My recent Journey to fix loss of DAX

Ken - NM9P

My Situation:
6500 running V.1.3.8
Lenovo Ideacentre K410 Desktop running i3 & 6 GB RAM
computer and rig connected directly to TPLink GB switch when then feeds to my Uverse Motorola Router/modem.

Precipitating events.
1) Last night I installed V1.3.8 on my Toshiba Satellite to experiment with running the 6500 via the laptop in the living room via wireless - It worked poorly.  The laptop and WiFi connection are not up to the job.

2) I closed SmartSDR on the laptop off and went back to the shack and things worked well in the shack last night.  I closed SmartSDR and all my other ham software on the ham shack desktop and went to bed.

3) Overnight Windows 8.1 did an automatic update.  When I woke up the computer this morning, it said it required a reboot due to the update, which I did.

4) When it finished rebboting, I opened SmartSDR and my logging and FLDigi programs.

5) FLDigi said a new version, V. 3.22 was available, so I updated that and rebooted the computer again.

FRUSTRATION STRIKES ! ! !

6) When I restarted SmartSDR, DAX would not work at all... none of the channels would show any  response in their meters on the control panel.  I have had this happen before, but have always been able to easily correct the problem....but....

I tried every trick in the book that had worked before.... toggling the RX/TX buttons, changing channels on the control panel, closing and restarting DAX multiple times, making sure that it was closed in Task Manager,recycling the power on the 6500, cold restarting the 6500 after a power down, NONE of it worked this time.

THE SOLUTION:
I went to the living room and realized that the laptop had not been shut down, but had only been put to sleep, but had awoken.

I uninstalled SmartSDR and all the DAX drivers on the laptop in the living room.

There seemed to be some lingering interaction between the laptop DAX drivers and the DAX drivers on the desktop in the ham shack.

Once SSDR in the living room laptop had been uninstalled, I returned to the Hamshack and opened SmartSDR on that computer.

Things are working fine again!  

Am I going nuts?  or is this what is going on in some other people's systems when they lose DAX so totally and mysteriously?

I would love to hear from some others as to this being a potential explanation to the problems some of you have been having.

Ken - NM9P

WX7Y

This is how mine works as well!
earlier SmartSDR releases would lock the radio up if two computers where on line at the same time 
73's
Bret
WX7Y

Jim Gilliam

Rather than mull over the throes of using DAX, you might bide your time as shortly, I understand, the audio will come directly from the radio and all of the DAX woes will be over....I hope!

Jim, K6QE

Jim Hawkins / K2JHV

I have lost DAX  a few times with my 6500/1.3.8 a few times.  I'm not sure of the precise cause, but at least once, I ran Photoshop, which is a real memory hog which slows everything down on my Quadcore machine.  Rebooting so far has fixed it.

Jim, K2JHV

KY6LA_Howard

Somewhere on this almost impossible to search community is A post from Steve FlexRadio as to how DAX works.
I seem to recall it operates as a server for audio among all the computers connected to the network. So if even one is still connected it is impossible to update all the rest

Ken - NM9P

Oops...I spoke too soon...The process above only brought back the RX section of DAX.
TX came back when I did a persistence reset (Hold the OK button for 5 seconds while powering up).
NOW I have full function of RX & TX with DAX.  

Quite a journey, but educational.  I have been a heavy user of DAX with many digital modes and this is the first time it stumped me this much.  So i must think it had something to do with either my experiments with a second install of SmartSDR on a computer via WiFi, OR  Windows 8.1  update over night.

The neat thing is that it was a lot easier troubleshooting this than digging into Surface Mount components with a magnifying lens and soldering iron.  (My eyes would veto that process instantly!)

Hope this helps others....

Ken - NM9P

Tim - W4TME

Jim, this is not true.  All the audio now comes from the radio and DAX will be needed for digital mode operation until the developers of digital mode applications add the ability to transfer audio via an IP connection bypassing the Windows sound devices.

Tim - W4TME

Ken - thank you for your feedback.  I'll pass on your observations to engineering.

Jim Gilliam

Tim, thank you for the input. I was visioning the SDR to operate like my 7800 does over a LAN or Wan. On my client computer, I can use my VAC to transfer the audio to my various third party programs. I was under the misconception the 6000's would operate similarly.

Jim

Ken - NM9P

Thanks, Tim.  I hope it helps.  BTW, it is very nice to be able to save my profiles and reload them after a persistence reset!  It took most of the pain out of it!

Tim - W4TME

DAX was never intended or designed to be used for remote audio purposes.  Although is can be used for this purpose, it is not an optimal solution by any means.  DAX is really an audio conduit or tunnel that allows the FLEX-6000 to emulate a sound card for conveniently interfacing to digital mode applications.  

The LAN and WAN Remote options that will be in SmartSDR v1.4 and in SmartSDR v2.x will have optimized audio that will only need a sound card to connect your headset to

Jim Gilliam

When the LAN and WAN options become available, will this optimized audio be usable on voice as well as digital modes? If this is true, what role will the DAX  play in operating remotely, or will it not be necessary to use it? Forgive me, but I am constantly thinking in terms of remote operation and forget the majority of people are sitting in front of their radio.

Thanks for all your wonderful help, Tim.

Jim

Tim - W4TME

The technical details have not been worked out specifically how DAX will work with WAN Remote, but it is an aspect of remote operation we will investigate.