Vista-Port Not Found error

[Idahojan]

Hi folks,

I know y'all are in the throws of the season and I hate to bother you. I have spent most of last night and today looking for the answer to my problem on these forums and trying some different things on my own.

Below is a picture of the error I keep getting. Here is some background info on my problem. I ran my shows last year on two controllers Unit ID 1 and Unit ID 2 and through the USB485B adaptor. Ran all season no problems. It was on my laptop running XP.

This year I have a Vista laptop, same controllers, same controller ID's and same adaptor. The cable between the adaptor and controller is a CAT5 cable that I made myself out of a piece of last year's longest piece.

My first installation issue was getting the updated driver off of the FTDI website in order to have the serial to usb driver for Vista, no problem.

Next, I checked what the COMM port was (COMM4) and started the control panel, then I started the hardware utility, then I clicked on Autoconfigure, after it looking at the COMM ports, I get the error message in the image below.

I thought maybe it was the cable. I unplugged the cable and used it to connect through my RJ45 ethernet port on my computer to my home router, no problem, works great. I don't know if that is a good test for the RS485 communications protocol or not? But I think it is, if you could let me know, that would be great.

Some other things. I tried different COMM ports. I uninstalled the drivers and re-installed. Rebooting many times. I tried REFRESH. I tried manually selecting COMM4 in the drop down (yes it sees the correct COMM port in the drop down, even when I change it). I tried a few different things that I saw on the forums for other issues, but all to no avail. I have searched the forums with "No Port Found", "Vista", "Port" keeping it real broad, and haven't found a solution or even a lot that speaks of this error.

I sure would appreciate if anyone could suggest some things, taking time from your busy holiday schedule. I would like to get our show up and running. I will try a new cable tomorrow.

Thanks in advance.

[cmoore60]

First thing to do would be plug the adapter into the USB port. Go to the device manager of vista and see if one there are any conflicts the yellow triangle with exclamation or two see if the thing creates a port when plugged in.

My guess is that you do not have the proper drivers installed or they are not installed properly.

Not that it will effect you in this case. But you should update your software. the current version of software is 2.6.2 If you purchased your 1.x software then all you have to do is go to the LOR website webstore and select the software option. There are buttons on that screen for retrieve license and also for download. You will need the email address you had when you purchased the software. If you don't have the same email address or access to that email address then you can email or call support@lightorama.com

Chuck

[Idahojan]

cmoore60 wrote:

First thing to do would be plug the adapter into the USB port. Go to the device manager of vista and see if one there are any conflicts the yellow triangle with exclamation or two see if the thing creates a port when plugged in.

My guess is that you do not have the proper drivers installed or they are not installed properly.

Hi Chuck,

Thanks for the reply. I have installed the drivers, they appear to be installed correctly. I have even uninstalled the drivers and installed them by letting them be "found" on the internet and tried that as another way of installing them. I still get the same error. Now here's the thing. The port is there, it goes away when I unplug the adaptor, it comes back when I plug in the adaptor.

And, as stated previously, where you manually select the COMM port to use, that drop down updates when I change the COMM port number, so the hardware utility is partially "getting it" if you will. It just still gives me the error and also won't see the controllers, which is understandable.

I am still suspecting the cable as I don't know if the TX and RX is the same wires on Ethernet as it is on RS485, I tested the cable by plugging into my home router and the RJ45 on the computer to see if it worked, and it did. Tonight I will try a shorter pre-packaged cable and see what happens.

Does anyone know if the cable needs to be a "crossover" cable or can it be straight thru?

Thanks again to everyone. I know you're all busy.

[Idahojan]

cmoore60 wrote:

Not that it will effect you in this case. But you should update your software. the current version of software is 2.6.2 If you purchased your 1.x software then all you have to do is go to the LOR website webstore and select the software option.

Forgot, I have downloaded and installed the S2 but have not entered the lic key yet.

Thanks again.

[cmoore60]

If you are basically running in demo mode, demo mode will not allow you to control lights. You need at least the basic level to control lights.

That very well may be your problem.

Chuck

[Idahojan]

cmoore60 wrote:

If you are basically running in demo mode, demo mode will not allow you to control lights. You need at least the basic level to control lights.

That very well may be your problem.

Chuck

Hi Chuck,

Thanks again for replying. I don't think the demo is the issue. The last thing I did before posting my problem on the forum was download S2 to see if it would make any difference, the problem was already there, and it didn't. I will check with a new cable and load my sw key tonight hopefully.

Best regards.

[Idahojan]

Got home, plugged in one of the shorter premade cables, SUCCESS!!!

So now I am really curious about crossover and passthru cables and what does LOR say about which to use. I can not find any info on that, does anyone out there know?

Thanks, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

[cmoore60]

For most purposes in networking the cables are wired straight thru. This is the cable that LOR uses if you use a cat5 cable. If you use a phone cable, those are typically rolled or crossed, the ends are on opposite colors.

Chuck