Bluetooth confuses VISA Find Resource

[wired]

I am running a LV8.0.1 built application using VISA runtime 3.4.1 to do RS-232 serial communications on a Toshiba Laptop.  When I enable "Bluetooth RFCOMM from Toshiba" in the device manager, a bunch of COM ports are added in the "Ports (COM & LPT)" section of Device Manager.  Each one says it is "Toshiba BT Port (COMx)", each with a different COM port.  However, when I run VISA Find Resource with a mask of "ASRL?*" and look for COM ports, I get some duplicate entries for the non-Bluetooth COM ports, and the Bluetooth COMports themselves do not even show up.  Is this a VISA issue, or a Toshiba issue?

The returned results are correct as long as I disable the "Bluetooth RFCOMM from Toshiba"  under the Bluetooth section.

Kevin

[Chris_R.]

Hi Kevin,
In general, NI-VISA supports serial ports, not Bluetooth ports.  This does not mean it will not work, but sometimes you see unexpected or strange behavior since we have not tested many of these set ups.  NI-VISA seems to be getting the list from the registry at:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DEVICEMAP\SERIALCOMM

If the laptop is throwing unexpected data into the folder, then it may be an issue with the laptop.  If this folder looks okay (ie. if it does not have these extra resources listed), then it may be a VISA issue.  What may be useful for us here is if you go to this key in your registry and Export that file to disk and post it here.  I can then take a look at it and see if I can get anything from it.  You can find it by going to Start>>Run and typing "regedit" and pressing enter.  Make sure to not change anything in the registry.  Browse to the address listed above, right click on it and select "Export".  I have attached a screen shot below of what my 1 COM port system looks like?  Also, do you see all these extra ports in Measurement and Automation Explorer (MAX) in the Devices and Interfaces folder?  If so, you may be able to change the alias of each of these so that you do not get any duplicate entries.  Please check these things and let me know what you find out.

[wired]

Chris,

I do not see any COM ports at all in MAX under the Devices and Interfaces section, even after a refresh.

Attached is the registry section you requested - I reenabled the Bluetooth and took this snapshot.

[Chris_R.]

Hi Kevin,
Unfortunately, our driver does not put those entries in that folder in the registry.  All the VISA driver does is read that registry.  I am not sure if the Bluetooth driver or your device is putting all those in there or not.  I am also not sure why you are getting non-Bluetooth COM ports, unless you have other COM ports on your system.  Is there an alternate Bluetooth driver you can use?  Are you needing to use the Bluetooth COM ports or are you able to use the non-Bluetooth ones? 

It sounds like something that the Bluetooth driver is doing since our drivers do not add COM ports to the registry.  You may want to ask Toshiba or the makers of the Bluetooth drivers you are using to see if this is a common issue.

Chris R.
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

[wired]

Chris,

If the VISA driver is reading the registry to provide its resource list, why don't I see this list as the output from the Find VISA Resources VI?  COM1, COM4, and COM3 are the com ports I get when Bluetooth is not enabled. The complete list I get back from the VI is something like this when Bluetooth is disabled:

COM1 (Communications Port)

COM3

COM4 (Belkin USB-to-Serial)

When Bluetooth is enabled, I get something like this:

COM1 (Communications Port)

COM3

COM3

COM4 (Belkin USB-to-Serial)

COM4 (Belkin USB-to-Serial)

COM4 (Belkin USB-to-Serial)

[Chris_R.]

Hi Kevin,

Where are these COM ports coming from?  Are they built in COM port(s) or do you have a serial device adding COM ports to the system?

Chris R.

[wired]

There are 2 built-in ports (one external RS-232 (COM1), and 1 internal modem (COM3).  The Belkin is a plug-in USB-to-Serial adapter.

[Chris_R.]

Hi Kevin,

Do you have the full version of NI-VISA installed?  If not, please install this.  The Ports may not show up in MAX until you install the full version.  You can download the latest version here.  Let me know if this clears any of the problems.

Chris R.

[wired]

Chris,

Are you saying that NI-VISA Runtime is not sufficient to be installed with my Labview EXE?  Also, should I even need to have MAX to be able to run a LabVIEW executable app?  I thought I would only need the LV8 runtime engine and NI-Visa runtime.

[Chris_R.]

Hi Kevin,
You are correct, you only need to have the runtime engines for an executable.  I had forgotten you were using an executable.  What I do want to see if your visaconf.ini file.  I still want you to install VISA, enable the Bluetooth feature on your laptop, and post your visaconf.ini file.  This is located at C:\VXIPNP\WinNT\NIvisa.  Also, if you have MAX installed, your ports section should show up with the full version of the VISA drivers installed.  Please go into MAX and let me know what you see here.  You should have some ports listed in the Ports section.  Once I have this information, I will look further into the issue for you.

Chris R.