Bluetooth with Dell Latitude E6400

[leos]

I came across a strange problem and would like to ask this community if it can suggest the solution. I am developing LabView application, which supposes to talk to my hardware via Bluetooth. Initially I used Laptop Dell Latitude D820 and had no problems to run Bluetooth Discover function which returned the address and the name of my device. This is relatively simple routine. Then new laptop Dell Latitude E6400 has arrived and I moved my application to this machine. Discover routine would not return any BT devices at all. I first thought that Bluetooth just does not work in new laptop - checked with Dell own application to discover new device - it worked just fine and found all bt devices around including the box I am interested in particular. So, Bluetooth radio apparently working fine in Dell E6400, however labview could not discover any devices. Does anyone have any thoughts on the problem?Thanks in advance  

[srikrishnaNF]

Hi leos,

  Before running this application,please put that discover vi and check if there are  devices around...

Thanks and regards,

srikrishnaNF

[leos]

Hi srikrishnaNF,

Thank you for your reply. I did what you suggested and again nothing is being discovered via LabView discover.vi ... I have few devices with Bluetooth running around this laptop including my phone and another older Dell laptop. All are being discovered without any problem with the same vi running on older machine. 

I am running out of ideas - all pointing to a LabView software is not communicating properly with Dell bluetooth driver.

Thanks again,

leos.

[srikrishnaNF]

Hi leos,

  Two things are there in mind.First one is What is operating system is there is in the system?

Next one,labview bluetooth driver will work if there is microsoft bluetooth driver...For further clarification http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/3260

Thanks and regards,

srikrishnaNF

[leos]

Hi srikrishnaNF,

My OS is Windows XP SP3. There is a driver for Bluetooth Radio (Dell Wireless 370 Bluetooth Mini-card) and I have updated this driver from the Dell website. Driver version is 5.5.0.5700

I also did read the information from the link and I don't see that I am deviating from these recommendations.

Thanks a lot for your continuous efforts to help to solve this enigma.

leos.

[Jason_Whaylen]

Leos,

There are a few other things that I would recommend trying in order to troubleshoot this issue. 

First, with many Bluetooth devices a fixed address is usually printed on the actual device.  Bluetooth addresses are unique to each device. Therefore, I would be curious to see if the results were the same if you skip the discovery process and use the Bluetooth Open Connection function to connect to the device directly.  This would help to confirm that all of your bluetooth communication is not working through LabVIEW.

Also, according to many of our online KnowledgeBase documents, LabVIEW utilizes the Microsoft Bluetooth Stack for its communication.  It may be possible that the Dell driver that you referenced has affected the LabVIEW functionality on your new system.  The following KnowledgeBase Document outlines how we can work around this installation to revert your system to the Microsoft version which was intended for use with LabVIEW.

How Do I Make a Bluetooth Device Work with LabVIEW?

I hope this helps!

Regards,

Houston FSE

[leos]

Thank you very much for your suggestions.

First I tried with the actual bluetooth address typed into Bluetooth Device open function and it did not work - I tried it before and just confirmed it today... 

Secondary, I checked your suggested link and got Error 58 when run LabView example Bluetooth Server, so I confirm that. Then following this KnowledgeBase document - I looked for bth.inf (could not find such file) or in this matter any file which has Bluetooth Wireless Adapter listed in it...

My laptop has 370 bluetooth mini card adapter, which can't be unplugged because I believe it is internally installed, so I can't follow those instructions..., but I uninstall all bluetooth drivers as instructed. 

Re-installed adapter with WIDCOMM Bluetooth Software 5.5.0.6100 as recommended by Dell. Installation found Blutooth Mini-card, installed it and reported no problems.

At the end - it appears that bluetooth device utility can find all the devices with bt enabled around this laptop, also other devices can see this laptop, except labview - still could not see ANY bt devices.

I believe you are right that Dell driver has affected the LabView functionality; unfortunately i can't find a fix for this issue.

Please advice more if you could.

Thank you.

[JamesB.]

The WIDCOMM Bluetooth Driver (later resold by Broadcom) is not the same as the Microsoft Bluetooth Driver.  As documented in the links provided above, the LabVIEW VIs will only work with the Microsoft driver.

Wanting to switch which driver is controlling your Bluetooth radio is very common, but I wasn't able to dig up any good online tutorials describing this process.  My best recommendation at this point is to open Device Manager, find your Bluetooth radio, right-click and select "Update Driver...".  Then walk through the wizard, select the advanced options, and look for the option to use the Microsoft driver instead of the WIDCOMM driver.

I know that isn't great, detailed help, but hopefully it can help point you in the right direction.

[leos]

Thank you James,

I appreciate your insight to the problem. I did all and everything you said today with no luck though some lessons learned too. I uninstalled WIDCOMM Bluetooth Driver and, after some search found bth.inf file (the inf directory was hidden) and modified as suggested in the document "How Do I Make a Bluetooth Device Work with LabView". One thing - I can't unplug minicard, because it is located somewhere inside my laptop. Therefore after rebooting my machine does not seem to recognize that I have a new device and I can't install Windows Bluetooth driver as a result. It is kind of a circle.

Also in the article I am referring today a lot  - at the end it says: This workaround may not work with all Bluetooth USB devices.

I hope that NI would take a closer look into this problem and work with Dell to resolve the issue, because I would guess that I am not only one having such a problem.

Let me know if you have any more suggestions for me to follow.

Thanks again.

[srikrishnaNF]

Hi leos,

  There is no issue with the labview bluetooth functions working on Dell laptops.As i developed some applications over my Dell latitude E6500 laptop using the same labview bluetooth functions.I didnt face any problem,except when i am using serial port profile , i installed NI visa Run time engine.I think you should consider reinstalling or repairing the labview software in your system.

Thanks and regards,

srikrishnaNF