Win10 Update DAX DRIVER ERROR

Walt - KZ1F

We'll just call you Capt Adama.
I have a cloud of VM's in the basement, all running Linux, either RHEL, Fedora, or Ubuntu. My dev systems are all Ubuntu and nothing has been 'bricked' in a decade.

Norm - W7CK

It would have been nice if SmartSDR was written in some sort of universal code so it could have been compiled to run under multiple operating systems.

I'd love to switch entirely to Ubuntu or some other flavor of Unix.  I just don't feel comfortable with Windows any more.  There is too much going on in the background that makes me feel my privacy is slowly eroding and I don't have as much control of it as I once did.

Lee Maisel

Yeah, a Linux version would be AWESOME!  Not to mention that it would keep Flex's costs down using an embedded Linux rather than Windows on the hardware.

Michael Coslo

Hi  Walt - I actually had my first problem with Linux last week, I couldn't install fldigi with Cinnamon Mint 17.3 Rosa, would not recognize any audio, even though the computer audio worked FB. All the gurus told me that I was not building it correctly. But after building just fin unlubuntu, XUbuntu, and Regular ubuntu, I swtitched to Ubuntu Mate on the computer I wanted it on, and suddenly I wasn't as dumb. As I told the guru's, at some point, and after rebuilding the system to no avail, and installing on several other computers, it really has to stop being my fault.....

Michael Coslo

Hi Norm, the API is available. OSX does have the DogPark version, which is still pretty much in beta. It's not bad, but  I do prefer the SmartSDR interface. But if we could get someone willing to put in the time and effort, it would be great. If I wasn't so overloaded with things like the PAQSO Party and teaching digital radio classes, I'd do the learning and writing.

Walt - KZ1F

Norm and Lee, not to sound self serving but.... it's on it's way. More soon.

Mike, I left Fedora in '07 as it was just too much a labor of love to keep it afloat. The Linux kernel developer where I worked at the time swore by Ubuntu. It was either one of the '07 releases or perhaps early '08 where they broke firmware raid, "oh, just use software raid'. Now I don't do raid at all. But basically, that was the only problem I ever had with Canonical. I, all but, refuse to use Windows for anything other than Taxes. All my old servers find their way into the OpenStack cloud in the basement. I now have several compute nodes. So currently I can spin up over a dozen servers. After I upgrade OpenStack, I'll be able to support about 100 Docker containers. Not that I'd need to. The thing about containers vs VMs is each container can run a separate application or web service so every application is protected from badness occurring in any of the other ones.

DISCLAIMER: when I said, on its way. I do NOT work for nor am I affiliated with FRS. I have no idea what their future plans are. I was referring to XPSSDR and XPSLib.

ctate243

Perhaps the grander question is how does Microsoft work with its solution providers to prevent faults like this happening so we CAN get updates and NOT have them break., or is it up to the developer to "dodge" a change like these updates can invoke.

 As a former Microsoft Certified Engineer(I left the windows community for linux work several years ago) I remember them at least interacting with the development community to prevent such issues, and the early test folks washing out failures like this. Not sure what the windows dev landscape is now, but the fact that they are not giving the latitude to Win10 home users to research updates prior to applying is definitely a challenge now and causing all kinds of headaches.

I have only experienced this type of issue once, during testing and was able to recover using the orignal VSP recovery doc without issue.  But it sounds like a small percentage of the VSP problems occur with every update.  I would be curious as to what the actual catalyst and trigger for the problem is and what we can do to avoid it..  It doesn't seem to hit everyone or the entire list would be flooded with complaints, so there must be some use case that causes it.

Its pretty clear that one of the main risks on the dependability side falls onto relying on windows as an OS, and it is vastly more stable than in the past.  (think blue screen of death.. of the old days).  

Maestro of course will be a potential solution to those that choose and can afford it.  

I think with the recurrence of this issue being aware of it, and being armed with some preventative use case would be quite helpful to the community.

ctate243

of course this applys to the dax problems as well...

Brad - N6SPM

I must live a blessed life! I went on Windows 10 right after they offered it to the general public and it has been problem free. I run SSDR (and update as it is offered) as well as a lot of Engineering and simulation software and tend to stress the machine pretty well. FWIW, my machine is a hand-built Frankenstein with an i5, 8GB and a fairly powerful aftermarket nvidia GeForce GTX770 video card - capable but nothing special. I have no idea why it is so robust. I also updated the wifes Dell Laptop and it is problem free since the roll-out. Not defending anything here, just making an observation.

73
Brad

Walt - KZ1F

Hey Brad? I have a question. It is my contention there is a common thread behind this dirth of Windows problems. I don't recall you being on here before. Is it safe to conclude you have a new Flex that was initially installed on that machine at the ssdr lavel 1.6 and at the OS level win10?

Ah, and further it was a commercial version of win10 vs a Dell version of win 10. Also, commercial store bought or OEM version?

ctate243

These issues seem to be hit and miss.. again only striking from time to time and randomly.. ahh the intermittent issue with the unclear trigger...  I wonder what it is.....
I would Identify 2 separate issues
1.  DAX driver corruption
2. SSDR CAT VSP Corruption.

Michael Coslo

Yes Brad - you are lucky. Since hte rollout of Windows 10, I've beendoing a lot of fixing of bollixed systems. I've certainly become a big fan of TeamViewer. It would be better to walk people through so they know what to do, but the sheer number of problems make it necessary to get in and out so as to move on to the next case.

I haventt had a lot of issues with W10, but I button my systems down pretty tightly. Only issues are the forced updates, the resetting of options, and I have the dreaded font issue at the moment after a reinstall. 

If it works great for you, be happy. You are in a shrinking minority.

Walt - KZ1F

I don't believe in uncorrelated (hit or miss).

ctate243

You may be right Walt but it doesn't seem to happen to everyone every time.

Lee Maisel

Good news, this happened AGAIN, and rather than go through the whole uninstall/reinstall thing, I just chose REPAIR for FlexVSP under Change or remove a program, and it fixed it without even a reboot.

Bob KC9RF

Just had Win 10 update issues and Dax or Cat would not work. Just downloaded
Revouninstall and uninstalled smartsdr 1.99. Rebooted then reloaded smartsdr 1.99
and it worked perfectly. Thanks for the tip Jim.
Bob KC9RF

Keith Schlottman

I was also able to fix a DAX error by simply doing a "REPAIR" in Windows, no reboot or other work required.  Thanks Lee Maisel for the tip.

Bill

My latest Windoze update was a major upload of all things Win10 and did a number on my setups.  I also used the repair option which corrected the issue with DAX.  Thanks for that information.

I have set my computer to NOT do automatic updates but to notify and I can then select what I want updated/uploaded to my computers.

Guess I'm just an old geezer 'cause Windoze has never been a desired choice just a necessary one if you need to use related programs.

Ernest

I've been one of those fortunate one that up to today never had a Win10 issue:
However, my lucky streak ended today 14 Jun 17, when Win10 updated.  
My DAX Control Panel v1.10.16 failed to connect to SmartSDR. The TX and RX driver failed after more than a year of failure free operation.
I'm now searching the forum and my notes to perform the necessary changes to the Sound and Playback settings to get back to the digital modes.
May you have better luck with Win10 updates.
Muchas gracias Microsoft!

Tim - W4TME

https://helpdesk.flexradio.com/hc/en-us/articles/204017069-How-to-Manually-Re-Install-DAX-Drivers

Ernest

Thanks Tim,
You saved me lots of time of looking for this article...