Random PC Crash during N2 Serial Tunnel

[MrEddySpag]

When connected to a site via serial tunnel, I am getting random PC crashes. The crash is the "Blue Screen of Death" and I must power off to restart the laptop. I have tried this on different laptops and different locations with the same results.

One day I worked on a site and commissioned three different systems all day long without a problem and other times I have tried to download a small program to an FX05 and as soon as I connect, the PC crashes.

Has anyone else had similar a similar experience? Johnson says they have no problem with it (imagine that!). I am using a Dell D830 laptop and a cable modem high speed internet connection. Any pointers would be GREATLY appreciated!

Best Regards,
MrEddySpag

[Cagey57]

What OS do you have on the Laptop ? Hopefully not Vista.

[MrEddySpag]

Windows XP Professional SP3

[americanhvac]

The problem is most likely caused when you click on the X at the top right to close out the fx comm pro.
If so, when done with the comm pro instead click file then either exit or close (i forget which) this has eliminated the problem for me.
let me know.
thanks,
sean

[MrEddySpag]

Since my original encounter with this problem, I have found that exiting CommPro seems to give me an IRQ error blue screen. Other times, as I said before, I get a different blue screen while discovering controllers, downloading/commissioning, or just doing nothing. The IRQ error only seems to occur on exit. I will try using the File/Exit instead of the red X and see if it helps the IRQ error. I have also talked to Milwaukee about this again and they have been in contact with Tridium. I questioned the serial tunnel.txt file that refers to version 1.2 and the installed version off of the Workbench CD is 1.1. The .txt file indicated a problem with 128 bit word errors. I have not been able to find this mythical version 1.2 and have had no reponse from Johnson as of yet.

[MrEddySpag]

Thanks for your reponse to this aggrivating problem!

[D1G]

If you post the core dumps (xp default will generate them) or post the "cryptic" error message shown on the BSD I can either tell you exactly why it crashed or at least point you in the right direction. The core dump file is more helpful and xp by default will generate them so unless you've changed the default settings they'll be there. The error message will only give you the reason it crashed with no information as to why that condition existed in the first place.

Respectfully,
D1G

[MrEddySpag]

[IMG]C:/Pix 001.jpg[/IMG]

Guess that didn't work - I have screen shots of each error

[D1G]

[IMG]C:/Pix 001.jpg[/IMG]

Guess that didn't work - I have screen shots of each error

You'll probably have to put them up on an image hosting site and link to them.

edit: Is there no way to PM anyone on this site? I get "The administrator has restricted this function" when I try to view the member list.

[MrEddySpag]

http://cid-3fe0e5a29d38199a.skydrive.../Pix%20001.jpg
http://cid-3fe0e5a29d38199a.skydrive...A29D38199A!121

Here are the (2) links to the screen error pictures... take a look.

[D1G]

http://cid-3fe0e5a29d38199a.skydrive.../Pix%20001.jpg
http://cid-3fe0e5a29d38199a.skydrive...A29D38199A!121

Here are the (2) links to the screen error pictures... take a look.

Those indicate the device driver is "crashing" (parent directory is normally %WINDIR%\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\) in both images but in different portions of allocated memory.

There was at one point an issue where if you ran out of virtual memory you could get the same "DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" and simply increasing the size of your VM would work around it. If your box has been patched in the last couple years I'm almost positive this has been fixed.

Since your issue spans different hardware and your faults are occurring in different sections of allocated memory I would point the finger at your application passing bad code (argument, request, etc..) to the system.

The BSOD screens offer very little insight into the nature of the issue. If you're lucky the offending execution will have produced an event when it occurred before it snowballed into the system crashing. What does Event Viewer have logged?

[MrEddySpag]

I cleared the event log and started a serial tunnel connection. I downloded a controller, commissioned, and was just navigating between controllers and then crashed. This looked like an entry that looked like something related. What do you think?

