After some lengthly trouble shooting with a client I stumbled across an accidental fix that many people might make use of.
Many USB to RS232 adaptors create a "virtual" com port to enable connections. This is usually not an issue when dealing with Cel phones, PDA's etc as Windows is usually able to communicate over virtual ports easily.
This is however an issue when you are using software that tries to poll hardware to detect a connection. Traditional Com Ports use IRQ's as a way of identifying the hardware address of the port (Com1 uses IRQ4 Com2 uses IRQ3, etc). If the software polls the IRQ's usually associated with Com ports but does not recieve a signal it assumes there is no connection.
How does this affect Profilux users? Thats easy, the Software simply can't identify these virtual Com ports as a valid port because they don't respond. Not all USB to Serial adaptors work like this however, some do allocate an IRQ and this wont be a problem (in which case you probably don't need to keep reading this!)
How can you get around this? This is also easy (once you know where to look!), in many cases you can manually choose a Com port to emulate. In the scenario I encountered today we simply modified the "Virtual com Port" in the device Manager to operate as "Com2" which is usually a default Com port in traditional PC's.
Usually after making a change to a Port setting its a good idea to restart the PC. This will guarantee that windows will start the driver using the new settings.
Following your restart, open the profilux software and scan for new Com ports. if everything worked correctly, you should be able to connect!
Hope this helps someone
Gareth
Many USB to RS232 adaptors create a "virtual" com port to enable connections. This is usually not an issue when dealing with Cel phones, PDA's etc as Windows is usually able to communicate over virtual ports easily.
This is however an issue when you are using software that tries to poll hardware to detect a connection. Traditional Com Ports use IRQ's as a way of identifying the hardware address of the port (Com1 uses IRQ4 Com2 uses IRQ3, etc). If the software polls the IRQ's usually associated with Com ports but does not recieve a signal it assumes there is no connection.
How does this affect Profilux users? Thats easy, the Software simply can't identify these virtual Com ports as a valid port because they don't respond. Not all USB to Serial adaptors work like this however, some do allocate an IRQ and this wont be a problem (in which case you probably don't need to keep reading this!)
How can you get around this? This is also easy (once you know where to look!), in many cases you can manually choose a Com port to emulate. In the scenario I encountered today we simply modified the "Virtual com Port" in the device Manager to operate as "Com2" which is usually a default Com port in traditional PC's.
Usually after making a change to a Port setting its a good idea to restart the PC. This will guarantee that windows will start the driver using the new settings.
Following your restart, open the profilux software and scan for new Com ports. if everything worked correctly, you should be able to connect!
Hope this helps someone
Gareth
