CIRCA and Windows 10

Hi there,
So we have just tried to install CIRCA and use it on a Windows 10 machine:

• The drivers are not digitally signed necessitating installation in a special mode
• Running test it crashes with 'Exception EReadError in module CIRCA.exe at 0002989F. Error reading ComComboBox.ComProperty: COM Port Error: WriteFile failed on registry read.

I have tried to run it in the various compatibility modes with no success.

Please can you release a new component as we cannot complete the install until this is done.

Thanks
Mark

 

Nick,
Thanks - I raised this to [email protected] on the 21st September and my Electrican has also done via his UK contacts. Case number 31578209 was automatically raised but I have heard nothing since.....

Thanks
Mark

 

Hi Mark,

I may be able to help with the installation of CIRCA (and the drivers for the 5100HSCU) programming cable as I was tearing my hair out with a WIN 10 64bit machine that just would not load them. It requires a small amount of restarting and boot options to force Win 10 to install unsigned drivers.

1. Uninstall CIRCA
2. Hold down the SHIFT key while rebooting Windows via the START menu.
3. When the PC restarts choose TROUBLESHOOT
4. Choose ADVANCED OPTIONS
5. Choose SETTINGS
6. Choose RESTART
7. Choose F7 to disable the driver signing in Win 10

Just google "install unsigned drivers win 10" if you want to follow the above steps with some pictures.

8. After a reboot install CIRCA. You should see the Driver warning in the CIRCA software telling you that you will have to select to install an unsigned driver. After this hopefully the actual option will come up to install an unsigned driver.
9. Go ahead and complete the CIRCA installation

10. Plug in the 5100HSCU and Win10 should recognise it.

If that fails, don't reboot yet!

The drivers for this device should be in the

C:\windows\system32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nirt.infXXXXXX directory

Open your device manager and find the 5100HSCU cable (Unknown Device) that should be still plugged in that does not have the driver. Right click and choose the update or install drivers option. If you have to, choose to install a USB Device. Choose the Have Disk option and point the path to the ...DriverStore\FileRepository\nirt... directory. It should then install for you.

If the directory is not there see *** below

In the nirt.inf directory there is a nirt.inf and nirt.pnf file and a x64 subdirectory with the silib.sys and siusbxp.sys drivers. The files are just a Silicon Laboratories USB Driver.

*** If you cant find the files, then let me know and I can send them to you in a zip file. I don't know why Clipsal can't just let you download the drivers only instead of mucking around reinstalling CIRCA to get them! Maybe they could put them in the Downloads section of the CIS site.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Jason

 

Jason,
Thanks - I had got the drivers installed as you describe (was summarising your described steps in my one bullet!).

The problem is the step after that when I try and use them e.g. by testing an IR command at that point CIRCA just crashes. Have you actually got the application to function on Windows 10?

Thanks
Mark

 

Hi Mark,

Yes, I can definitely confirm that it is operating on Windows 10 64bit. I can think of four things that may help a little.

1. My Win10 installation is the free upgrade from Win 7-Pro 64bit (is your machine a fresh Win 10 install? Perhaps there is a different DLL or other hangover from Win7 that is not in Win 10

2. You mentioned that you had tried various compatibility modes. I did not do this at any time. May I suggest that you run it natively.

3. Uninstall the drivers and CIRCA (you probably already have) reboot and install again.

I ran onto all sorts of problems with CIRCA after I upgraded to Win 10. I tried every type of driver I could find that was "compatible" with the HSCU cable. I was ready to kick it across the room as I had wasted hours with it!

I then installed CIRCA on my laptop (the same flavour of Win 10 upgraded from Win 7Pro 64) with the "install unsigned drivers" option and it worked first go! A point to note is that this Laptop had never had any previous CBus software on it.

This laptop also has no other physical COM ports or USB COM ports connected(This issue was referred to in another post http://www.cbusforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5678 by Newman as a anomaly with the CIRCA/NIRT/HSCU5100) and two of the authors were experiencing the exact error you are reporting on XP with CIRCA 2.5.1) Two possible fixes were to install a USB COM Port (Newman) or another possible fix was provided by Yelat (Win7 64) as the last post in that thread. (This is my 4th suggestion)

The only way I could get CIRCA/NIRT/HSCU5100 running on my original machine was to copy the drivers across from the laptop and manually install them as described in my earlier post.

I hope that maybe one of these options may assist. I am disappointed for you that you have such a problem. It seems to take longer to get the thing working that it does to program it...having said that I am madly using the IR Reader to read in every command from every remote I can get my hands on as it seems to good to be true.

I can only say that given that all of this CBus software only runs on Windows, Clipsal should be providing signed drivers that can be downloaded separately from Toolkit, CIRCA etc.

Kind regards and best of luck

Jason Young

 

Thank you! That sorted it up to a point. I can confirm that CIRCA expects there to be a COMx device installed and if there isn't you get the crash.

With Windows 10 the driver signining is a right pain as that setting only applies for that session and is lost a reboot time so each time you want to use it you have to restart the laptop twice.....

Thanks
Mark

 

Hi Mark,

You should not have to restart windows each time you run CIRCA once you have installed the drivers. If, however, this is required for your setup (anything is possible with Windows), and you are happy with the slightly lower level of security (yes is probably the answer), you can permanently disable driver signing in Win 10.

Goggle it and choose the most reliable source (or sources).

Aside from this, is it working except for the driver signing annoyance?

Cheers

Jason

 

There is an Application Note of Installing CIRCA USB driver on Windows 10 available, please see the attachment.

 

Thanks all - looks like the Application Note has addressed both issues.

One small comment - downloading this file triggers the Microsoft Smartscreen that necessiates unblocking the zip. On my PC I was unable to unblock the zip file itself as it threw an error so I had to unblock each file in the zip file individually once I had uncompressed it. I think you can sign the Zip file too!

Regards
Mark

 

Hi Gun,

thanks for your help (I wish I had these a few months ago as it would have saved me a significant amount of time). Would it be possible to put the link to the drivers as a sticky at the top of the NIRT/IR Reader/CIRCA forum with a useful title so that anyone looking can see the availability of compatible drivers without trolling through the forum.

Kind regards

Jason