RS232 Problem

[peakey]

Hi, I am new to housebot and having problems with the generic serial device setup, I have followed the online tutorial to the letter, but I cannot get the serial port to work from housebot. I am trying to use housebot to talk to homevision which in turn will control sky tv via IR. I have used hyperterminal to communicate with the serial port and homevision and all works as expected, this problem is with housebot. Interestingly I evaluated housbot 9 month ago and had this working, I have now purchased and installed on a clean xp pro machine and it will not work.

Things I have tried.
1.Re-installing housebot with generic serial device disabled, then install again with enabled.
2.I get no errors in the logs, I have enabled advanced tracing for my homevision device

I get not entries in either log when I toggle the device property, and I get no received response in the received data property or received hex data property.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Regards peakey.

[Richard Naninck]

It seems you are beyond basics here since you got it working in hyperterm but still, what you discribe is not that much so I guess we have to start at the beginning.

You created a hardware device and have all settings set correctly?! Baudrate, stopbits etc.
Did you map certain serial strings or are you using the wildcard to get your messages across?
What do you see in the Received Data, Received Hex Data en Send Data properties? At least you should see something in the Send Data property when trying to get a message across.

All very basic questions, I know, but since it doesn't work, things have to be ruled out first..

[peakey]

Thanks Richard, well where should the Send Data properties be I don't have one?.

I have a hardware interface which is correctly configured to the spec of the homevision, I have created 2 test commands called BBC1 and BBC2, homevision when it receives BBC1 or BBC2 as ascii sends the required IR codes to the sky receiver, If I type BBC1 or BBC2 into hyperterminal everything fires ok from homevision to the sky box. I have a definition called homevision Def, I am using com1 which is enabled.

I have created a property called homevision TV Remote which has BBC1 & BBC2 set as values.

I have a generic serial device with the homevision definition with the values BBC1 and BBC2 entered.

I have a Homevision device with received data, received hex data, tv remote, log listed. I have mapped the tv remote commands property values as BBC1 to BBC1 & BBC2 to BBC2, I have a check in the enabled box. When I toggle BBC1 or BBC2 in the tv remote listing, the received data and received hex data boxes remain empty and no serial commands are sent.

Regards Gary.

[Richard Naninck]

Yeah, sorry about that. Since all of my 11 serial devices are setup the same using the wildcard method to send data using the script device I only have one property to each device and named it 'send data'. Obviously this is not a standard property belonging to the serial device. The only two properties that are standard except for the log are the received data and received hex data.

So by reading what you did so far, I really can't think of anything that you missed.

Did you swap your device to another com port.?
You might want to try downloading comport sniffers. Some of them can connect to the same device even if HouseBot controls the port. This you might be able to see if you are really sending data on a hardware level.

How are your command terminators set up?
Maybe post a screenshot of your hardware devices setting window.

[peakey]

Thanks Richard, Tried com port sniffer it shows that housebot is opening the com port but no commands are being sent from the properties, I have also tried installing on another xp machine which responds exactly the same, are you using the latest housebot 3.30.02, Could this be a bug? If I cant get this working, I will have to ask for a refund and buy homeseer :-(

[Richard Naninck]

I am always using the latest HB version and my system has always been Generic Serial heavy! So no bugs whatsoever concerning the Generic Serial Device. Something really simple must be wrong in your setup.

You can rule out your PC since you tried two PC's and get it to work with hyperterm.

With the sniffer, you see the port opening but no commands are being sent. That explains why it isn't working. So something is definately setup wrong on the HouseBot side. The port opens and no commands are seen. That ules out parity, stopbits etc since you would still see data if one of those were wrong.

Something wrong with binding your command set. Try to enable logging / tracing and see what happens.

Delete everything and start over usually fixes stuff. If nothing will work, I can talk you through the way I set it up. That way you can just type your commands in a null device property using the wild card option.

[peakey]

OK Thanks, I cleaned out the access database and started fresh, still the same, I have attached some screen dumps is there anything obvious I am missing?

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Clipboard04.jpg (334.86 KiB) Viewed 4317 times

Clipboard05.jpg (435.74 KiB) Viewed 4317 times

[ScottBot]

Looks ok to me. Are you sure the flow control is set correctly? It would also be good to see a hardware interface trace (from HouseBot).

[Richard Naninck]

In the screenshot, your device is not enabled. Just to be sure...

If you have more than one serial device, you should rename the 'Received Data Serial Device Destination' from 'All' to 'HV'.

Looks OK to me to... Sorry

[peakey]

Changed from All to HV, no change, I have switched on hardware tracing and advanced tracing for the hardware HV there are no events been logged nothing at all, Yes the flow control is correct for homevision.

Don't know what else to try.

[Richard Naninck]

If you are still up for it, we could set up the wildcard which makes testing a lot easier.

In that case, I would add an extra property to your serial device and name it 'Send Data' (or whatever you like)
In the property manager you should add just one discrete value to the Send Data property and name it '*'. (One simple asterix). Type = Alpha Numeric
In the hardware setup create a command with name; Send Data and with Write Data; %1% and with Data Type; ASCII
When done, enable the hardware device again and bind the Send Data to the * in your device.
Now go to the device and you can type BBC1 (or whatever) in your Send Data property and it should send it to your device.

Tip: try a lower baudrate setting if that is at all possible. All my devices are set to 9600 which is fast enough. I see yours at 19K2 and since we are now on a stupid debug basis, we might as well try the obvious;)

Please don't give up on HB since I am a 100% sure something really simple is missing which will make you feel silly once you found it. Been there many times already

[peakey]

Richard, did what you suggested but, I have alpha or numeric to choose from not both so selected alpha, I am unable to enter any text in the send data property, I get the asterix as a drop down only?

[Richard Naninck]

In the property manager you have the option list for Type:
Alpha-Numeric
Alpha-Numeric List
Boolean
Filename
Numeric
File
Path

etc etc

As for typing stuff in the property, left mouse click on the property name in the right window. Just left of where you got the dropdown. This pops a different window with 4 tabs: General Settings, History, Dependent Tasks and Commands.
You have used this to bind Commands. Now select the General Settings (most left) tab and you can type your data in the Value white space. Or press the Select gadget right of the white space and type your data in the window and press OK to send it.

Please keep on trying and asking questions. Let's get this to work!

[peakey]

Well it depends where you create the property, if you create it from the property window it is as your list, if however you create it from the generic serial device there is no option for alpha numeric. I misunderstood your post and went into the serial device property.

I did already try from the general settings value box but did not press enter so got no response, anyway, we have at least got some progress and I now have Due to an error, [HV Device.Send Data] was NOT changed to [BBC1], I am going to delete the send data property and recreate it from the main property window with alpha numeric selected and try again.

OK Did that same error message displayed at the bottom of the screen, The property window shows alpha numeric but the generic serial property window shows alpha only.

[Richard Naninck]

I see what you mean now as well about the Alpha. So that is setup right. Now ateleast you get something. When I disable my hardware device and try to enter new data through the Send Data property, I get the exact same error.

Just to be sure again (because in your screenshot the device was not enabled). Did you enable the hardware device?