No connection to Board

[Stuart_C]

I've got a TDS ActivBoards plugged into a Com Port.

I've just dropped in the 5.4.6.1 driver and the board won't connect to it.

 

If I look at the serial settings it says "not connected". Even if I switch com port it changes back to com1 and won't connect.

 

If I turn the board off and on it "beeps correctly" when it starts up

 

Any ideas?

 

(NB I don't know if this started with this driver install or a previous 1) it would be possible that it's been like this for a few driver updates and no-one's mentioned it)

[cmssbrie]

Hi there,

 

This may be happening because the serial part of the driver is not installed.

 

From 5.4 onwards, we removed the serial part of the driver being installed by default, and so if you are installing on a fresh machine, you would be asked whether or not you want the serial part of the driver installing - by default, it is set to USB only.

 

Might be worth having a look at this KB article....

 

http://uk.prometheankb.com/article.aspx?article=310649&p=10121

 

Give that a try - hopefully it will resolve the issue!

[Stuart_C]

Cheers. I'll give that a go. It's an Admin install via Group Policy. As I uninatall the old driver and re-install it mgiht be that.

I'lll have to be more carefull when I do the next update.

[Stuart_C]

yep that worked cheers

[ZeroHour]

Hi

I am actually having the same issue here. Is there any MST to ensure the msi installs both parts?

I tried the install manager but it doesnt give you the option.

[ZeroHour]

For any one needing it this MST will install both features.

I am not sure if its the official way to do it but it works fine here so far.

 

Cheers

usbserial.mst

[cmssbrie]

For any one needing it this MST will install both features.

I am not sure if its the official way to do it but it works fine here so far.

 

Cheers

 

If this does the trick, then yep - go for it!

 

Glad you guys managed to get it sorted!

 

I'll raise an enhancement request at my end to see if we can get anything 'official'.

[ToyHeartsFan]

Thanks for the info but I couldn't get the mst to work, but your method (changing the "InstallLevel" Value from 100 to 200 in the Property table) did work if I editted the msi directly.

 

I also found an Entry in the ControlEvents table for "Addlocal" which is the option required if you wanted to install the msi with serial support from the commandline. I tried changing that entry instead and found that if you change the condition value for that row to 1 in the msi it works ok, but again only if you edit the msi not if I used an mst.

 

In both cases either using the mst from the command line or allocating via group policy the driver appeared to install ok but if you open the promethean control panel, then open the connections tab and click find nothing happens. Using either method directly in the msi seemed to work ok i.e. when you click find it starts searching for a board on a com port. - I'm not sure why this happened it may have been a problem with the MST files I created with orca or it could just be the way the driver has been packaged.

 

 

One thing I did find when using an edited msi was that the new driver didnt automatically detect a serial connection unless you either reboot the PC or used the find button on the connections tab. The last driver I'm aware of that had serial support (V5.1.2.7) didn't appear to require a restart or for you to click find, it just found it as soon as the driver finished installing - this is minor but could be a pain the first day you deploy the new version if you have a lot of serial connections as you can expect lots of Teachers saying their board has stopped working.

 

 

I used orca to create the mst files / edit the msi's, the driver was obtained using the network install option from the full activinspire download (installationActivInspire_v1.4.23015_ENU_Setup.exe) and the promethean board I used for testing is the oldest board in school. Any of these could be factors in why I couldn't get an MST to work, you may have better luck!

 

 

Other than ActivEngage and additional languages I'm not sure if much has been changed in the driver since 5.1.2.7 so I may stick with that one for now. It would be good if Promethean could develop a working MST or even split the drivers so we had one msi for serial and another for usb (or go back to the old method and just install both by default) - you really shouldn't have to edit an msi before you can deploy it using group policy and not being able to deploy it via group policy kind of defeats the purpose of having a network install option in the installer...

 

I hope this saves someone some time as its been quite a frustrating process...

 

 

Stephen

[cmssbrie]

Hi Stephen,

 

Glad you managed to get it sorted in the end!

 

You are quite right regarding the changes from 5.1.25 - the only real changes for the serial part of the driver were to do with Language support and ActivEngage.

 

As a side note, I have raised an enhancement request at my end for the ability to create a .MST file which will install the serial part of the driver - hopefully, it will be in a future release.

 

Thanks for your feedback!

[clareq]

I can no longer find the KB article referenced above on the Promethean site - has it been withdrawn?

[cmssbrie]

Hi There,

 

Apologies for the delay.

 

We have changed to a new KB provider for the UK KB portal.

 

Please click here for the article on the new site.

[ehartley7]

Is there currently a way to install the Serial Driver as well as USB as part of the MSI install being pushed out by GPO?

 

Thanks

[phillyrovers]

Hi ehartley7,

The way to do this would be add the command:

ADDLOCAL="ALL" to the msiexec command.

 

This will install the USB and Serial components onto the machine.

Thank you