Topic: Losing COM Connection

[sreilly]

Here over the past week or so I've started losing the COM connection to my Vantage Pro Wireless console and VWS. The connections have been fine until this past week or so and now randomly VWS reports it can't communicate. I have checked the serial ports under Device Manager and all is fine there. The ports don't disappear as usually it would if the port goes bad and reports as working correctly. A simple closing of VWS and restarting the program after the notice gives me a connection and I'm back in service until it happens again, minutes, sometimes hours later. There are no moving components such as swinging cable between the console (wall mounted) and the tower computer case. The cable is in great shape and has been in this configuration for years. The RS232 dongle is apparently fine and the Data Logger is firmly in place.

For the record the computer is a desktop tower with 8 physical RS232 on board ports via two 4 port StarTech PCI add-on cards. Windows 7 Pro 64 bit, 4GBs RAM, Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16 GHz CPU. Only software running is OS and VWS along with VWSaprs.  VWS version is V15.00p02.

One thought was to install VWS on my other desktop but getting all the same settings and uploads could be a problem. Is there an easy way to transfer the program so it would be a ghost copy? Any thoughts on trouble shooting this problem?

Thanks,

Steve

[egg]

I have been having the same issue for the last week. I have been running VWS since 2007 and have only had this problem on rare occasions and only for a day at a time, not the multiple times per day issue I am having now. I am wondering if a Windows update may have contributed to this issue. I am running Windows 7. I installed Start Watch to take care of this problem and even though it restarts VWS, the issue still happens. Frustrating.

[sreilly]

Not sure if it has anything to do with it but the last two days there have been far fewer restarts needed. The only difference is I have started the program as normal and instead of leaving it minimized as normal I have it opened to the desktop. I can't see where this would change anything but it's the only thing I'm doing different at this point. It ran fine all last night and still at 11:16 am this morning. With this amount of time I would have had at least 5-6 lost communication messages. Go figure.

Steve

[sreilly]

I just noticed that the program was no longer open on the desktop, caught this motion out of the corner of my eye, and when I tried to maximize from the system tray VWS would not show any options. Using task manager showed no programs open so I had to go to Processes and end VWS from there before being able to restart. What is strange is that the program shows up fine when restarted in Task Manager under Applications Tab but not after I saw VWS was no longer displayed on the desktop earlier. It's as if the program terminated by itself or some unknown process killed the program but left the VWS icon in the system tray. Normally the icon would disappear when scrolled over if the program was terminated but then again the Task Manager showed VWS still active under Processes. I'm no programmer but this is weird. And yes, my Windows 7 Pro 64bit system is up to date including drivers.Other than Malwarebytes, ESET Nod32, VWSaprs, Everything (search app), and TeamViewer 10 are the only active programs shown in the system tray. TeamViewer was installed so I could remotely access this computer to check on this problem so it was installed after this started happening. No other software installed in a good while short of Windows updates.

Steve\

[Frank1938]

Same problem. After years being online with my Davis Vantage Pro 2, I can no longer connect. Says "Can not find Com Port". I have been connected via USB for a long time now.
I also have Windows 7 but until about 3 months ago have not had the problem.

Any suggestions ??

[bduren]

Good day to you all.

I have been using Vws for more than 9 years following each update. Current version I use is 15.05 It is there to download. I also had some trouble with USB to RS232 but since win7 64 bit it is gone.

When I upgrade or reinstall my operating system I always exclude vws.exe in DEP because some crash may occur full hour. I also check everytime that wininet.dll is no longer in vws folder. (this was update 15.00).
I do not know if this has cured som issues but since then verything works great.

When I make a clean install of a new computer and want to move vws I always take a copy of the whole vws folder to the same destination in the new computer. In my case d:\vws.
After that I install vws in the same folder. Works every time.

Happy new year.

/Bjorn

[miraculon]

I have had more than one instance of a Windows "update" changing power settings. On the most recent Win10 update, I lost the wake-on-lan settings. They "unchecked the boxes" for a couple power settings that have no obvious connection to WoL as far as I can tell.

More to the point, I have also seen USB sleep power settings changed by "updates". I wish the Bozos In Redmond would leave my settings the heck alone... 

Greg H.

[sreilly]

Not my problem here as I'm using a real serial port. I don't use any USB to Serial adapters. I also always set my computers to not go to sleep or stop hard drives. I build observatory computers and have them set to not do auto Windows updates, never go to sleep, and never have other programs close or restart the system.

All computer have at least 4 real RS232 serial ports.

I'm at the point where I'm thinking of getting a new Vantage Pro Wireless II with the USB Data logger but I don't see spending the money unless I know this will solve the problem. At this point I'm not sure if the 14 year old Vantage Pro is the problem, the console, the data logger, or the software. Three computers make that far less of a suspect. The station communicates with the console so I suspect it's either between the console, the data logger, and the software. Not sure where to go next. Tech support went over the settings and couldn't find any issues. Unknown next step.

Steve