macOS USB serial?

[Garug2]

Where can I find USB serial drivers for macOS LabView?

[Kyle97330]

I don't use MacOS but I'm pretty sure you're asking the wrong question.  You need to find USB serial drivers for MacOS, full stop, completely independent of LabVIEW.  Once you do that, then you can use the device with LabVIEW.

Unless you have some drivers that work with other software but don't work with LabVIEW, that is....

[Garug2]

Then it would be totally different that on Windows LabView, On windows some really big LabView driver baggage needs to be installed to get USB serial.

I have USB serial working ok on many other SW on macOS (Python, Node Red, Arduino, QT etc.) LabView just shows COM1 (macOS does not have COM ports named like that, and it does not work. same LabView code works on windows side.)

[Kyle97330]

In that case, have you installed NI-VISA for Mac OS, and then used visaconf to set up the serial connection?

[Garug2]

I truly dislike NI-VISA, the way it is totally not understandable, the way it integrates deeply with the operating system, I hate that with Windows and even more so with macOS. to allow some SW to do that, but I did anyway and it does not work.

More over it is not understandable something like this is needed for USB serial, that is the only thing I need from NI-VISA.

That said, I am using unsupported Big Sur, so I suppose it is my fault. Anyway other parts of LabView seem to mostly work, even the code that included serial opened (but did not have working USB serial) before NI-VISA, but no more.(i.e code that has serial crashes after NI_VISA was installed and does not open)

How do I uninstall the NI-VISA from macOS?

The Ethernet seems to work, but NI, really, USB serial as part of the basic package without any NI-VISA, is that too much to ask.

I am sure most comunity edition users do not need the NI-VISA or understand what it is, like me*, but still would like to use the community edition with Arduino etc. So USB serial interface would be pretty important.

*Well I kind of understand what it is but not why it is. I was developing test systems for avionics repair already almost 30 years ago using LabView. Never used the NI provided device drivers, there was just too many problems with them. Maybe things have improved, but I doupt it, seeing what kind of monster the NI-VISA is.

[rolfk]

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@Garug2 wrote:

The Ethernet seems to work, but NI, really, USB serial as part of the basic package without any NI-VISA, is that too much to ask.

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USB Serial, under any decent OS I know of is simply serial. It may not always be simple to get a fully working driver for your specific USB serial adapter (either a real serial adapter attached to your computer or one built into a device) and your OS but once that is solved a USB serial port is SIMPLY another serial port like any other physical serial port on the computer (which of course is non-existent on Macs nowadays). And VISA can pick up such serial ports even on the Mac.

If you have specific software that uses a proprietary USB protocol and according driver, or hacks into the USB system through libusb directly, that is another problem but not one NI-VISA or LabVIEW can be held accountable for. If your device manufacturer uses its own USB profile and doesn't provide a driver for your OS that integrates this into the OS as a virtual serial port, then you really should direct your displeasure towards them. They are the culprit here!

I access FTDI adapters and Arduinos on my iMac (admittedly not Big Sur but actually still Mountain Lion) with NI-VISA without problems.

[Garug2]

The USB serial is pretty standard I think. All other SW mentioned can understand the Teensy Arduino compitable boards I am using no problem so the macOS already has the drivers for the USB serial.

The NI-VISA is a 300 Mb "USB serial driver" and it does not work on Big Sur.

[rolfk]

duplicate removed

[rolfk]

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@Garug2 wrote:

The NI-VISA is a 300 Mb "USB serial driver" and it does not work on Big Sur.

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Wrong! NI-VISA is not a driver at all! It is a unified API to many different IO APIs including GPIB, TCP/IP, serial, MXI, PCI(e), and even USB although that has no significance anymore nowadays since accessing USB directly is both hampered by the fact that only privileged user accounts are allowed to do that nowadays. And each such device access configuration needs to be signed in order to be loaded by the OS.

If you are so displeased with NI-VISA, you actually could directly call the device interface. A few Call Library nodes to open(), read(), write(), ioctl() and close() is all that is needed (if the device is properly reported under /dev/xxxxtty). This is the interface the NI VISA serial passport also accesses. I'm sure once you tried that route you may appreciate the effort NI-VISA has to go through to provide this functionality on the different OSes to make this all work. And it isn't just NI's fault that Apple likes to throw around its low level APIs like it is a basket of rotten Apples.

[Garug2]

"Wrong! NI-VISA is not a driver at all! " yes, that is why I used "" however that is irrelevant if it is needed to have USB serial.

But if I understand what you say is that it is possible to have USB serial without NI_VISA, that is exactly what I want. (and I did not know that)

However I do not have days to experiment with this and really think USB serial is something that should work "out of the box" as it works with other SW.

Is there tested, working examples of this USB serial without  NI-VISA.