TCP/IP Debugging

Hello,

In Visual Studio 2010 there there is also Deploy transport setting TCP/IP. Is it possible to debug Panda II with FEZ Connect Shield using TCP/IP insted of USB?

Thank you

Possible but not on Panda.

Possible on Hydra or Spider? I’m guessing Spider, but not Hydra.

Is it possible on EMX?

PS:Maybe a tutorial and a table that resume what is possible or not on each devices could be a choice guideline?

TCP/IP debugging had some issues and no longer supported. You can use serial or USB instead.

grrrrrrrrrrr!!! It’s a pain… Features that come and disappear… I nee usb for cdc and all the serial are connected to peripherals…

Only on major releases which become optional :slight_smile:

I was using 4.1.8 but had some troubles with HashTables, EWR, CDC…

I believed that moving to the last version would be a good thing… I am disappointed

Why disappointed?

because some of the features are missing if we update the SDK.

The choice of EMX has been made according to connectivity criteria due to the fact that the 4 COM ports are needed to discuss with peripherals and that the USB was providing COM port + debug interface (Com port for IHM on computer).

It’s too late for us to change our PCB…

I am disappointed to read that upgrading is optional… if there’s bug fixes… there’s no option… go on with bugs or lost features… there’s no acceptable choices

Since a year and half of this project, I spent a lot of time on
SDCard issue
CDC issue
EWR issue
Hashtable issue
Poor runtime performance

Most of them are not completely solved and I need to improve reliability of the system. I can not report a problem on an old SDK that noone will use anymore…

We are sorry you feel like that. As you can imagine, removing features is actually more work than leaving them in the SDK. We try very hard to not break compatibility in SDK updates but on a major update it would be our opportunity to make the necessary changes that breaks compatibility for the sake of improving quality. While we removed CDC with debugging, which was problematic on some machines, and TCP debugging, which wasn’t as stable as USB and serial, we also added many new great features, which you received as a free update.

Including:
[ul]SQLite database
Support for a better WiFi
Completely redone IFU to be more stable and much easier to use
Completely redone and remapped how networking work internally by having 3 independent network interfaces
Updated to new TCP/IP stack (LwIP) and OpenSSL[/ul]

With all these great (yet free) updates, we still list 4.1 on our support page in case you need it. I like to add that GHI never promised 4.2 or or any updates on any of the products. We offer the updates for free and then it is totally up to you to use 4.1 or 4.2 (soon 4.3) but please consider that when we remove/change feature, we only do that as an improvement, no other reason.

I know the huge work you accomplish for the community. However, hardware without having a reliable software is not usefull. When we have made design choice, we investigate a lot and a tradeoff has been found on EMX module due to its capabilites. CDC + debug was one of the feature. After a year and half of development we still believe that this was a good option but the problem is that the feature that disappear involve to reroute our pcb if we want to take profits of bug fixes… while it is possible for next gen, what about the boards already send to customer? We won’t be abble to upgrade easily the embedded application…

GHI is not the only company who sell hardware with “free” software; free does not mean low quality and my feeling is that “free or not”, features that are announced in a given SDK have to be support and maintained in this given SDK. Let’s imagine that a bug is found in Extended Weak Reference in V4.1, V4.2 and solved in 4.3. EWR is a feature of the three versions but I wil need to switch in the latest SDK to have a working version but I will lose CDC+debug and other… which is not acceptable.

I know this is not easy to maintain and that the work is huge but small company like the one where I am working rely on stability and reliability of both HW/SW… Nobody will complain about new features but removing items or not maintaining old sdk when bugs or unstability are found is not acceptable for industrials.

Sorry for giving my opinion like that, again I recognize the good work done by the GHI team and like GHI products.

2 Likes

Thanks for the honest feedback. We are always looking to find ways to improve even more.

1 Like