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Serial
Event Category: None
Event ID: 36
Date: 11/7/2009
Time: 9:32:52 PM
User: N/A
Computer: EECI-BRIAN
Description:
While validating that \Device\Serial1 was really a serial port, the contents of the divisor latch register was identical to the interrupt enable and the receive registers. The device is assumed not to be a serial port and will be deleted.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 00 00 08 00 02 00 56 00 ......V.
0008: 00 00 00 00 24 00 06 c0 ....$..À
0010: 3e 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 >.......
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0028: e8 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 è.......

[MrEddySpag]

The link to Microsoft's knowledge base has no further information.

[digo]

Try this link:
The odd part being the error applies to NT 4.0 and 2000, not XP...

Also, see the following comment on eventid.net:

[D1G]

1st: Are you using a serial device over a different output? I.e. USB to 9 pin serial cable? If so try removing the driver for the device and reinstalling it and/or looking for a new driver from the supplier.

2nd: Make sure the COM port/device you're using isn't sharing an IRQ with anything else. You can check in device manager. You can also check in your bios but be careful changing things there, you may fix your issue but create several others.

edit: Is there anything in C:\windows\minidump ? Substitute "C:" with whatever your boot drive is.

[D1G]

MrEddySpag,

I didn't forget you.

I've been trying to replicate your problem and I can't. I'm using a different model Dell (it shouldn't matter) laptop and everything is working as it should on Windows XP SP3. I can download and switch between modules without issue. I'm downloading the same program that's currently in them but w/e.

Do you have AV on your machine? There is a lot of malware in the wild that can cause these same issues/errors. Have you found a solution?

D1G

[MrEddySpag]

Ok. First I went to the link you sent on the serial entry in the registry. There are no parameters in there as described. Yes I have lots of entries in C:\windows\minidump. I opened with notepad and there's a lot of jibberish and alot of .sys filenames. Now, I'm going to uninstall the drivers for the S2 Innovations USB to Serial adapter that I use and the drivers for the Edgeport USB I have as a back-up and see what happens. Yes I use A/V software. Symatec Antivirus Corporate Edition so I would hope that I am reasonably clean as far as viruses and malware, etc. I let you know what happens after uninstalling the drivers.

[MrEddySpag]

We have an identical laptop at the office. I'm going to try to install just the serial tunnel and CommPro N2 and see how that goes. So far, I have tried on another dell laptop here at home (different model) and got the same failure. I wish I could isolate this to a particular machine... or something.

[MrEddySpag]

Just an update... I installed CommProN2 on the identical laptop and the serial tunnel utility. I connected to our DEMO FX20 at my desk with an FX07 connected. I opened the connection on COM5 which did not exist on the laptop, connected to the FX20 with COM5 in CommProN2. I downloaded the controller with a program 3 times without fail. Commissioned the controller, looking at all points. Tried to download again and got the same failure blue screen of death vserax.sys. There is next to nothing loaded on the laptop like there is on mine (yes, I'm a geek). I guess that this eliminates the laptop issue. Also, as I've discussed with Johnson, the version of Serial Tunnel is 1.1 that is installed. The text document that also gets installed talks about version 1.2.

[s2sam]

Good day MrEddySpag,

Your test results on two different computers effectively rules out anything funky with the computer. So, I would look closer to the CommPro software and the driver you mentioned. Remember in Windows, device drivers are "trusted components" and as such have minimal O/S trapping if they go awry and have full access/control of the hardware and memory... so if they have a bug they can easily take down your system. Since you are seeing a complete crash (i.e. Blue screen), then my feeling (and is confirmed by the resulting blue screen info) is that it is a device driver bug... This will not be something you will be able to fix (device driver needs to be investigated and possibly modified), however, it seems that whatever you are doing, etc seems to create a re-creatable scenario...Although this seems bad, the fact that it is relatively re-creatable is a tremendous benefit to the software vendor, as it should be quite straightforward to sort it out. Hopefully the software vendor will be humble enough the acknowledge that their may be a bug in their software/driver and work with you towards a suitable solution.

Cheers,

Sam