Hi Have been successfully using my cyton board with the dongle for months. But now I can no longer establish a connection between the cyton board and the dongle on my windows PC.
However it works fine on my mac laptop.
Can anybody help me?
Thanks,
Sam
Comments
Sam, hi.
Have you tried other usb ports on the Windows PC? It sounds like an issue with the usb or drivers on Windows.
You can try installing the latest FTDI VCP driver:
https://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm
William
Hi William,
I did try a few other USB ports with no luck. But for some reason it has started working again.
If it stops again I will install the latest FTDI VCP driver
Thanks,
Sam
Hi Sam,
I had the same problem earlier with other hardware, finally we found there were two different UART drivers for COM ports from different manufacturers (no idea when and how they were installed; perhaps with some other soft). So dongle started working when we remove the other driver. This eventually is not Mac issue, but on Win some soft can install something you are not aware of.
Michael
Could you explain more about the two different drivers? Did you just uninstall then install them again?
I am having a similar issue, except that the cyton bluetooth dongle works on other people's computers with windows 10, but doesn't work on my computer which also has windows 10. I've tried both of the usb ports on my laptop, reinstalled the FTDI driver, and made sure my dongle was switched to GPIO_6 as well. When I first insert the dongle, the blue LED flashes once faintly, and then flashes almost unnoticeably. It also seems like my computer doesn't recognizes the dongle, and it doesn't appear in the GUI.
Any help or suggestions would be appreciated, thanks!
Hi Cid,
Looks like your USB port do not provide much power? Otherwise I do not see a reason if it works well on others. Did your check if there is any power savings on your USB via Device manager? Some laptops are using this by default to save battery power.
My case was that we have two different softwares which using similar tech to set serial USB; one was with FTDI and other one I do not remember (but some other provider). So when we tried first OpenBCI, works well; when we added second, it demanded its own drivers which did something "disabling" previous (never tried to find what). After that, 2nd soft works, but BCI not anymore. So we finally decided to set it on 2 different PCs to be sure. But for your case I would suspect power problem first. Maybe you can run USBtree or similar soft to see what is actually your USB status of ports and hubs.
Michael
@Seqvera, thanks.
@Cid, hi.
I'm not sure how Seqvera is assuming you have a usb port power issue. The 'brightness' of the dongle led is related to frequency and duration of the radio packets, and how the port is being handled by the usb device driver. The dongle draws very little power from the port. My guess is that you have the same situation as his initial (Sep 30) comment, regarding TWO competing usb serial port drivers that are conflicting over usage of the dongle.
One way to see what is going on is to use the Windows Device Manager control panel, opened up to view the COM ports. You can then examine each COM port for what drivers are assigned to that COM port. Any non-Microsoft USB COM port drivers should be uninstalled. You may need to then uninstall / reinstall the FTDI driver.
https://www.google.com/search?q=windows+10+device+manager
https://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm
The fact that your dongle works fine on your other friends laptops, says that drivers are suspect on your laptop.
Regards, William
Yes, this might be the main reason. I was just thinking of power as I had some issues with other dongles on labtops. Sometimes it says there is not enough power, sometimes one need to go to DevMan and switch off "Turn this device off to save power" (even that simple sometimes helped). But conflicting drivers are certainly one to check first.
Michael
Can you go into a bit more detail about the drivers assigned to the com port? I've looked at the of the properties of both ports and only see the microsoft driver. I have also tried uninstalling these drivers, and going to the link you mentioned to reinstall them.
Thanks,
Cidnee
I would never recommend 'uninstall' for a Microsoft driver, only drivers from other companies.
The FTDI VCP install procedure completes successfully? Then when you insert the Cyton dongle, does an additional COM port show up? Details should show it is from FTDI, instead of Microsoft.
Was this Windows 10 machine an 'upgrade' from previous Windows 7, 8, etc.? If so, I've seen cases where the IO system, drivers, etc, have bugs. In such cases a Windows 10 'clean install' can produce a much more reliable OS.
Actually I just re-tried installing the FTDI drivers after uninstalling the microsoft one, but when I restart my computer it becomes the microsoft one again. The windows 10 was not an upgrade, it was already on this computer when I bought it.
Actually both ports show up even when I don't have anything in the usb ports, not sure if that is weird.
OK, then I assume you bought the computer new, and Windows 10 was on it.
PLEASE, I repeat, there is no advantage, and possible DISadvantage in uninstalling Microsoft drivers.
A couple default COM ports are usually present even with no usb serial device inserted.
My previous comment was intended that you try a test: install the FTDI driver and then insert the Cyton dongle. This should result in a COM port with FTDI driver. Did that not happen? What does your comment about "restart my computer" mean, in more detail.
This is how to do a clean install of Windows 10, regardless of what was originally on the machine.
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-download-windows-10-for-free-now-that-windows-7-is-dead/
What is manufacturer / model of your computer? Year purchased? It's possible the Windows 10 that was clean installed at that time, just plain had glitches that were never fixed on subsequent Windows internet installed upgrades.
I tried installing the FTDI driver then inserting the Cyton dongle, but my computer doesn't react to it being inserted like it usually does with other usbs, and the only com ports showing up are the default ones. When I say restart my computer I mean that I shut it off and then turn it back on.
Thanks
When I say my computer doesn't react I mean that usually when I insert a usb it makes a noise or a pop-up appears.
My guess at this point is that your OS is compromised somehow. A clean install 'might' resolve that. Might not as well.
My question about power cycle was to check if you had meant the FTDI COM port showed up once before you rebooted, but not after. In actuality, a properly installed Windows 10 will usually auto-install the FTDI driver the first time the dongle is inserted. Manually installing the FTDI driver is just a fallback strategy. But obvious fails in your case.
Oh also my computer is asus UX331, and i bought it two years ago.
I assume your Windows 10 automatically upgrades itself once a month.
Oh no it doesn't show up before I reboot.
Yes, it upgrades fairly regularly, I think the last time was a few days ago, I checked to make sure I was up to date as well.
Have you EVER inserted another type of usb serial port device in your computer? Do you still have that device? As you can see from our discussion, the COM port specific to a unique type of hardware device, only appears when that device is inserted into the usb port. To remove such a driver, you may need to insert that other usb serial device.
This technique might uncover hidden COM port drivers from other manufacturers, without needing to find the usb serial device.
https://helpdesk.flexradio.com/hc/en-us/articles/200883925-Removing-Hidden-or-Ghosted-Com-ports
Another more graphic version, similar idea:
https://www.digi.com/support/knowledge-base/removing-unused-com-ports-from-windows
Yes I have a wireless mouse in all the time, I'll try to see if there are any hidden drivers with that link.
I'm not sure a usb wireless mouse dongle is acting as a COM port, I doubt it. You are only looking for ghosted / invisible COM port drivers, nothing else. COM ports are usb serial "virtual com port" drivers.
Okay I tried removing the hidden ports, the first time I inserted the dongle, the computer gave a warning that it couldn't recognize the usb. I tried removing and inserting the usb again, but the same problem began again, where the dongle couldn't connect to the computer and the blue light barely flashed.
Did you FIRST, uninstall the drivers for the hidden ports? That is crucial element. If you just removed the ports without uninstalling the drivers, now I don't know how you would remedy that. Short of clean install.
How would you uninstall the driver of the hidden port first? I didn't see that as an option when uninstalling.
Once you unhide the port, it should have been visible in Device Manager no? Device Manager has the uninstall driver button. But if you have now removed the device without uninstalling, the driver may still be present.