Workarounds for LightCrafter's USB/RNDIS Connection issue

Since receiving my DLP LightCrafter EVM and attempting to utilize these instructions, I have not been able to get one Windows 7 system and one Windows Vista system to recognize the DLP LightCrafter as anything other than "unknown Device" uner Universal Serial Bus controllers in the Device Manager.  This is despite disabling all network connections and rebooting, successivley between different USB ports and a USB hub. 

When attempting to select my own driver and device type there is never any option that recognizes anything as RDNIS of any type.

Are there other steps that I can take?  I have read, and reread everything that I can, and have another individual chekcing my work.  I must be mising something, but I just can't figure out what.  Can you provide a model number of a specific hub that you have successully used?

The windows Vista detects and installs incorrectly as Unknown Device, while the Windows 7 machine simpy does not recognize ANYTHING, on ANY port, ever, even after having tried two different mini USBb cables.

Larron,

I am very sorry to hear that you are experiencing difficulty with the LightCrafter USB connection. Have you successfully connected to any of your computers?

We are aware of some issues with specific computers and USB ports. However, the majority of systems have no difficulty with the connection. Win7 computers seem to be more difficult, although some work. We are working hard to identify and resolve the problem for everyone.

Meanwhile, we have found that the workaround of using a USB hub usually works. I can give you the model numbers of the ones which I have used. These have worked with my computer, and others that we have tried it on. However, we certainly haven't tested them on every computer/OS combination.

Unpowered: Belkin F5U407 Hi-Speed USB2 4 port Ultra Mini Hub

Powered: Belkin F5U214-OE Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Hub

In my experience, you will see one of two errors when plugging the LightCrafter USB into a Win7 computer.

1) An unknown driver shows up, but never resolves - it shows a yellow exclamation point, which indicates an error. This is rare, in my experience, but I have seen it.

2) A RNDIS driver shows up in the Networking section, but never clears the yellow exclamation point (which indicates an error)

If you are not having success at all getting a RNDIS driver to show up, are you connected to the internet when you are trying to attach the LightCrafter? Most computers which have never had a device attached to it which requires the RNDIS driver have never downloaded the driver from Microsoft. In case you can't be connected to the internet when using the LightCrafter the first time, I am attaching the RNDIS driver in a zip file attached to this post.

After getting this RNDIS driver and unzipping it, try plugging the LightCrafter in directly - without a hub, to see if it will install the RNDIS driver.

I hope this helps.

Best regards, <link removed>

Pascal

The help is greatly appreciated Pascal.

After installing a Dynex USB 2.0 4-Port Travel Hub Model No: DX-THUB16 (5vDC 2A) inline (ALL network adapters disabled) and a fresh boot of the computer and EVM while disconnected from each other, the Vista machine recognized the EVM after connecting the two, and all looked promising except for the RDNIS lookup from "Microsoft Corpoation" read just a tad differently... that ultimately lead to the Error 10 message so I abandoned that computer to test on the Window 7 machine.

With that same hub inline, the computer recognized something and appeared to be on-track as the RNDIS gadget diplased just as shown in the user manual.  Everything worked exactly as depicted until it came to the final install which has given up three times on the "Remote NDIS Compatible Device" due to "This operation returned becasue the timeout period expired". 

I will attempt to track down one of the above listed hubs and re-try with that.

Alternately, being located in the Fort Worth area, I could take a drive over to TI HDQ and we could see if it recognizes properly over there to isolate it between the board and the host computer.

Larron,

Did you try installing the RNDIS drive I attached to the previous message? You unzip it somewhere. Turn on the LCr and let it boot up (until the LED is flashing red/green. Plug the USB cable into the computer and let in do whatever it is going to do about showing the device. Then, using Control Panel/System/Device Manager you can select the device and select "update driver software". Follow the prompts, and point it at the place where you unzipped the driver. After the installation, remove the USB cable from the computer. Reboot the LCr - fully. Then reinsert the USB cable back into the computer. See if it works.

Sorry about the difficulties you are experiencing. We want to see you get it going.

Best regards,

Pascal

The problem could be in motherboard and it's south bridge. I have asus G41 motherboard with ICH7 south bridge and Lightcrafter is defined as "unknown device" both in Windows Xp and Windows 7. I can't work with LightCragter connecting it directly to my pc's USB ports, but if i use external USB HUB it's normaly defined as RNDIS device and I can work with Lightcrafter GUI application.

Vitaly,

Thanks for letting us know that it works for you with the USB HUB. We are still unsure why some PCs exhibit the problem, while others don't. We hope to find a durable solution for everyone. Meanwhile, the USB HUB is our best suggestion for getting a working connection.

