dongle issues

Hi,
I'm running m119 on a mac pro and have a regular ittermitant fault where catalyst fails to see the dongle. I've had this happen on occassion with a few other identical servers (I have six indentical systems) but not by any meens with the same regularity. Also sometimes it will be fine straight after booting catalyst but then loose the dongle about an hour later.
I'm guessing it is a hardware fault with the USB on the Mac, could anyone reccomend what to do from here to confirm this?
I've currently swapped the dongles with another machine to see if the fault moves or not, and so far the fault hasn't re occured.

All suggestions welcomed.

Hi, i've had kind of similar actions. When auto loading Catalyst from startup menu the dongle wasn' t recognised. Quitting and reloading catalyst solved it. Strange and it did not happen always, only in some (unpredictable) occasions.

I found that removing Cat app and reinstall sometimes helps. In one occasion Cat app got corrupted and I had to reinstall because it wouldn't work no more.

So maybe you should try a reinstall????

Good luck

I've seen this recently with Mac Pros. Are you plugging straight into the Mac or via a PCIe card?

Hugh

Hi Hugh,

How are you today....

Yes, i plugged in straight into USB port on back of MACPRO. One server worked without blue bars and red screens without even accepting the dongel :confused: After retrying several times finaly the dongle was recognised and accepted.

I have to say that this was with a system with build 119 installed. The other systems had 113 installed and ran fine... so maybe there is something with the build in driver in 119 ????

i dont write the dongle software - its 3rd party- i get told by this whether the dongle is there or not.

the only thing i know for sure at the moment -
there seems to be an issue when file sharing is turned on - it stops the dongles from working.

something in their drivers isnt working correctly with file sharing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Improve

Yes, i plugged in straight into USB port on back of MACPRO. One server worked without blue bars and red screens without even accepting the dongel :confused:

---

when i was with you in holland i made a code for one of your macs that didnt need a dongle. we needed it for your show.
this is why you saw this.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by kiwi

Hi,
I'm running m119 on a mac pro and have a regular ittermitant fault where catalyst fails to see the dongle. I've had this happen on occassion with a few other identical servers (I have six indentical systems) but not by any meens with the same regularity. Also sometimes it will be fine straight after booting catalyst but then loose the dongle about an hour later.
I'm guessing it is a hardware fault with the USB on the Mac, could anyone reccomend what to do from here to confirm this?
I've currently swapped the dongles with another machine to see if the fault moves or not, and so far the fault hasn't re occured.

All suggestions welcomed.

---

you have a usb card with your dongle?

Hi all thanks for your replys,
Yes the dongle is straight into the Mac as I dont have a spare PCI slot (two LFG cards)
Richard thanks for the tip about file sharing, it is on at the moment I will try turning that off, although it is turned on on the back up server and that is working fine.
I ment to mention in the orginal thread that catalyst sometimes loses the USB keyspan serial adaptor in the custom serial output box when it doesnt see the dongle. The TCP ones are fine -this is what makes me think it is a hardware fault.
Is there diagnostic tool for the USB bus?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Improve

Hi, i've had kind of similar actions. When auto loading Catalyst from startup menu the dongle wasn' t recognised.

---

I know some one who has an auto load set, he had the same problem. He wrote a bit of apple script to delay catalyst booting and this seemd to solve the problem.

Just to share,... we did experienced a Dongle problem today.

Is a USB card with the dongle inside the computer.

We tooked out, did not work either.

We looked at the sharing, and was OFF,... but anyway we did START then STOP file sharing. We also trashed all the preference files from the Catalyst folder (3 files txt xml).

And now is working again. No Blue bars.

Is just to share,... BTW I belive is the file sharing as reoported before, but we used sharing in the past with NO Issues.

If anyone can share is OK by now, or if I will get future problems soon,... just let me know.

Regards to all

something has clearly recently affected the aladdin dongle driver when file sharing is enabled. i first noticed this in italy- when they were using an italian OS.

I have no idea what - i didnt change anything -

when you write -

Quote:

---

but we used sharing in the past with NO Issues

---

this does not mean that no problems ever arise in the future.
I have to write software for a constantly evolving and changing platform.

We know,... and so far a very good job.

i dont use the USB cards HES shipped. and i dont actually have one nor do i know what they used.

it is possible that these cards are the source of these problems.

The Card shipped in the last server by HES was
"ALLEGRO EXPRESS USB" by SONNET with 4 external + 1 internal USB2 connector.

I use the same model i use on my servers.
This card work good with MAC PRO and is a PCIexpress,need X1 espansion
slot maximum speed.
The Speed must be setted on the
Expansion Slot Utility when will open during first installation.

I have randomly problem with a dongle,andi have seen,sometimes
the dongle is not recognized if you load automatically catv4 application.
This not appeare if you start catv4 application manually.
I hope this information is good to have momentary bypass of the problem.

bye

Roberto Novelli CATALYST & SAMSC Product dealer for ITALY

Product Manager & Technical Support
roberto_novelli@ianiro.com
IANIRO ALDO srl.

helpdesk : ianiro@ianiro.com
http://www.ianiro.com
Sede principale/Head Office : Via Ragusa, 5
Logistica/Logistics : Via Ragusa, 3
00040 Pavona (Roma)- ITALY
+39 06 9310198 ra tel
+39 06 93162162 fax

I have both type of cards... Belkin and the Sonnet. I just had this problem on the Dongle once last week, so I do not belive is the card... but anyway
We like the card, keeps our dongles safe inside the computer

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gian

I have both type of cards... Belkin and the Sonnet. I just had this problem on the Dongle once last week, so I do not belive is the card... but anyway
We like the card, keeps our dongles safe inside the computer

---

i think you saw the file sharing issue last week.

these cards also have seemed to be quite head sensitive.
they have been reported to have stopped working when it gets hot.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by roberto_novelli

I have randomly problem with a dongle,andi have seen,sometimes
the dongle is not recognized if you load automatically catv4 application.
This not appeare if you start catv4 application manually.

---

that is because when you auto run catalyst - the dongle driver has not had enough time to load and run.
you need to delay the loading of catalyst at startup for a few seconds using an applescript.

I wrote a startup apple script last year for the G5's. It solves this issue. and other startup associated problems. However, I've found that you have to change the delay to 10 seconds for the Intels. (as opposed to 3 for the G5's)

The problem seems to be with OS loading USB drivers... 10s seems to be long enough in most cases to then allow catalyst to startup and see the dongle. Havent seen any difference between PCI USB cards or using inbuilt USB sockets though...

For startup scripts - check out: http://chaldee1.gotadsl.co.uk/~richa...read.php?t=856

Simon

heat and using internal usb cards is definitely the main problem here.

I was in italy last week, with a dongle mounted inside a computer- dongle not recognised- moved dongle externally - worked fine.

either the usb card or the dongle doesnt like hot computers.