are not that common, especially not on ebay), if there are known problems with the (much more common) PL2303 chip, maybe it should be mentioned in the documentation.

However, it works fine with ST's flash demo loader, with the same driver, same adapter and same computer.
One workaround : Use virtualbox and XP to avoid to use the crappy X64 driver. the 32 bits version seems to work better.
I already tried it with a 32bit Win7 machine, i didnt even get the line about number of licenses, so i couldnt start programming. (and as I said, ST's flash loader worked on the same machine right after), AND on XP, with XP (32bit ofcourse) it only go to 1/100 instead of 49/100, no idea why.

regarding where I have the serial bridge binary, it is in N:\STM32_SerialBridge\ , no unicode there, but it doesnt remember the values on any computer I have tried with, and I seen others complain about exactly the same thing, so it seem to be a common problem.

Jeff
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Re: Getting this to work

Post by Jeff »

glenn wrote:As I said I ordered a FTDI-based adapter now (or more likely a chinese copy, genuine FTDI chips are not that common, especially not on ebay), if there are known problems with the (much more common) PL2303 chip, maybe it should be mentioned in the documentation.
So you insist : You just buy another crap, an ftdi fake, not even supported anymore by the ftdi drivers :
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/01/ftdi-dri ... ips-again/
glenn wrote: However, it works fine with ST's flash demo loader, with the same driver, same adapter and same computer.
Yes, and it work also with the hxc software too, that's why can go up to 50%... As i said your adapter doesn't support full duplex...
regarding where I have the serial bridge binary, it is in N:\STM32_SerialBridge\ , no unicode there, but it doesnt remember the values on any computer I have tried with,
N: ? What it is ? A network drive ? A pwd file should be created by the software into the exe folder. For this you need to have the write access to this folder. Please check this.
I will send you a pwd file with you password & login already stored...

Note : i hope that you got the right flasher from there :
https://hxc2001.com/download/floppy_driv ... Bridge.zip
and I seen others complain about exactly the same thing, so it seem to be a common problem.
Oh seriously ? Where and When ?

EDIT : I have just got a look to your log file. I find it somewhat short and there is few try. I recommend you to retry on the 32bits machine more than one time.
Anyway, i think that the better solution for you is to get a preflashed device, there is a lot of them on ebay, or ask someone else to flash it.

Jeff
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Re: Getting this to work

Post by Jeff »

And please post the link to buy your PL2303 adapter (the exact and same link you used).
I will test it here.

glenn
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Re: Getting this to work

Post by glenn »

Jeff wrote:
glenn wrote:As I said I ordered a FTDI-based adapter now (or more likely a chinese copy, genuine FTDI chips are not that common, especially not on ebay), if there are known problems with the (much more common) PL2303 chip, maybe it should be mentioned in the documentation.
So you insist : You just buy another crap, an ftdi fake, not even supported anymore by the ftdi drivers :
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/01/ftdi-dri ... ips-again/
If you want a genuine one you probably have to buy it directly from Future technolgy devices, or maybe from some really serious company like Farnell or digikey,
and that cost pretty much (£26.70 with shipping here), the ones on ebay/aliexpress/whatever usally isn't genuine even if it say so in the description.

Thats why I GUESS that the one I ordered is a fake too, because I did not buy directly from FTDI, actually I have no idea, I think it said genuine but..

Anyway, imm pretty sure most people use this anyway.
glenn wrote: However, it works fine with ST's flash demo loader, with the same driver, same adapter and same computer.
Yes, and it work also with the hxc software too, that's why can go up to 50%... As i said your adapter doesn't support full duplex...
Maybe not, I have no idea since I only used it for this and some really simple PIC communication.

I guess you mean that the flash demo loader does not need FDX ?
regarding where I have the serial bridge binary, it is in N:\STM32_SerialBridge\ , no unicode there, but it doesnt remember the values on any computer I have tried with,
N: ? What it is ? A network drive ? A pwd file should be created by the software into the exe folder. For this you need to have the write access to this folder. Please check this.
I will send you a pwd file with you password & login already stored...
No, it is a normal 500G SATA drive, it's my "scratch disk" in windows, and its called N: for historical reasons that go back to the evil win3.11 times..