Best regards,

Pascal

I would have weighed in earlier on this open issue but didn't have the energy to come back re-type an extremely lengthy and detailed run-down of which machines worked and which machines didn't work after typing up the response just to find out that the post button simply would not activate when pressed on my iPhone...

Anyway... here is my experience after attempting to install the system on 3 XP machines, 1 Vista machine, and 1 7 machine.

ALL required the HUB to be inline otherwise all bets were off of any hope of installing.

Bottom line:

2 of the three XP machines worked. The first XP machine that I tried worked smoothly on the first shot with the driver that Pascal supplied. Attempting the EXACT same install procedure on the second XP machine resulted in Code 10. Installation on the third XP machine worked, but only on the second try as it kept hanging up and I'd have to reboot.

I made six separate attempts at installing on the second XP machine and have given up as each iteration results in Code 10.

The Vista machine and the 7 machines both had at least twelve attempts including registry scrubbing which was fruitless after MANY iterations resulting in code 10 each time. I have given up making any attempt to try to make this work. As XP is no longer expected to be used by the existing deployment base, I am at a decision making cross-roads.

Could it be that there is something wrong with the EVM's that won't install? Is that why there are so many problems in the field?

Being located in Fort Worth, I would like to come over to TI and see my EVM installed on a windows Vista or 7 machine that has had a known, good install of another EVM previously performed to see if that is the issue. Would this be possible?

My only other option is to send this thing back if there will be no resolution. Two separate Engineers have wasted enough time both at home and at work to make this a viable development platform if there is no hope of getting it to reliably deploy on a currently supported Windows OS.

The installer for the GUI doesn't even unpack all the files, it is buried two or three extractions deep. By itself, that is not a very big issue, but when it comes to putting this whole package together, could it's install location and timing be a part of this? Is there something looking for a file to be in a specific place? Each time I clean out the device manager, I am uninstalling the files just to be safe and there is no reliable uninstaller in this case.

I have avoided saying so publicly, but by this time I wonder if there are not more people having the same troubles and not reporting them here BECAUSE it is a public forum. I would not have said that here, but I just got a brush-off response from TI internal tech support suggesting that I "post my issue on TI E2E forums due to is technical nature".

Is this the only support conduit that exists for this product?

Would TI post a survey poll thread to ask:

# of successful deployments to XP:

# of successful deployments to Vista:

# of successful deployments to 7:

I'd like to know from the active user base what the system count is for deployment to get a feel for my EVM or me being a point or a pattern.

Hello Larron,

I recognize your frustration in dealing with the LightCrafter - USB issue.  When you receive a product from Texas Instruments it should work as specified.  I also greatly appreciate the additional time you took posting a detailed summary of your experience in connecting the LightCrafter with different operating systems. 

To this point, we considered the HUB a solid work around for customers to use until we determined the root cause of this issue and implemented the fix.  However, the HUB solution is clearly not as robust as we first thought and a higher priority must be given to quickly resolve this issue.  I will see that you and the readers of this thread are updated on our progress by June 1st.

There are other conduits, but this forum is one of the best ways to quickly reach the correct engineer who can answer your question.  I believe that is why you were encouraged to post your question to the forum and I apologize for any negative impression you received from our support team.

You make several good points in your post and I would like to thank you again for taking the time to list them.  I agree with you there are likely others facing the same issues and appreciate your offer to visit our campus.  I will contact you if it appears testing your LightCrafter will help us resolve this issue quicker.

Best regards,
Eric Droge
DLP Embedded Applications Manager

Hello Larron,

We have made some progress by confirming the issue on our test systems. We are in the process of examining how the system enumerates as well as if the issues exist on other DM365 based platforms like the Leopard board. I will continue to update you on our progress. Please expect another update by June 8th.

Thanks and regards,

Eric

As I mentioned above, I use external usb hub to solve connection issue. When I use provided by Pascal DLP <link removed> driver in Windows XP connection detected in one or two seconds, but when I use it in Windows 7 it takes about 50 seconds. Is there any special RNDIS driver for Windows 7, which can speed up this process?

Vitaly,

I think that the RNDIS driver is the same for XP and Win7, but not sure. If you would like to make sure that you have the proper driver for Win7, try this: Uninstall the RNDIS driver which I sent, and remove the install files from your computer. Then, while connected to the internet (make sure you can reach outside sites) plug in the LCr and let it request a driver. Allow it to search for the driver, and it will go out to MS and get the proper RNDIS driver for Win7.

The initial recognition time for RNDIS when a LCr is plugged in may be as long as 30 to 60 seconds. But subsequent connections should only take no more than 2 - 5 seconds, in my experience.

