New Silicon Labs USB Driver

[awilltx]

Just noticed that there is a new driver posted at http://www.silabs.com/products/mcu/Pages/USBtoUARTBridgeVCPDrivers.aspx.


For some strange reason, the revision notes for version 4.10.7 give the date as Feb. 15th, 2015 which would be quite a trick.


Feel free to research, download, install and report back if you're up to it!


Alan


update: Installed and running with no problems. I had to reboot my machine anyway and thought I would give it a shot.

[Bull Winkus]

Thanks! I may do so as well. The only issue I'm dealing with is that when using an older iMac (2008) it only works when the USB cable is attached through a hub. Connecting directly to the iMac fails to make the connection. The issue started with a computer swap from a 2011 iMac to the 2008, so it may or may not be related to an OS X revision.

I'm getting along fine right now with an old USB 2.0 hub, so I'm a little reluctant to muck with it.

[elagache]

Dear Alan, Herb, and WeatherCat sys-admins,

Just noticed that there is a new driver posted at http://www.silabs.com/products/mcu/Pages/USBtoUARTBridgeVCPDrivers.aspx.


For some strange reason, the revision notes for version 4.10.7 give the date as Feb. 15th, 2015 which would be quite a trick.

Actually there is something strange here.  The release notes do not have appeared to have changed:

http://www.silabs.com/Support%20Documents/Software/Mac_OSX_VCP_Driver_Release_Notes.txt

On this page, the release date is February 15th 2015.  More strange, there is no mention of support for El Capitan.  The installer has a more recent date: February 4th, 2016.  And as you say, the release date on the release notes included with the installer claim a release date of February 15th, 2016.  However, the rest of the release notes don't seem changed.

Definitely a little sloppy.  I would have liked to know if the driver truly does support El Capitan now.

Oh well, . . . . Edouard

[awilltx]

Strange, indeed. Sloppy documentation, for sure. Sloppy on my part as well. Of course, I meant to type Feb 15th, 2016 not '15. But let's not confuse ourselves further.


At any rate, the previous release did not ever officially say it supported El Capitan 10.11 and it worked just fine. So, maybe this version doesn't officially support it either. I've been running without problem for 28 hours. Fingers crossed and all that.


Alan

[WeatherguyNH]

I seem to be suddenly having a bunch of errors with the SLAB driver. Now, I have no idea how old the old I am running is but the last few days my Mac (Running El Cap) has a slew of msgs in the Console all related to problems running the driver.

Not sure why this just started either....VERY reluctant to replace unless I must.
I would be interested if anyone has has tried this driver and the results.

Thank you

Rich
2009 Mac Pro

[xairbusdriver]

I think there was an update to the driver last year. The one I have is v. 4.1.1 dated 5/17/15. You can probably find it in /Library/Extensions/SiLabsUSBDriver.kext or by using the Apple menu, pressing option and selecting System Information... Then select the "Extensions" label in the Software section.

[WeatherguyNH]

Thanks:
The extension I am running is 2.9.0d1 dated 5/20/2011.
Now I did find some corruption on my HD and spent most of today cleaning that up, and everything seems to be running fine once again.
As strange as it sounds, this older driver still seems to be working fine even in El Cap?

Not sure I want to mess with it.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Rich

[elagache]

Dear Rich and WeatherCat Davis station owners,

Thanks:
The extension I am running is 2.9.0d1 dated 5/20/2011.
Now I did find some corruption on my HD and spent most of today cleaning that up, and everything seems to be running fine once again.
As strange as it sounds, this older driver still seems to be working fine even in El Cap?

Not sure I want to mess with it.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Unfortunately, the only clear aspect of this situation is uncertainty.  Silicon Labs released a new version of the driver this year, so long after Apple released El Capitan.  You can read the release notes here:

http://www.silabs.com/Support%20Documents/Software/Mac_OSX_VCP_Driver_Release_Notes.txt

I had thought the release notes had not changed, but this isn't true.  It clearly states that the latest release was on February 15, 2016 and what was changed in that release (and I quote:)

Version 4.x.7
   Added VID/PID for Sekonic and DASCOM.
   Minor fix to postflight script for 64 bit 10.8 and below OS's.

That clearly is a fix and it does explicitly mention adjusting the support for Mountain Lion and earlier versions of OS X.  Why on earth is Silicon Labs not acknowledging that this driver does work on El Capitain?  After all, many WeatherCat users have been using it (and indeed earlier versions of the driver) on El Capitain without problems.

It is one of the reasons I've decided to stay at Yosemite for the moment.  Better the devil you know than the devil you don't.

Sorry, that's all the wisdom I've got on the subject.

Edouard