temperature GUI not working for me

Hi Scott,

here's an excellent 'Getting Started with the Lauchpad Workshop' - check it out http://software-dl.ti.com/trainingTTO/trainingTTO_public_sw/MSP430_LaunchPad_Workshop/LaunchPad.pdf.

Page 1-14 tells you how to fix your problem with the Temperature GUI demo.

Rgds
aBUGSworstnightmare

Hey,

Are you sure you found how to fix it inside that file? I have the same problem and could not find anything...

I also have a problem with the GUI...it does not run. No error messages, it just does not start up. This is on a Win XP system. 

There is nothing in the lab manual, that I can find, which covers troubleshooting GUI problems.

Has anyone found a solution to this?

My unit works, as I can spray canned air on it to get it to change the red/green LEDs, but the GUI just sits there saying select a COM port, but it doesn't respond to any key presses.

Try having CCS running before you load the GUI EXE file.

Guys,

if you do not have any success trying all of the aforementioned suggestions, please try the somewhat tweaked GUI, which accounts for PC systems with multiple COM ports (>10, 20 ports). Once the GUI opens up, the window will list all available COM ports. Simply type in the number (e.g. '15'), then press enter to start the UART link.

We'll try to push the update to the wiki soon.

FYI, the executable (for windows) can be located inside the application.windows folder.

Regards,

Dung

At the risk of sounding totally deranged I have to ask;   What does CCS being open have to do with running what I assumed was a Windows executable?

And yes, I fully expect the solution to my problem to result in one of those "duh" moments on my part.

I really have no idea. I download the GUI and tried loading it several times without any luck passing the COM selection menu. I loaded CCS while the board was connected and tried running the GUI again and this time it worked. Why not try it out?

Actually I did try it in desperation, figured anything was worth a shot, especially since it seemd to solve it for you.  It didn't solve the probem unfortunetly.

I also have downloaded the file again and then downloaded the one Dung put a link to in his post. Still the same problem, the GUI does not run.

If I find an answer to this ...  and it does not make me look too dumb, I will post it.

I had the issue where the Launchpad_Temp_Gui.exe would open but couldn't select the comm port. I needed to extract the containing folder then it worked. just press the corisponding number and hit enter.

I am a total idiot for Windows.  My understanding is as follows.

LaunchPad needs a few “drivers” for Windows to talk to it. These “drivers” are “automatically installed” by CCS or IAR. To me, this translates to “These drivers are automatically not installed if you have neither CCS nor IAR. And you cannot install the drivers yourself manually.”

If these “drivers” are correctly installed (automatically of course), Windows “Device Manager” will show you under “Ports (COM & LPT)” there is a “MSP430 Application UART (COMxx)” where xx is a one or two digit number.

Now, if CCS or IAR is currently used to access the LaunchPad, this virtual COMxx is occupied and cannot be used by the “launchpad_temp_gui.exe”.

In other words, you need CCS or IAR to automatically install the drivers, but need to NOT use CCS and IAR to use the drivers for anything else.

You are asked by the “launchpad_temp_gui.exe” to select the COMxx (which “Device Manager” knows exactly what it is). What a great GUI that is!

And for certain values of xx that was wisely assigned by Windows, the GUI will not allow you enter such xx due to some innovation of advanced technology which idiots like I do not understand.

Still not working for me with IAR open or closed.  When I run the program it lists 2 options:

[0] Com 1

[1] Com 3

The Launchpad is on com 3 as verified by the device manager, but it doesn't do anything if I press the "1" key.

And communication is available because I am able to write programs and flash them to the MSP430.

Press the "1" key is not exactly a Graphic User Interface (GUI). Are you sure you are not required to draw a Graphic picture of some sort?

Anyway, other people use HyperTerminal and other ASCII terminal emulators. 65 degrees shows up as A, 66 as B, ..., 90 as Z. Other Graphic characters below 65 and above 90 degrees.

Hello Everyone,

Let's try to figure this out together! I'll go ahead and list off the steps that I follow to get the GUI to work on my PC.

1. Install the latest version of CCS or IAR - this will ensure the latest LaunchPad drivers are installed in your PC.
2. As OCY mentioned, we do not need to have CCS or IAR open to run the GUI, simply to install the drivers
3. Once the drivers are installed, we can plug in our LaunchPad via USB
4. Navigate to your Device Manager to see which COM port your LaunchPad is connected to.
5. Next, download and extract the GUI that Dung provided in a previous reply:
   1. 8308.LaunchPad_Temp_GUI.zip
6. Now you can run the GUI's windows executable file
7. The GUI will display the connected COM ports, one of which is the COM port that our LaunchPad is connected to.
8. Type in the index number that the LaunchPad is of your list - it typically is the last item.
9. Then press [ENTER]
10. Now, the GUI is waiting for data from the LaunchPad. To start reading temperature data and sending data to your PC, press switch P1.3
11. At this point, the GUI should start displaying your instantaneous temperature.

Hope this helps! A lot of the times, people forget to press P1.3 to leave the "standby LED toggle" mode and enter the "temperature sensing" mode to start communicating with a PC.

Thanks,

AdrianF

Hello All,

I am having a similar problem to the one described here. I am running windows 7 and when I double click the LaunchPad_Temp_GUI.exe file > run I get a window that says

cannot find 'javaw.exe' make sure you typed the name correctly, an then try again.

Then I get a 'Processing Error'

Error calling ShellExecuteEx()

I did all the steps AdrianF recommended above but to no avail. Any help would be appreciated

Thanks,

John

Hi John:

I got the same error although I was using Windows XP.  I needed to install JAVA.

 After I installed JAVA, the GUI worked.

Cheers,

Rob.

