[Elecraft] SOLVED!: K3 Utility vs macOS Catalina

[Don Putnick]

The short version: usb-to-serial adapter driver snafu

The long version: Way back when I bought my K3, Elecraft was having
problems with the KUSB. I bought a Keyspan adapter instead and installed
the Keyspan driver. Over the years, I updated the driver when I updated the
macOS. The Keyspan stopped working with macOS Catalina, and Keyspan won't
update the driver to be compatible with Catalina. I just bought a new KUSB
and tried to install the FTDI VCP driver. For whatever reason, yesterday
the driver installer wouldn't work. So I installed the FTDI D2XX driver.
The K3 Utility still wouldn't work. Then came a chain of emails via the
reflector. I uninstalled the D2XX driver, hoping the macOS Catalina native
driver would take over. Nope. Just for chuckles, I tried again to install
the VCP driver. Today the installer worked. After a reboot, the K3 Utility
is working just fine. Whether it was the Keyspan driver or the D2XX driver
or macOS Catalina causing the problem, that's beyond my expertise and
interest. Thanks to all of you for your help. I really do appreciate it.

73 Don NA6Z

On Fri, Mar 27, 2020 at 5:37 PM Jack Brindle <jackbrindle at me.com> wrote:

> Interesting. You should be seeing the KPA500 serial port in the K3 Utility
> list of serial ports. That tells me that the program is not picking them up
> from the system.
>
> David, what do you think?
>
> With Don at dinner, back to CQ WPX…
>
> 73!
> Jack, W6FB
>
>
> On Mar 27, 2020, at 5:35 PM, Don Putnick <donnieput at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Nope. The K3 and KPA500 are my only serial devices. XYL priority interrupt
> - dinner. Thanks, guys. I'll delete the D2XX drivers tomorrow and report
> back in. BTW, I'm no longer freaked out. If I need to do any K3 utility
> work, I now have the Win version on the other partition, and a Sierra MPB
> with the Mac version, both operational. This is not a "this should not be
> happening" project.
> 73 Don NA6Z
>
> On Fri, Mar 27, 2020 at 5:29 PM Jack Brindle <jackbrindle at me.com> wrote:
>
>> I believe that is probably a good idea. In Catalina, drivers (known as
>> KEXTs) now need a reboot to take effect. If you did reboot your machine,
>> then the D2XX drivers are now in place. I have never seen the D2XX drivers
>> interfere with the regular FTDI drivers, but it is possible.  Note that
>> uninstalling them will require another reboot.
>>
>> Do you have anything else with an FTDI serial interface that you can plug
>> in and see what happens?
>>
>> 73!
>> Jack, W6FB
>>
>>
>> On Mar 27, 2020, at 5:24 PM, Don Putnick <donnieput at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> David, yes, deleting the preferences brought back the window. I'm
>> wondering if I should uninstall the D2XX driver and just use what Catalina
>> provides.
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Mar 27, 2020 at 5:21 PM David Fleming <dflem at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Did deleting the preferences bring the window
>>> back? I hope installing the D2xx driver didn’t create any conflicts? It
>>> hopefully shouldn’t.
>>>
>>> David
>>>
>>> Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
>>> <https://overview.mail.yahoo.com/?.src=iOS>
>>>
>>> On Friday, March 27, 2020, 8:11 PM, Jack Brindle <jackbrindle at me.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> David;
>>>
>>> Thanks for jumping in. Don, David is the author.
>>>
>>> I had him delete the preferences, now he is not seeing the USB port. I
>>> suspect the first run, with bad prefs may have not released the serial
>>> port, so I had him either log out/in or reboot.
>>> Waiting for Don’s response now.
>>>
>>> Always great to hear from you!
>>>
>>> 73,
>>> Jack, W6FB
>>>
>>>
>>> > On Mar 27, 2020, at 5:03 PM, David Fleming via Elecraft <
>>> elecraft at mailman.qth.net> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > Hi Don,
>>> > Are you seeing the K3 Utility menu at the top of the screen when you
>>> start the app? If so, click Window -> Set To Default Position and see if
>>> that helps. If not, we’ll have to try something else.
>>> > David, W4SMT
>>> >
>>> > On Friday, March 27, 2020, 7:05 PM, Don Putnick <donnieput at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Hi all,
>>> >
>>> > I'm working with Rob at Elecraft on this, but I'm trying to gather more
>>> > data for us. When I open the K3 Utility under Catalina, nothing is
>>> > displayed. If I go down to the dock, right click on the utility, then
>>> > select "Show all windows", the utility main screen opens. BUT if I
>>> click on
>>> > the screen, it closes immediately. The KAT500 Utility works just fine,
>>> so I
>>> > don't think its the usb-to-serial cable or the driver. And the K3
>>> Utility
>>> > works correctly under macOS Sierra. Anyone else experiencing this?
>>> >
>>> > 73 Don NA6Z
>>>
>>>
>