Trixology

WeatherCat => WeatherCat General Discussion => Topic started by: Chet on June 15, 2019, 11:47:14 AM

Title: USB to serial
Post by: Chet on June 15, 2019, 11:47:14 AM
I am reinstalling on iMac after a hard disk failure. I must use the serial to usb adaptor for my Vantage Vue. I reinstalled the driver for Mojave but WeatherCat says it cannot see the data logger. I don?t know how to troubleshoot this. Please help.
Title: Re: USB to serial
Post by: Dave13 on June 15, 2019, 09:34:52 PM
A few things to try:

Click on  menu, choose "About this Mac". Click the "System Report..." button. In the hardware section, click on USB and see if your serial to USB adapter is showing in the list of devices. If not try unplugging it and plug it back in, also try another USB port on the Mac.

Check the USB ports and the USB plug on the adapter, make sure there is nothing in there, such as dust, to obstruct the connection.

If the adapter is in the hardware list, uninstall and reinstall the latest Silicon Labs drivers:
https://wiki.trixology.com/index.php?title=Obtaining_the_latest_drivers_for_use_with_Davis_data_loggers

If none of that helps, you might try replacing your serial to USB adapter with one that uses a Prolific chipset, which is more "Mac friendly":
https://www.amazon.com/Plugable-Adapter-Prolific-PL2303HX-Chipset/dp/B00425S1H8/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=usb+to+serial+mac&qid=1560630328&s=gateway&sr=8-2


I had a serial port data logger with a serial to USB adapter on my station. When I made the switch to WeatherCat I never could get MacOS to work with it. I replaced it with a USB data logger:
https://www.scaledinstruments.com/shop/davis-instruments/hardware-data-loggers-software/hardware-software-bundles/davis-6520-weatherlink-for-mac-os-x-for-vantage-stations/
Title: Serial data logger connected to a Vantage Vue? (Re: USB to serial)
Post by: elagache on June 15, 2019, 10:33:51 PM
Dear Chet, Dave, and WeatherCat troubleshooters,

Thanks Dave once more for providing a very thorough list of suggestions.  I can only add a question.

I am reinstalling on iMac after a hard disk failure. I must use the serial to usb adaptor for my Vantage Vue.

Why must you use a serial data logger in your Vantage Vue?  Davis switched to USB data loggers many years ago and the Vue is even more recent than that switch.  I didn't think there were any serial data loggers that would work with the Vantage Vue.

Please do let us know how you are progressing and when you get your Mac successfully communicating with your weather station once more.

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]
Title: Serial data logger does work with Vantage Vue (Re: USB to serial)
Post by: Dave13 on June 16, 2019, 03:26:59 AM
Hi Edouard,

I looked at the manual for the serial data logger on the Davis website, it does support the Vantage Vue:
https://www.davisinstruments.com/product_documents/weather/manuals/07395-210_GSG_06510_6555.pdf

From reading Chet's post, it sounds like he had his station working in WeatherCat with a serial data logger until the hard drive failed. If none of the options work that I suggested in my last post, then he would be better off to get a USB data logger.

Cheers, Dave [cheers1]
Title: Re: USB to serial
Post by: lakedog on July 14, 2019, 03:27:13 AM
Ok, I have a similar story. I am replacing a quite old MacBook Pro with a 2016 MBP, which I reformatted and installed Mojave on, and then installed WeatherCat 3.0. I have a Vantage Pro2 with a USB data logger. WeatherCat does not seem to see the logger. The comms ports shown are /dev/cu.SOC, /dev/cu.mals, and /dev/cu.Bluetooth-incoming-Port. Though it is a USB logger, I installed the latest SL driver, which made no difference.

Googling /dev/cu.SOC and Mojave, I found a dev forum in which a poster explained that he solved a problem like this, communicating serial-usb with a dev board with a computer with Mojave, using the Apple USB/USB-C adapter. He solved the problem by using a direct USB-c to mini-USB cable. I bought one of these, but it made no difference.

Has anyone made this work with Mojave? I could reformat and install High Sierra. Is that working for anyone with a MBP with USB-C? Or is this a USB-C compatibility issue?

