ProcommPlus Serial port sessions

[willy113]

Hi ProcommPlus/Aspect Rep,

I just installed a PCI card with 4 Serial ports onboard and along with the 2 resident serial ports on the MLB in the PC, that gives me a total of 6 ports to work with.

I understod that ProcommPlus supports up to 8 or 9 concurrent connection dierctory entries, but only 4 become active and the other 2 are not used or selectable in the
option window ???

Am I doing anything wrong ??

Thanks, Bill
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[knob]

Try selecting the Options | System Options | Modem Connection menu item in Procomm, select the problem com port, and make sure the Make this connection available to Procomm Plus checkbox is checked. I think by default only COM1 and COM2 are turned on unless you make this change.

http://www.aspectscripting.com

 

[willy113]

Hi knob,

Thanks for the quick response to my COM port questions.
I tried the adding & deleting COM ports using the "modem incnctlist" and "Current Modem/Connection" Option menus, and indeed this allowed me to add the COM ports that I had installed using a 4-Port Serial PCI card in my PC.

So, can the actual status of a COM port (1-9) be checked that it is not only in the ProcomPlus "modem incnctlist" command, but also that the COM port is installed and active and also not being used and avaible for ProcommPlus to take control of ??

I want to write some code to query what COM ports are availble for use (say COM1-COM6) and then select and use them by either launching mutiple Procomm+ applications or using 1 Procomm+ App, but using mutiple COM ports by using the Connection DIrectory.

BTW - Are both of these approaches supported by Procomm+ ?
Also, are there any code examples of this available ?

THanks, Willy113

 

[knob]

I don't believe there is a good way to check the availability of a com port other than trying to set it using the set modem connection command, and then checking for success afterwards.

FYI - direct connections are not supported in the Connection Directory, only actual modem connections.

http://www.aspectscripting.com

 

[willy113]

Hi Knob,

I am confused on your last statement about direct connections are not supported in the Connection Directory, only actual modem connections ??

To change COM ports to COM4, should I use the Connection Directory code like this:
- set modem connection direct connect-Com4
(Note: I use a #DEFINE directConnectCOM4 4 as an index)
- dialsave to save after using the set dialentry command.

I sounds like I should never use the Dial Connection GUI to do this and only use the "set modem connection" code, is that right ?

Also, I noticed what might be a bug in the Procomm+ GUI.
After setting the modem connection to a new value, say from TELNET to COM1, The quick connect line where the connections are displayed will not always show the current connection, but if you select the pull-down by doing ONLY a left-mouse click and release, a different selection will be highlighted
indicating what the real selected device is ...

Can you confirm this on your system ??

Thanks for your help ... Willy113

 

[knob]

When I said that direct connects are not supported by the Connection Directory, what I meant to say is that you can specify a direct connect as the connection for a particular entry, but Procomm will error out when trying to dial a direct connection.

To change from one direct connection to another, I would always use set modem connection command.

When you are seeing the selection problem, where are you making the change at? From the Quick Select Line at the bottom of the Procomm window or in the Setup dialog? I didn't see the problem on one of my machines, but I may not be doing the same steps as you.

http://www.aspectscripting.com

 

[willy113]

Hi Knob,

I see the error when I use the Quick Select Line and it shows up only if you first view the GUI selection, then once you get the ProcommPlus white hand mouse pointer icon,
then click the left mouse button once only to see if the dark highlighted select in the pull-down menu matches the first un highlighted menu option on the Quick Select Line when running ProcommPlus and observing the GUI selection.
I intermittently see these fields mismatch.

Also, When I added all 9 direct-connection options and enabled them with the Procomm option button, when running live I lost my TELNET connection, but had the 9 Comm ports.
I had to blow away the Procomm PW.DIR config file then add a Telnet session manually from the initial Procomm config utility, then I was able to add a new Telnet selection and everything worked fine … kind of strange, have you seen this behavior ??

Thanks, Willy113


Best Regards,

Bill Lusche
Sr. Development Engineer

 

[knob]

When you say you lost the telnet connection, do you mean it disappeared from the list of connections after you enabled all the direct connects up to COM9? I did not see that on my machine.

Are you using version 4.8 or an earlier version?

http://www.aspectscripting.com

 

[willy113]

Hi Knob,

Yes, it disapeared from the list of connections, and the only way to get it back was to dump the config file and click on opening a Telnet sesion during the intial re-launch of Procomm+ with out the config *.dir file.

I am using 4.8

Thanks, Willy113

Best Regards,

Bill Lusche
Sr. Development Engineer