Best regards,

Pascal

Update on LightCrafter USB/RNDIS issue.

We promised an update on the progress towards resolving this issue by today (June 8). Here is the current status:

We believe that the USB connectivity problems which are being encountered by a few LightCrafter users is due to an interaction between several components, which includes 1) the LightCrafter software (both the embedded portion on the LightCrafter module, and the Windows component in the LCr control program), 2) the Windows driver (RNDIS), and 3) the peculiarities of each PC USB port.

We are seeing very disparate behavior across various individual computers and USB ports. Many work smoothly, with no problems at all, while others present issues ranging from no enumeration of the RNDIS, to instances where the LCr control program hangs on connection tot he LCr.

At this time we believe that the issues are software related - but not due to a "point" failure mechanism. As said above, it looks like a complex variable environment interaction problem. We do not believe that there is a hardware problem which would necessitate a fix to the LightCrafter module itself. We continue to feel that this will be resolved by software fixes only.

We continue to investigate this issue, and will give another update by Friday, June 15. Meanwhile we suggest that users attempt some of the workarounds which have already been discussed.

We commit ourselves to resolving this issue, and making your use of the LightCrafter smooth and productive.

Best regards,

Pascal

Hi guys,

same problem here, tested several Win XP machines with / without hub, as proposed above. Looking forward for tomorrow, whether you guys at TI found a solution.

Best regards

Jan Winter

HI again,

I'm just wondering: isn't it possible to communicate with the board over UART the same way as over the currently not for everybody well functioning RNDIS - Ethernet over USB?

According to a first look into the documentation the UART is only for error logging output. Is that correct?

Best regards

Jan Winter

Update on LightCrafter USB/RNDIS issue.

We promised an update on the progress towards resolving this issue by today (June 15). Here is the current status:

We have been working on identifying the nature and source of the various failure modes which we have seen, or which have been reported by users. We are looking at both software and hardware (signal integrity) areas as possible sources of the problems.

Using a USB analyzer we have been able to verify that some LightCrafter modules do experience difficulty mounting correctly as RNDIS devices because they do not properly enumerate on the bus.  We have also observed that some LightCrafters will establish a USB connection and appear to work with the LCr GUI, but on the analyzer show a number of USB packet errors while communicating. We then observed that (at least in our cases) the insertion of a simple, unpowered Belkin USB hub allows the LightCrafter to properly ennumerate and connect via the RNDIS driver, and then communicate with the LCr GUI with no USB errors. Clearly, the USB hub is more tolerant of the LightCrafter USB "quirks" than are many PC USB ports. The hub seems to buffer the LCr enough to essentially eliminate USB errors.

We know from reports that USB hubs do not work for everyone, but do for many. Meanwhile, this behavior is helping us to debug the problem. These observations indicate to us that there may be signal integrity issues with the LCr USB circuit. We are undertaking the task of looking deeper into this possible error source. This will take a few more days. Of course, any resolution will be shared as soon as available with this community.

There is one more issue which some of you may be experiencing. This is exacerbated by the USB connection issue, but is actually separate. This is a TCP/IP socket problem wihch is due to a bug in the QT 4 framework which is used by the LCr GUI. It is not properly releasing a TCP/IP socket when a communication error (perhaps caused by the USB problem) occurs. In our experience, this often requires re-booting Windows before a successful TCP/IP socket to communicate with the LCr can be openend. We will continue to also work on this issue.

Be assured that we at TI are taking these problems and difficulties seriously, and working to provide robust solutions.

Best regards,

Pascal

This is really frustrating.... the USB driver simply put us into a nightmare.

A team of 7 pc+laptop could not wake up this single usb device, all are win7 32 bit devices, no workaround is working so far, basically, when we put the powered lcr into a usb port of pc, laptop, with/without/powed/non-powed  usb hub, nothing happen except the usb hub discovery thing, this makes me wonder if the device is malfunction from the start, so pls help me to judge if this device is so.

when trying to use the zip provided above, in win7 when you put to this inf file and click next, it simply cannot recognize any device to move forward... a lot power on off disable net etc bring no luck either. June 15 update give us more insight but no progress sovling this issue.

When we power on the device, if we put the device on top of desk as portrait manner in our camera view,  so that  the mini usb and power at bottom and lens on top, we can see two flashing green lights close to the "Altera" chip on right side, they flash in turn, one after another. and a red light (static light not flashing) close to "DM365ZCE21" chip (to its low right corner). And the projector is projecting a red image IMMEDIATELY, cannot figure out what is the image, it is bright red with a dark small rectangle in middle left side. There is no feeling of a "start up " several seconds time, as some topic mentioned, is this correct? the green lights flashing at same frequency as the projecting image and we can hear the flashing sound.

use 5.2v voltage, most devices are Asus laptops with intel cpu, at one time someone manage to ping 192.168.1.100 in ubuntu but this is not garanteed, we need one way to command this device...

any tip would be greatly appreciated!