Any suggestions appreciated.
Title: Did you authorize Silicon Labs driver? (Re: USB to serial)
Post by: elagache on July 14, 2019, 11:37:03 PM
Dear lakedog and WeatherCat troubleshooters,

Ok, I have a similar story. I am replacing a quite old MacBook Pro with a 2016 MBP, which I reformatted and installed Mojave on, and then installed WeatherCat 3.0. I have a Vantage Pro2 with a USB data logger. WeatherCat does not seem to see the logger. The comms ports shown are /dev/cu.SOC, /dev/cu.mals, and /dev/cu.Bluetooth-incoming-Port. Though it is a USB logger, I installed the latest SL driver, which made no difference.

I ran into a very similar problem when I was forced to move from a 2011 MacBook Pro to a 2018 Mac Mini running Mojave.  There is an extra step needed to make it possible to use the Silicon Labs driver.  The trick is described in this posting:

http://athena.trixology.com/index.php?topic=2933.msg28473#msg28473 (http://athena.trixology.com/index.php?topic=2933.msg28473#msg28473)

Apple, not making these sorts of things very easy, gives you an hour after you install a kernel extension to go to the Security pane of preferences to authorize the installation.  To get things working for me, I first uninstalled the driver using the tool supplied by Silicon Labs, I then installed as usual and immediately went to the security pane.  There was a message over there asking if I wanted to authorize the driver and after doing so, WeatherCat was able to connect to the Davis station without any issues.

Let us know if this solves your problem.

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]

Title: Re: USB to serial
Post by: lakedog on July 15, 2019, 08:50:59 PM
Edouard, Thanks! I will try this when I get home tonight.

I love the Apple ecosystem, and the Mac still seems easier to manage than Windows, but Apple seems to be more and more often adding layers, perhaps for security, that are not adequately revealed to users. If all you do is email and browsing, I guess this is safer; and I guess the real geeks dig deep right off the bat; but for the user with non-mainstream applications and hardware and middle level sophistication, there are becoming more and more traps to fall into. It doesn't "just work" anymore. I would have never discovered this on my own. Hope it does the trick.
Title: Re: USB to serial
Post by: lakedog on July 15, 2019, 09:15:30 PM
Edouard, BTW, if it can be edited, may I suggest adding the security preference step to the "Obtaining the latest drivers for use with Davis...."

http://wiki.trixology.com/index.php?title=Obtaining_the_latest_drivers_for_use_with_Davis_data_loggers

I had read this in looking for the drivers link, knowing that it had traditionally been important, but did not know the new step. Adding it to this article may save some people some headaches as more move to Mojave.

Thanks again!
Title: Good idea! Mojave instructions added. (Re: USB to serial)
Post by: elagache on July 15, 2019, 10:33:30 PM
Dear lakedog and WeatherCat Davis users,

Edouard, BTW, if it can be edited, may I suggest adding the security preference step to the "Obtaining the latest drivers for use with Davis...."
. . . . . .

You are only the second person to run into this problem, but definitely an update to the WeatherCat Wiki was in order.  I just completed it.  Thanks for the suggestion!

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]
Title: Re: USB to serial
Post by: lakedog on July 18, 2019, 05:58:21 AM
Thanks, but my problem has moved to the next level. I re-installed and authorized the drivers. Now the program finds the communications and runs a check for Davis products communication. However, now the log shows that it is waiting for data to be ready and then that it could not fetch data from the weather station:

 Fetching data from weather station...
12:52:07 AM 18-Jul-2019: ***WARNING*** WeatherCat was not able to fetch all the weather data from the hardware after repeated tries.
12:52:07 AM 18-Jul-2019: Error: Didn't get pressure, dewpoint, temperature, windspeed or direction.
12:52:07 AM 18-Jul-2019: Couldn't fetch data from hardware. Data not valid.
12:54:30 AM 18-Jul-2019: Fetching data from weather station...
12:54:30 AM 18-Jul-2019: Temperature not ready...
12:54:30 AM 18-Jul-2019: Dewpoint not ready...
12:54:30 AM 18-Jul-2019: Pressure not ready...
12:54:30 AM 18-Jul-2019: Precipitation rate not ready...
12:54:30 AM 18-Jul-2019: Rain count not ready...
12:54:30 AM 18-Jul-2019: Wind speed not ready...
12:54:30 AM 18-Jul-2019: External rh not ready...
12:54:30 AM 18-Jul-2019: Weather data not ready - retrying in 30 seconds.
12:55:00 AM 18-Jul-2019: Fetching data from weather station...
12:55:00 AM 18-Jul-2019: Temperature not ready...
12:55:00 AM 18-Jul-2019: Dewpoint not ready...
12:55:00 AM 18-Jul-2019: Pressure not ready...
12:55:00 AM 18-Jul-2019: Precipitation rate not ready...
12:55:00 AM 18-Jul-2019: Rain count not ready...
12:55:00 AM 18-Jul-2019: Wind speed not ready...
12:55:00 AM 18-Jul-2019: External rh not ready...
12:55:00 AM 18-Jul-2019: Weather data not ready - retrying in 30 seconds.
12:55:33 AM 18-Jul-2019: Fetching data from weather station...
12:55:33 AM 18-Jul-2019: Temperature not ready...
12:55:33 AM 18-Jul-2019: Dewpoint not ready...
12:55:33 AM 18-Jul-2019: Pressure not ready...
12:55:33 AM 18-Jul-2019: Precipitation rate not ready...
12:55:33 AM 18-Jul-2019: Rain count not ready...
12:55:33 AM 18-Jul-2019: Wind speed not ready...
12:55:33 AM 18-Jul-2019: External rh not ready...
12:55:33 AM 18-Jul-2019: Weather data not ready - retrying in 30 seconds.

