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USB to Serial Adapter doesn't work on Lion

L

legendzm

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 8, 2010
41
7
7/19/11 7:29:13.000 AM kernel: 0 0 AppleUSBCDC: start - initDevice failed
7/19/11 7:32:43.000 AM kernel: 0 0 AppleUSBCDC: start - initDevice failed
7/19/11 7:37:14.000 AM kernel: 0 0 AppleUSBCDC: start - initDevice failed
7/19/11 7:45:41.000 AM kernel: 0 0 AppleUSBCDC: start - initDevice failed


USB-Serial Controller D:

Product ID: 0x2008
Vendor ID: 0x0557 (ATEN International Co. Ltd.)
Version: 3.00
Speed: Up to 12 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Prolific Technology Inc.
Location ID: 0xfa140000 / 6
Current Available (mA): 500
Current Required (mA): 100



any ideas?!
 
C

Cougarcat

macrumors 604
Sep 19, 2003
7,766
2,553
I don't know how to solve your problem, but if it's any comfort to know, Apple didn't kill USB to serial adapters in Lion. Just tested it with a Laserjet 6MP. I have a Belkin adapter, though.
 
talmy

talmy

macrumors 601
Oct 26, 2009
4,726
332
Oregon
Probable cause is the driver kext is 32-bit while Lion has a 64-bit kernel. You may need to install the 64-bit kext.
 
D

deancs

macrumors newbie
Sep 1, 2009
11
0
I am having issues with prolific 2303

I had the current driver installed and reinstalled it after lion upgrade. Device is seen by OSX (as per below), however I am unable to correctly read the serial port. I have tried terminal/screen, goSerial.app as well as my java based monitoring app. The serial device attached sends an XML stream every 6 seconds and the incoming data is received however its not legible. Any ideas ?

Code: 
USB-Serial Controller:

  Product ID:	0x2303
  Vendor ID:	0x067b  (Prolific Technology, Inc.)
  Version:	3.00
  Speed:	Up to 12 Mb/sec
  Manufacturer:	Prolific Technology Inc.
  Location ID:	0x04100000 / 2
  Current Available (mA):	500
  Current Required (mA):	100
 
L

legendzm

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 8, 2010
41
7
regardless of what I do, when I go to system preferences and click the + to add the USB Serial Controller, it does not appear as an option from the list
 
D

deancs

macrumors newbie
Sep 1, 2009
11
0
deancs said:
I had the current driver installed and reinstalled it after lion upgrade. Device is seen by OSX (as per below), however I am unable to correctly read the serial port. I have tried terminal/screen, goSerial.app as well as my java based monitoring app. The serial device attached sends an XML stream every 6 seconds and the incoming data is received however its not legible. Any ideas ?

Code: 
USB-Serial Controller:

  Product ID:	0x2303
  Vendor ID:	0x067b  (Prolific Technology, Inc.)
  Version:	3.00
  Speed:	Up to 12 Mb/sec
  Manufacturer:	Prolific Technology Inc.
  Location ID:	0x04100000 / 2
  Current Available (mA):	500
  Current Required (mA):	100
Click to expand...

I setup a snow leopard virtual machine under lion (using virtualbox). Assigned my prolific usb device to the VM and installed same prolific driver as I installed under lion. Tested serial access using goSerial.app and as well as my Java based data-collector.

This configuration works just fine. The SL VM is running a 32bit kernel
 
Last edited:
gr8tfly

gr8tfly

macrumors 603
Oct 29, 2006
5,333
99
~119W 34N
gentlefury said:
is this for a terminal connection? That's about the only thing I can think you would still need a serial cable for
Click to expand...

There are many more devices that use them. I have an Amateur Radio transiver that can be controlled via a serial connection. I use a Keyspan adapter for that. I also need to separately control the transmitter, and I use an IOGEAR adapter for that. There are also instruments, controllers for r/c (gyros, motor, chargers), etc.

To upgrade, I downloaded the new Prolific driver (for the 2303 chip, ProlificUsbSerial.kext). The problem with that was it had a different vendor and device ID. I found some info on how to get he driver to work with a different brand - though still using the Prolific driver. The trick was to patch the device and vendor IDs into the driver's Info.plist. Note, the info in the Mac System Profiler/Info is in HEX - the IDs in the plist are decimal.

Once that patch was done, I was able to use the adapter in both 64-bit and 32-bit. I figured if I got it working in 64-bit in SL, it should work in Lion. The good news is I just tested it, and it does indeed work in Lion. (whew - those adapters were my one big worry about updating)

Edit: note: My old friend ZTerm is now a Universal binary. Thought that was going to go the way of Rosetta. The device I currently use it with is to receive data from a CW decoder (Morse code) connected to the audio from my radio receiver.
 
Last edited:
R

rsd99

macrumors newbie
Jul 21, 2011
2
0
legendzm said:
got it working following this guide: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20060105104506687


life saver, can't work without this adapter
Click to expand...

works for me too :) i don't know what i would do without mine. In my Cisco lab i was able to use reverse telnet from one of my router's aux ports, but when i am onsite working on a router, i don't have that privilege....some customers don't like you messing with production stuff during the day. Thanks again for the tip.
 
Z

Zyrtec

macrumors newbie
Jul 22, 2011
2
0
gr8tfly said:
The problem with that was it had a different vendor and device ID. I found some info on how to get he driver to work with a different brand - though still using the Prolific driver. The trick was to patch the device and vendor IDs into the driver's Info.plist. Note, the info in the Mac System Profiler/Info is in HEX - the IDs in the plist are decimal.
Click to expand...

Yes, thank you gr8tfly very much, this was really the right solution for me !
You really make me happy :)

Zyrtec
 
G

gcarey3

macrumors newbie
Jul 23, 2011
1
0
legendzm said:
got it working following this guide: http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20060105104506687


life saver, can't work without this adapter
Click to expand...

I followed that guide but found a few minor changes were needed.

First, the parameters in Info.plist were idProduct and idVendor in the Prolific driver version I downloaded (1.4.0). They were easy to spot though.

The decimal values given worked as-is for me since I also have the ATEN adapter.

One more thing, to reload the extension I used the following:

sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/ProlificUsbSerial.kext

It wouldn't work with the /Contents/Info.plist added on the end like it was specified; that threw an error.
 
J

JonesMatt

macrumors newbie
Sep 2, 2012
9
0
I know this thread is getting old and that you guys already seems to have gotten this working, but I just wanted to mention that I have had several Prolific based usb to serial adapters, most of them have been problemetic. I recently bought a FTDI based usb serial adapter and it installed without any problems. What I have read other places is that the Prolific drivers and chipset is a low cost product which is why it often causes problems. The FTDI drivers apparrently should be a better quality.
 
P

Photovore

macrumors regular
Dec 28, 2011
116
0
Old thread indeed, but I wish to post:

I had the problem with an old Keyspan USA-28X adapter; the driver (v.2.5, c 2007) doesn't work past OS X 10.6.x --

However, the adapters are now being made again -- by TrippLite. They have a new driver which officially supports only (among 2-port models) the newer USA-28XG. There is a little notice, however, in the installer program, that other adapters may well work; they're just not supported.

WELL, the new driver worked for me in my lab under 10.7.5; read the old USA-28X just fine. Problem solved for me!

Go to tripplite.com, look for that product and the support page; the newer driver is there....
 
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