Possible response to all of the 1.4 software issues so many are experiencing

Jason Whiteaker

There have been many posts from folks experiencing software issues including crashes, unhandled exceptions, or other oddities after their 1.4 upgrade. One idea is to be sure to uninstall all Flex software components prior to your upgrade. I believe this is stated in the release notes, but I have personally resolved oddities by a clean uninstall, reboot, and install of the new release.

I've found 1.4 to be very stable, particularly when discussing DAX. I can't speak to any other bugs or feature changes that many have reported, but overall, I've found that many of the strange dialog box errors appear if you simply do the standard "next-next-finish" method of upgrading. Again, if you're seeing odd dialog box errors or other anomalies, try uninstalling ALL Flex components, reboot, and reinstall 1.4.

Good luck!

-Jason, NK9B

Bob G W1GLV

Ditto, here.

Jim Bryce W5HFS

I second Jason's suggestions. I did a complete uninstall and then installed 1.4. It is completely stable. I've had no crashes running 8 pans with receivers and DM-780 and IE with QRZ on a MS Surface Pro driving two additional monitors and using an i5 processor with a Pluggable 8 port USB expander and Windows 8.1. The single issue I ran into concerned VSP installation. Dudley advised there is a flaw in the 1.4.0 installer and provided instructions on manually installing VSP: 1. Of course shutdown SmartSDR and the radio. 2. In Windows Control panel, go to "Programs and Features" window and look for the "FlexRadio Systems FlexVSP" driver, and uninstall. 3.Restart the computer. 4. After the computer has completely rebooted, open the Windows File Explorer, go to C:Program FilesFlexRadio SystemsSmartSDR v1.4.064-bit DriversVSP . 5.Double click "FlexVSPInstaller_64.msi" file. Follow the defaults and agree to all the questions. 6. After the installer has completed, Restart the computer again.

M0GVZ

Uninstalling isn't sufficient. You need to go into Windows Explorer, set it to show hidden files then navigate to the Users/accountname/AppData and remove the Flex folders in the Local, LocalLow and Roaming folders.

Tim - W4TME

"The single issue I ran into concerned VSP installation. Dudley advised there is a flaw in the 1.4.0 installer and provided instructions on manually installing VSP"

I am afraid Dudley misspoke levaing you with an incorrect impression that there is a bug in the installer logic.  There is a localized Windows permissions issue that effects some users where Windows is not allowing the elevation to admin rights of the driver installer module to allow the kernel mode driver to run properly. When this situation occurs, either the service is not set to auto start or the service did not install properly.

Tim - W4TME

I am going to be very clear with this next statement.  Uninstalling previous versions of SmartSDR before you install a new one is a best practice as doing it afterwards can cause problems.

I strongly advocate NOT uninstalling the FlexVSP and DAX drivers if they are working properly (not throwing errors) with the previous version of SmartSDR.  Repeated uninstalling and re-installing the same kernel mode driver when it is not necessary or not required as part of the upgrade process provides additional opportunities for issues to crop up where there were none previously.  This falls into the "if it ain't broke, don't mess with it" category.

I have installed (and uninstalled) literally hundreds of versions of SmartSDR over the last 2 years and I can count on one hand the number of times I have installed DAX or the FlexVSP drivers.

Ken - NM9P

Here is a strange one, Tim... My 1.4 was working great until Windows Technical Review 10 did a new update on Sunday night.  since then....

1) My CAT virtual ports disappeared from Windows, though they still showed up in the CAT "Serial Ports" tab, but none were noted as "linked" to anything else, and other software couldn't find them.

2) My Parallels Access got broken...When I tried to activate anything on my Shack computer, I just got a black screen on my iPad or iPhone, and the Shack computer would lock up and needed a long-button-press reboot get me going again.

3)  When I tried to use Parallels Access and god the crash/reset problem, my resolution settings on both my monitors was reduced to the Default (lower res) settings.

4) To remedy this, I uninstalled and reinstalled Parallels Access and began a total uninstall of 1.4.  It was then that I noticed that I hadn't uninstalled 1.38 either, so I started with that version first.  It asked if I wanted to uninstall DAX drivers, so I said, NO.  When I began the uninstall of 1.4, I also said NO to uninstalling the DAX drivers.  

Now the DAX Drivers as listed in the WIndows audio properties for Playback and Record devices is all out of order, some of the DAX channels seems to have duplicates, and it renamed one of my VAC Channels for my PowerSDR installation. 

DAX Seems to work, but it also seems to have confused Windows.  Would you recommend another total uninstall with removing DAX?  Also, if I removed 1.38 without removing DAX Drivers, and now remove them from 1.4, does that leave residual pieces of the drivers in my computer?

As I said, this is a strange one that I have never experienced since the early days of pre-1.0...

Thanks,  
Ken - NM9P

Doug Hall

Tim,

You said, "I am going to be very clear with this next statement.  Uninstalling previous versions of SmartSDRbefore you install a new one is a best practice as doing it afterwards can cause problems."

I confess to not following best practices in the case of 1.4 - I didn't uninstall 1.3.8 before I installed 1.4. But now that some time as passed I can't imagine ever needing to run 1.3.8 again. Are you saying it's best to let sleeping dogs lie and just leave it there, or do you have some advice on avoiding problems when uninstalling an old version after a new version has been installed?

73,
Doug K4DSP

Tim - W4TME

Win 10 TR changes the playing field with every update without any concern about maintaining compatibility with the previous version. So I would expect all sorts of things to be possibly broken after the update.  Essentially all bets are off with Win 10 until it is officially released.

I wouldn't recommend using it if you want a stable operating environment.

With that said, if the OS changed things that significantly, I would punt - uninstall everything,  rebooting after the DAX and FlexVSP drivers are uninstalled.  Hopefully it will re-install cleanly.

Tim - W4TME

I would for the time being.  If you do want to get rid of v1.3.8, you should re-run the installer for 1.4.0 to make sure the DAX and CAT shortcuts get recreated properly.

Ken - NM9P

Thought so. Will do another clean install and see what happens.