HC-2b Rev. 1.04 Cannot Connect

[Jimk33]

Thanks for your patience, but I'm still having problems.  I uninstalled all of the usb ports using USBeview, rebooted and the computer reinstalled all the ports, but the HC-2b still will not connect.  I purchased a CI-1 to see if it would work, but it has the same problem as the HC-2b.  The computer sees it, but RailPro assistant won't connect to the HC-2b and the CI-1 won't connect to the HC simulator.

I'm also having problems with the HC simulator on my back up computer.  I installed the simulator as an administrator, and tried running it as an administrator, but the screen is blank except for the words "Main page."  A screen capture is attached.  It recognizes the CI-1, but the program won't work.  Any thoughts on what I should do about this?

Thanks,
Jim

[G8B4Life]

I'm still looking into the issue of when a  HC-x and CI-1 install and can bee seen by Win10 but RPA and HC Sim can't see them.

As for your funky HC Simulator on the backup pc, This one should hopefully be an easy fix. It looks like HC Sim hasn't installed properly or is possibly corrupted. We will re-install it piece by piece manually; it's very easy and should be a lot quicker.

1. First, open up My Computer / Windows Explorer or whatever Win10 calls it and navigate to the "C:\ProgramData\Ring Engineering\RailPro HC Simulator" folder. In there you should see a file called "HC Simulator Storage". Delete it. Do not worry the file will be recreated when we run HC Simulator. There is likely one other file in the folder called RscLoaded, you can delete that file as well. If there are lot of files present stop and don't go any further and let me know what you are seeing.

2. Download and unzip the contents of this file (HC Simulator rsc.zip) to the "C:\ProgramData\Ring Engineering\RailPro HC Simulator" folder.

HC Simulator rsc.zip

3. Run HC Simulator. You should not need to run as administrator.

HC Simulator should hopefully be working now, if not we'll try again. Do steps 1 and 2 again, DO NOT do step 3 and run HC Sim but continue with step 4.

4. Navigate to the "C:\Program Files\Ring Engineering\ RailPro HC Simulator" folder. Delete the executable file "HC Simulator.exe" If you can't see a file with that extension (.exe) you'll need to work out which file is the correct one. The one we want to delete has a size of 431kb.

5. Download and unzip the contents of this file (HC Simulator prg.zip) to the "C:\Program Files\Ring Engineering\ RailPro HC Simulator" folder.

HC Simulator prg.zip

Note: There are a couple of other files in the zip, all bmp's. you can either unzip them to the same folder as the executable and replace the files that are already there or not bother as they should already be in the folder.

6. Run HC Sim, if this still does not work then we'll have to look into this deeper as the program might be crashing for some reason.

- Tim

[Jimk33]

Tim,
Thanks for the help.  Your solution worked for the simulator.  Just for reference, I initially deleted the HC Simulator Storage file, but didn't delete the RSCLoaded, and the simulator did not work.  I went back and reloaded the program using the zip file you linked to, and the program still didn't work.  I then went back and delete both HC Simulator Storage and RSCLoaded, and that was the key.  Not sure if this tells you anything you can use in the future, but it is what made the difference.

Let me know if you come up with any thoughts for my other computer.  I'm considering reloading the operating system, but it takes so long to reload all the programs that I'm hoping there's an easier way.

Thanks for the help.
Jim

[G8B4Life]

No worries Jim, glad to have helped.

Let me know if you come up with any thoughts for my other computer.

I sent you a PM last night on that, I'd like you to send me a couple of log files for analysis. Details are in the PM.

- Tim

[G8B4Life]

Thought I bring you all up to date with this one.

We have solved Jim's connection issues. RPA and HC Sim both detect the HC and CI-1 now.

Long story long, If I had of known what I was looking for I could have solved this much earlier but I digress.

After no luck finding the problem originally Jim re-installed Win10 and then first of all before any other software installed RPA. Then after each piece of software he installed he tested RPA to see if it still connected to the HC until it failed. Once that happened he provided me with the logs generated by Win10 which I looked at.

The very last piece of software installed wasn't logged unfortunately but the last one that was logged rang some alarm bells. A quick search of Dr. Google revealed it has caused things not to work before. When Jim disabled it RPA and HC Sim could connect again.

The piece of software was a device driver, specifically a virtual HID device. Both the HC and CI-1 are HID devices, as well of your keyboard, mouse etc. Why it caused issues with the HC and CI-1 I don't know but I'll seeing what I can find out from it.

Of course it was not a USB problem which is why re-installing ports etc never worked, and why I don't think it showed in USB devices.

I now know better what to look for when someone else has connection issues. Thankyou to Jim for undertaking the painful process of reinstalling everything from scratch and testing connectivity at every new turn and then providing me his logs to look at.

+1 for RPUG  .

- Tim

[William Brillinger]

Nice!   Well done guys!

[Alan]

Tim, I relinquish to you my Bill given title of most helpful forum guy. 

I am sure Jim is very appreciative of your help.

[Jimk33]

Alan,
I am most definitely appreciative that Tim is a computer guru.  Even if I had identified the problematic software I certainly would not have known what to do about it.  As it turns out the program doesn't appear to need the virtual HID so I was able to disable that device and still use the program. 

I'm also happy that as a beginner I was able to contribute to Tim's in identifying the root cause of the problem so others might benefit.

Regards,
Jim