Constant deploy issues

NETMF & Gadgeteer
21

My laptop is far from high end. It’s a acer piece of crap.
Maybe it’s up to visual studio?

What versions are you running?

22

Visual Studio 2010 Pro + all latest NETMF

23

I too have the same problem once in a while. Usually a couple of times in a row.

24

^^^ What are your workstation’s specs?

25

I am using visual studio ultimate with all the latest NETMF

26

I regularly have to hit reset to deploy to the Panda, I have a i5 quad core CPU and Win 7 64bit

Another thing: when switching to boot loader mode (pressing LDR and reset) I sometime get a windows notification, something like “unrecognized USB device”

27

I have found that the “unrecognized USB device” error is when I have the Domino plugged into a hub or have a load running off the power of the board itself. As soon as I either plug directly into the PC or remove the load the problem goes away and I can start the bootloader.

I also am having to manually reset device 10% of the time to deploy. This does not seem to improve using the remedy above for starting the bootloader.

-AP

28

We have received some info from Microsoft about this issue. We will see what can be done to enhance this.

29

Is it related to some sort of timeout timer?

That’s what Chris Walker’s suggestion was…

30

Actually his guess was wrong. It had nothing to do with timers. I have asked Microsoft to look into this long long time ago but since it doesn’t happen every time and sometimes never happen, it was impossible for them to see it or fix it.

Anyway, the important thing now is that they may have some details for a fix and if that happens we will all benefit from this fix.

31

If it helps any… My cobra’s ( both) “are unrecognised USB devices” when I tried to update to 4.1.3.0. they are seen in deploy mode… I have to connect them to a second P.C that doesn’t have Visual C# 2010 I have just installed the bootloader drivers and it works there…

Just to rub salt in… The panda is fine with both drivers on the same machine…

Just a note though… I do have a virtual serial device installed on the first machine…

Cheers Ian

32

I have Vcom devices attached to my workstation all thetime… Not really sure why you mentioned that…

33

They are com0com drivers… Most USB interaction is affected by them… They have to be disabled so you can enumerate a virtual port or load device specific software…

I only mention it because someone may find the information useful

Cheers Ian

34

For users who have problems, please post the smallest program that make VS studio not able to connect and reboot “our” devices, so we can look into it. We never had such a problem on a Thread.Sleep().

35

Hi Supa (Mike),

Here’s a small program which consistently reproduces the problem (generally, on multiple .NET Micro Framework boards).

        public static void Main()
        {
            while (true)
            {
                Debug.Print(DateTime.Now.ToString());
                System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(2000);
            }
        }

The problem is related to USB communication and exhibits itself only on specific computer configurations/virtual machines.

To reproduce the issue: run this program; stop the program execution; re-run this program. Visual Studio shows rebooting of device but experiences a communcation failure.

The .NET MF team was able to solve the issue (mostly if not completely) for various .NET Micro Framework boards by adding a 500ms pause in the soft reboot sequence. [Big shout out to the .NET MF team for their help here.]

// file: \MicroFrameworkPK_v4_1\CLR\StartupLib\ClrStartup.cpp
HAL_Uninitialize();

Events_WaitForEvents(0, 500); // add this line; reduce 500ms value if desired

//re-init the hal for the reboot (initially it is called in bootentry)
HAL_Initialize();

We included this fix in our latest beta firmware, and early reports are that it solves most/all deployment issues for customers.

Not sure if this is the same issue you are experiencing, but hopefully it helps.

Chris
Secret Labs LLC

36

Thanks Chris but we have already received this info directly from Microsoft. Mike was trying to see if we can find an example that we can use to reproduce the problem so when we add the fix we know for fact that this fixed the problem.

37

Chris’s (other Chris ::)) will do just what you are asking for, Gus.

See his first snippet.

38

I saw it! It doesn’t cause FEZ to hang

39

Gus,

I have seen this issue countless times when the unit was simply Thread.Sleep’ing. Can you try it a few different times?

40

Yes, the problem may show on specific machines. Do not worry, we are on top of it and if nothing that can be tracked then we will just add the fix that Microsoft recommended.