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Working with an Adafruit FTDI 232H Breakout assembly. I've already asked at Adafruit and FTDI and I'm still clueless. Writing in Python using the Adafruit-provided libraries and the FTDI libraries. Very new to Python and the FTDI 232H device...

Using Windows 10 Pro

I am able to successfully install the 'drivers' for the Adafruit based on this tutorial (specifically the Windows portion):

https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-ft232h-breakout?view=all

In the end, the interface will work, but what happens is that the device seems to be locked to a physical USB port. If I move the device to another USB port on the same machine, it is not recognized.

Based on some reading I've done, it seems like the driver, although installed in Windows, can only associate with the device on one port. Some say that Windows uses the serial number to keep track of what device uses what driver.

I have observed, using USBDView, that this device is not displaying a S/N. I have other devices that do not display a serial number and they can move from port to port without issue. This leads me to believe that the S/N tracking may not be 100% true in Windows. The Adafruit board does have a S/N in the EEPROM, but for some reason that information is not being provided to Windows / USBDView. I've not been able to successfully access the EEPROM via the FTProg utility.

I suspect that this might have something to to with the libusbK library that is installed via Zadig tool (again in the instructions) but I am not sure. FTDI says that there should not be any issue using the libusbK library.

Can anyone out there give me some pointers on:

  • Is it accurate that Windows uses the S/N to keep track of what driver goes with what device?

    • If so, how to get the FTDI device to display the S/N?

  • Is there some other setting in Windows that needs to be changed to allow this device to be used on other physical ports?

  • Is there any other utility like FTProg that could be used to work with the EEPROM?

  • Am I just missing something simple, Noob-style?

Thank you in advance,

Epartsman
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1 Answers1

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I seem to recall a similar case related to COM port enumeration and Windows where the COM port enumeration is a hash of assorted variables including the PCI bus #, device #, etc. We witnessed this through the Microsoft devcon utility which is priceless and is a command line version of Device Manager.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/devtest/devcon

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/deploymentguys/2009/12/16/where-to-find-devcon-exe/

If you google around, you can find the compiled version of this invaluable tool. With confidence, believe this tool will assist you to debug your USB port mystery. Good luck.

mon2
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  • https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6416931/can-the-physical-usb-port-be-identified-programatically-for-a-device-in-windows?rq=1 – mon2 Aug 31 '19 at 20:30