I am having the same issues. I see the comport selection page then its just sits there. I have Open Office installed so Java must be installed to guess.

So I have Java whats next. Just for get this temp gui thing and move on?

C:\Documents and Settings\Mark>java -version
java version "1.6.0_18"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_18-b07)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 16.0-b13, mixed mode)

C:\Documents and Settings\Mark>

Yeah I've got the temp GUI problem also.  I see my com listed but there's no response to the keyboard, etc.  Tried suggestions by Adrian (TI employee).  Next suggestions?  Thanks.

I think I figured this out...

You need to be aware of 2 things: 1. the GUI doesn't give feedback of your key presses, and 2. the board with demo app must be in temp sensing mode.

I was having the same issue of the com port selection screen just sitting there, until I tried just hitting the proper key (2 in my case), and then enter. The interface gave no indication that I had done anything, but when I then pressed the button on the launchpad board, the GUI started displaying the current temperature.

So for the GUI to display things, you first have to put the Launchpad board into the temp sensing mode - ie, click the button beside the flashing red/green lights.

And remember that the GUI shows no indication of what you pressed - so press the proper number and then enter, and trust that it will work :)

Hope that helps!

Cheers,
-Nico

It may be an obvious answer which you already tried but I had a problem of selecting the com port and it sat there doing nothing , Then I realised you have to hit enter key after  choosing which com port . It seems so obvious not but it had me fooled for 10 mins

Don

Don Recardo said:

It may be an obvious answer which you already tried but I had a problem of selecting the com port and it sat there doing nothing , Then I realised you have to hit enter key after  choosing which com port . It seems so obvious not but it had me fooled for 10 mins

 

Don

Don, others,

thanks for your feedback! We have incorporated an automatic LaunchPad COM port detection into the processing GUI for the next release. Even though it will connect to the first compatible LaunchPad, hopefully it'll alleviate some confusion & pain that you guys had to go through.

Regards,

Dung

There were two things I did, after which it worked. 

1) (possibly not necessary) moved a copy of the rxtxSerial.dll into my computer's system32 folder

2) make sure to ONLY enter the correct digit and [enter] - if I had messed around with other options first then the program would not accept my correct input later.  Restarting LaunchPad_Temp_GUI.exe and only entering the digit(s) and [enter] finally worked. 

Your understand is absolutely right. Thank you very much.

suncat

d'oh

It could have said "select port and press Enter". I guess it's in Fahrenheit ? Then it is more accurate than my DS18b20 :)

Scott,

After skimming this thread I could not find that you ever found a solution to your problem, this solution worked for me. Open CSS and IRA once and let them do their initializations, then close out of them. Make sure you have Java installed, as previously stated, and select the port that connects your MSP430 to your PC. Hope this helps!

JAVA and CCS are installed correctly but I can't select port which listed in the first screen. What's problem with this exe? Why it doesn't work?

I was also being driven demented by this simple problem.  The two things that fixed it for me were:

* Using the 8308 version listed by AdrianF,

* Restarting Windows(7-64) after several failed attempts.

I had even tried delving into the Processing code, and was about to do some serious debugging, but I decided to restart Windows first, and that cracked the problem.

I have a feeling that I may be getting more into Processing than MSP430 at this rate!

James Hardiman

Eastleigh, Hampshire, UK

I got working the LaunchPad Temp GUI this way:

First time, I've got drivers propperly installed, USB cable connected and the LaunchPad in reading temperature mode, launched the GUI and... nothing happenned... for at least 10-15 minutes... During that time, and when I was searching the net for information, suddenly the port selection window appeared, after all that time... That reminded me of a similar problem with some version of the Arduino GUI taking too long to show their COM port selection menu. Some guy in the Arduino community (nickname: eried) managed to figured out the problem, that was related (as far as I remember) to the Bluetooth COM ports taking too long to be propperly recognized by the Processing initialization routine in the Arduino GUI.

So, in this case, suspecting a similar problem, I switched off / disconnected all Bluetooth devices in my laptop, re-run the LaunchPad Temp GUI and... voila!... It takes 1 second to show me the list of my available COM ports (just 2 COM ports in my case with all the Bluetooth devices switched off); I selected the COM port  corresponding to the LaunchPad and another 1 second later the temperature is showing up in the window.

My conclusion: Obviously it has to do with some routines in Processing not propperly dealing with Bluetooth COM ports. The Arduino guy (eried) who figured out the Bluetooth COM ports issue even provided a modified executable of the IDE and explained it in detail showing the changes he made in Processing code. Here's the link to his post in the Arduino Community: http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1237179908

Hope this helps.

Edit: You know what? You can just replace the "rxtxSerial.dll" file that comes with the LaunchPad Temp GUI with the modified version provided by "eried" (download it from the above link) and it will work without switching off your Bluetooh devices! Thanks eried!

Edit 2: Before trying with the new "rxtxSerial.dll" possibly you'll have to terminate the "javaw.exe" process related to the LaunchPad Temp GUI in the Windows Task Manager, or just restart Windows. When you select the COM port, just type the corresponding index number, the one in the brackets ([0], [1], [2], etc.) followed by "Enter," not the whole name, like COM14 or something.

There are two key things to proceed with GUI: have button on board pressed to enter application mode from initial blinking, and pressing Enter after picking number from square parentheses of the  GUI menu. It took me to downgrade Java version just in case, before finding reference to Workshop instructions here :-)

If you are running as a non-administrator account (at least one Windows 7), this will not work without privilege escalation ("Run as administrator..." from the right-click context menu of the executable).

Had me lost for three days. 

taken me forever to reply but installing Java did work for me. Thanks!

thank you so much ! It's worked.