Thoughts? Console displays outside and inside data.
Title: Re: USB to serial
Post by: xairbusdriver on July 18, 2019, 03:37:51 PM
Do the easy, simple steps first:
1. Check all connections
2. Re-boot the Davis Console
3. Try another cable
4. Quit WC, shutdown the computer, wait a few seconds, restart things
5. Remove/rename any old versions of the affected software
6. Run Apple Hardware Test (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202731)
7. See if the dealer will swap the adaptor

That's about all I can think of. Hope something/someone helps.
Title: Try authorizing again. (Re: USB to serial)
Post by: elagache on July 18, 2019, 11:22:57 PM
Dear lakedog, X-Air, and WeatherCat troubleshooters,

Thanks, but my problem has moved to the next level. I re-installed and authorized the drivers. Now the program finds the communications and runs a check for Davis products communication. However, now the log shows that it is waiting for data to be ready and then that it could not fetch data from the weather station:

Actually this is the same problem.  You haven't successfully authorized the driver.  If you look at the start of the thread you'll see that I was getting exactly the same problem.  You'll find my own log postings here:

http://athena.trixology.com/index.php?topic=2933.msg28460#msg28460 (http://athena.trixology.com/index.php?topic=2933.msg28460#msg28460)

You might have more than one copy of the Silicon Labs driver on your machine.  Try to make sure that you have removed everything, then install a fresh copy of the driver, authorize it, and you should be back in business.

To go back to one of your earlier postings - *Sigh*, Apple isn't doing a very good job of maintaining ease of use while tightening security.  :(

Oh well,
. . . . . Edouard
Title: Re: USB to serial
Post by: lakedog on July 19, 2019, 04:32:34 AM
Well, I'm good at going down cul de sacs here. I tried to use the uninstaller that came in the SL package, but it tells me I don't have permission to run it. "Get info" shows me (I am administrator) as read/write. Re-installing the driver again says that it is removing old version, but still did not clear up the issue. BTW, on the second install it did not send me to Security preferences, and going there I found no option to allow the new driver.

?????????????!!!
Title: Re: USB to serial
Post by: xairbusdriver on July 19, 2019, 03:25:37 PM
Quote
the second install it did not send me to Security preferences
The Security System "saw" the same thing when it reviewed the second install. You had previously approved/allowed the first install so it "knew" this was the same item. "Computer Intelligence" is really not very smart and it will not replace the human capacity to 'trick' it. [lol] Nor does it use 'human logic'. Just remember to not speak too badly about your computer, you do realize there is a microphone on those machines, right?! [computer] :o  [coffee]
Title: Try removing the files "manually." (Re: USB to serial)
Post by: elagache on July 19, 2019, 11:44:51 PM
Dear lakedog, X-Air, and WeatherCat troubleshooters,

Well, I'm good at going down cul de sacs here. I tried to use the uninstaller that came in the SL package, but it tells me I don't have permission to run it. "Get info" shows me (I am administrator) as read/write. Re-installing the driver again says that it is removing old version, but still did not clear up the issue. BTW, on the second install it did not send me to Security preferences, and going there I found no option to allow the new driver.
. . . . . .