It is read and writable, but I will try with the config file, probably should work if its already created and only have to be readed.
Note : i hope that you got the right flasher from there :
https://hxc2001.com/download/floppy_driv ... Bridge.zip
I downloaded it from the link here http://torlus.com/floppy/forum/viewtopi ... 486#p11486 so yes.

EDIT : I have just got a look to your log file. I find it somewhat short and there is few try. I recommend you to retry on the 32bits machine more than one time.
Anyway, i think that the better solution for you is to get a preflashed device, there is a lot of them on ebay, or ask someone else to flash it.
Im pretty sure I tried several times, but I can try again, when it didnt work I just didnt think that 32/64bit made any difference so i went back to my normal machine,
and then I have been trying mostly on the XP machine in the lab lately.

I'm not going to buy a preflashed unit when i have several goteks home already, but if its not possible to solve this I might have to visit someone that actually succedes to flash his gotek and see if I can flash mine with my login.

Anyway, if i can get it to work with a configfile that fill in the values its MUCH easier to try it more times, now it is a PITA to cut'n'paste those values every single time I have to restart the program, and I have to do that as soon as it hangs or when it fail to connect.

glenn
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Re: Getting this to work

Post by glenn »

Jeff wrote:And please post the link to buy your PL2303 adapter (the exact and same link you used).
I will test it here.
Its not available anymore..

http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/390565563549

But there are plenty that look identical.

I also have another one, that look very similar, but I couldnt find any trace of how I bought that one, it was probably even longer ago however.

glenn
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Re: Getting this to work

Post by glenn »

Now I tried with the pw-file you sent me, now it fill in the values, nice, much easier to test, thanks!.

I also downloaded the serial bridge archive again just to be sure I used the latest version, and noted that it was created yesterday, new version I guess ?

Anyway, I never got to the "Device detected", just "Link is up!", so I cannot try to program, I dont know why this happens, it happened before too but then suddenly it worked.

And yes, I have tried to reset the gotek, both by shorting the reset/gnd and simply removing the power and connect it again.

I also tried to remove and connect the USB,and also changed USB port (and yes, i changed the COM port in the software too after..)

Jeff
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Re: Getting this to work

Post by Jeff »

glenn wrote:Now I tried with the pw-file you sent me, now it fill in the values, nice, much easier to test, thanks!.

I also downloaded the serial bridge archive again just to be sure I used the latest version, and noted that it was created yesterday, new version I guess ?
no, check the year ;)
glenn wrote: Anyway, I never got to the "Device detected", just "Link is up!", so I cannot try to program, I dont know why this happens, it happened before too but then suddenly it worked.
server restarted. Retry.

glenn
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Re: Getting this to work

Post by glenn »

Now I finally recived the FTDI adapter, as usual it works perfectly fine with the cortex firmware, and I even tried to connect it with a crossed cable to my linux machine (with the PL2303 adapter) and it works fine to send and recive data.

BUT.. serial bridge still doesnt work, however, I do not get the same error, I get the "serial connected to COM7" but now it just stop on "Link is up!" when I click on "connect" and I never get the "0 of 1 license used", so I cannot click program ?

..Still using win7 64bit, the same machine as it got to 49/100 on before with the PL2303 adapter.

Jeff
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Re: Getting this to work

Post by Jeff »

With the gotek connected and powered and boot0 strapped:

-> Start the software
-> Open the serial com port
-> Check / type the ip/login/password if not already done.
-> Press Connect.
-> Wait some seconds. If the "device detected" doesn't come, reset the gotek drive by making a short contact between the "RST" pin and the gnd in the jumper block, and wait again.
-> Once you have the right message, press program.
-> once the programming done, unconnect all wires and remove the boot0 strap.
-> insert the usb stick with the upd file to finish the firmware programming.

btw, how do you power the gotek ?

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