Zhengrong

UPDATE!

Now everything suddenly works.... we just get clue from one of the post and switch the 5v/1200MA power supply to 5v/2000MA... now we also understand why you say... when the vertical bar shows.... since we never manage to see the picture on the wall and the 3 BGR  bar at the end! maybe you could add the projected shot in manual and tell people if you have not see those picture on wall after simply power  the device, that probably means your power supply  is not enough :-)  that will save a lot of time

HI

I made that observation:

didn't get the LightCrafter working on 2 winXP pcs with a 5m USB cable. Used a 20cm cable on a MacBook and everything works, can connect with MATLAB. Will have to take another look on the winXP pcs with the shorter cable whether that causes the issue.

Best regards

Jan Winter

The observations about the 5V power supply are very helpful. We should make it very clear that the LightCrafter power supply should be capable of at least 2A.

Also, the observation about the shorter USB cable is helpful. I am looking at that issue (USB signal integrity) closely right now. I hope to have some more update on this soon.

Best regards,

Pascal

Hi guys,

I made some more observations:

used a 20cm and a 5 m USB cable on a windows xp (service pack 3) pc attached to 

a.) a USB hub

b.) the front USB connectors (not the ones on the back which are directly attached to the motherboard)

and a MacBook

on the MacBook no usb hub is required, both cables work just fine, no driver installations required (works as it should out of the box with plug and play - Apple style)

on the windows xp it works via the USB hub with the 20cm cable (not with the 5m cable), but I have to install a rndis driver which I have found somewhere in these forums here (my win xp SP3 doesn't seem to come with that driver, haven't found that driver on the microsoft website anywhere easily)

on the windows xp without USB hub with the 20cm cable it is detected, but after the driver is installed (I have to install the driver every time I use a new USB port -> wow that's great programming of redmond ;), nothing happens if I use the 5m cable.

most probably the wiring in the pc from the motherboard to the front USB connectors is crappy, so that the usb device isn't recognized. However it works fine with other measurement equipment, so maybe there is also an issue with the USB connection on the LightCrafter, which only shows up under bad conditions.

Best regards

Jan Winter

Jan,

Thank you for your further observations. We are looking exactly at the LCr USB connection right now. I will post updates when we know more.

Best regards,

Pascal

Dear Pascal,

I would like to add one more strange observation.

As you recommended, I used a USB hub, and it works fine with my winXP computer.

(It didn't work without the USB hub.)

But whenever after I power down the LightCrafter, every USB ports does not work anymore (both front & back ports).

The USB ports recovers when my computer is rebooted.

I checked that all of USB ports were active while the LightCrafter was powered up and connected.

Best regards,

Sang

Sang,

That is strange (that it seems to disable all of your USB ports until a reboot). I really have no idea why that would happen - we haven't seen it elsewhere, as far as I am aware.

Please hold on another couple of days. We think that we have discovered the cause for the LightCrafter USB problems, and will be posting an update on Friday.

Best regards,

Pascal

To all who are experiencing difficulties with the USB connection from PC to DLP LightCrafter module:

I have been giving weekly Friday updates on the progress we have been making towards identifying and solving the problems which some people have been experiencing with connecting the LCr to their PC. I am moving these updates out of this thread.

I am starting a new thread, which will be labeled "DLP LightCrafter USB connectivity solution". Please monitor this new thread for updates.

I will repeat this in the new thread: we believe that we have identified the cause of the difficulties, and that we have a software fix for the problem, which will be made available as soon as we can completely validate it.

Best regards,

Pascal

Maybe helpful for somebody:

after downloading of the right driver file (google for "RNDIS Drivers Pack.zip" )  I got it working on my XP SP3 machine.

It seems the RNDIS driver is _not_ installed by default in XP SP3 systems by default.

M.

Hi Eric, it has been almost three years since your promise date to respond.  Has this issue been fixed yet?  Has the discussion been moved to another location?

Has there been an update to this issue?  It would be nice to resurrect this 3 year old project but cannot be done without rectifying the USB/RNDIS connection issue.

Hello Larron,

We did make updates that Pascal continued to communicate at that time.  In hindsight I should have posted that Pascal was handling the updates going forward. 

As Clinton mentioned, please make sure your system is up to date and then we can see if there is any additional help we can provide.

Thank you for following up.

Best regards,

Eric