[Elecraft] K3 Utility program issue

[Dick Dievendorff]

The K3 Utility closes the serial port handle (using the Win32 CloseHandle
API call) when the program exits.  I just verified this (again) with a
debugger breakpoint.

Windows Process termination also closes all file handles that the program
opens.

However the actual release of the hardware for subsequent program access
involves the USB to Serial adapter's device driver, which is specific to
your hardware.  This is why some users have no difficulty with this and
others may.

I'm not sure what else I could beyond making sure that the program closes
the serial port.  Which it does.  Honest...

Dick, K6KR


-----Original Message-----
From: elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Wes Stewart
Sent: Saturday, February 06, 2010 9:09 AM
To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Elecraft] K3 Utility program issue

I've been meaning to query the group about this for some time but the latest
episode has finally prodded me into asking.

I have noted before that when I ran the utility program after closing it and
then trying to use my logging program, the log couldn't connect using the
serial port.  Apparently the utility wasn't releasing the serial port after
having used it.

Windows Task Manager would not show that the utility was still running, but
it would take a reboot to fix the issue.  Not only that, but Windows
wouldn't shut down normally because it thought the utility was still running
and wasn't responding.  I would have to tell it to go ahead and close the
utility.

Last night afte reading one of the threads on this reflector I decided to
read the release notes using the utility.  The K3 wasn't even turned on and
I obviously didn't try to address it with the program. After reading the
notes, I closed the program, decided to go to bed, started the Windows shut
down and left the room.

This morning I came in and discovered that the computer was still up, didn't
think much of it until I tried to open the logging program and got the "I
can't connect to the radio" error.  So even though I never used it, the
utility apparently captured the serial port and I had to go through the
whole process of manually shutting down Windows to get back to normal.

For the record, I'm running a Lenovo T400 with WinXP Pro SP3 and a Quatech
USB->Serial interface.

Anyone else have this problem?

Wes  N7WS



      
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