Try running System Information (Utilities folder or About this Mac).  Bring up the Extensions and scroll over to the Silicon Lab driver(s).  Here is what you should see based on what is on my computer:

(http://www.canebas.org/misc/Capto_images/Silicon%20Labs%20driver%20report%202019-07-19.png)

It includes the path to the extension file (near the bottom.)  Try simply removing the file directly and emptying the trash.  If that doesn't work try this UNIX command in the terminal:

sudo rm /Library/Extensions/SiLabsUSBDriver.kext

The sudo command will give you administration permissions after you type in your password.  Once you have removed all existing copies of the Silicon Labs driver, you should be able to install a fresh copy and have an hour to authorize it.

Let us know if this gets you finally unstuck.

Cheers, Edouard
Title: Re: USB to serial
Post by: lakedog on July 24, 2019, 05:25:56 PM
Edouard, thanks.

I am just replying because I was at the location this weekend and trying to install it there.

It appears that I am unstuck and it is working. I am not totally sure what did the trick, but there are a few peculiarities of this system that may have contributed. I downloaded a fresh version of the driver, which had been updated and installed it, rebooted both computer and console while connected. At some point it clicked, but see below.

The peculiarity here is that this MBP is in a weekend/vacation mountain home. We often let friends and family use it and it had been set up with a guest user account for them to use. We had had a problem on the old MBP of it rebooting and WC not starting up. Since no one was there, we were not sure of the cause, or aware of when it happened. On the replacement, I had the Genius Bar try to set up the computer to auto reboot with WC in the startup list in the root. However, the way they set up the user accounts, the guest account was the one that was booted to first. WC was set up to be available to all users, so, while I logged in in my account to install the drivers and had the WC data files, etc., located there, I was unaware that a version of WC had already started connected to the guest account, but had no access to the WC setup preferences, data and support files in my user account, and so I think it did not do a full startup and stalled in initialization. I think that this must have created a conflict as the version in my account tried to access the same input port and console as the stalled WC, so the "data not ready" message came up in my account. I am not an IT expert, so this may be off, but it makes sense.

I eventually installed Lingon and set up a root job that referenced the WC app in MY user directories to start on boot and it seems to work. BTW, I am using a direct mini-USB to USB-C cable with no intervening Apple adapter dongle. Not sure if that makes a difference or not.

We will see how well or long this works remotely and unmonitored.

Title: Glad it is working and thanks for the update. (Re: USB to serial)
Post by: elagache on July 24, 2019, 11:17:08 PM
Dear lakedog and WeatherCat troubleshooters,

Thanks for the update and glad things are working now.  I hope it stays that way!

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]
Title: Re: USB to serial
Post by: Blicj11 on July 25, 2019, 04:20:38 PM
lakedog and Edouard:

I have been following this thread (I didn't chime in as I have no experience with that logger) and love it when a WeatherCatter is able to properly sort through a puzzle. Well done.
Title: Re: USB to serial
Post by: xairbusdriver on December 04, 2019, 01:10:42 AM
In pursuing an "Unable to verify Local" with a newly installed WeatherCat RCP, I discovered a peculiarity in the System Information on my Mac mini that runs WC. It shows 2 SiLab USB extensions. But the latest version (SiLabUSBDriver64) is not the one that is loaded! I'm still using Mojave macOS 10.14, so that may not matter to the mini, but it may be the cause for the iOS app's problem.

First I am going to attempt to get the OS to permit the "...64" extension recognized. If that fails, I intend to remove both versions, reinstall the latest (64bit?) one and look for the 're-authorization' prompt.
Title: Re: USB to serial
Post by: xairbusdriver on December 04, 2019, 02:51:17 AM
Actually, the kext with the "64" is older than the one loaded. SiLab has a much newer kext, "CP210x Macintosh OSX VCP Driver 5.2.2    - October 2, 2019" Trying to install it with the .zip/.dmg/installer.app gets to a point saying 'installed version is 5.0.4, will install version 5.2.2, Warning: CP210X device must be unplugged' What device? Possibly the old driver? I dunno. I've removed both the drivers and manually added the new one. Will Shutdown and cold Start and see if anything werks. [rolleyes2] [banghead]

OK, the 5.2.2 text is "Notorized" but not loaded.
    And it is now removed!

I'm dead in the water. Or as I always dreaded to hear, "You have a ground hold. I'll call you back when we get an estimated clearance time." [banghead] I'll start a new search after I get time tomorrow...
Title: Re: USB to serial
Post by: xairbusdriver on December 04, 2019, 10:09:05 PM
CCC to the rescue! ThU5:-) 24 minutes and WC is back in operation! [cheer] Could not have been easier! Simply booting to the CCC backup proved WC would work and that's all I wanted! [tup]