Confused…..

[allaboard]

My much anticipated Crumble arrived yesterday as part of the robot kit.
Code installed I thought I would try the motor LEDs first.
All sort of odd messages from windows when I plugged it in via USB cable….swapped USB ports lots and eventually it seemed to register the device and install drivers.
Managed to get the motor LEDs running and then the Sparkle Baton I bought as an extra.
Today when introducing my daughter to the kit it will not work ..disaster.

Symptoms:
place cable into Crumble board and then PC
receive message ‘USB device not recognised One of the USB devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned and Windows dos not recognise it’.
Tried another USB port and looking in control panel at devices .. I see an icon labelled Crumble and digging deeper in here it says it is all ok.
coding in the code panel and then pressing green triangle the program locks up (‘not responding’)
Pull the USB cable out, restart the coding panel and trying to run I get the (not surprising message) Error:Crumble not found
Plug into another USB port – I get the message
USB device not recognised One of the USB devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned and Windows dos not recognise it’
…back to other port again and it shows as crumble in devices control panel.
Try coding again (having restarted the coding panel) nothing happens for a little whole and then locks up again.
What on earth has gone wrong ..could it be the crumble ?

I have reinstalled the software (0.23.2) again but same results ..any suggestions please ..really really want to get this running and getting kids excited about using them

[Joseph]

Hi,

Sorry to hear you’re having problems. On some windows systems it can take a minute for the drivers to load (on most it’s very quick). It seems that if you unplug the Crumble before the windows has finished, it starts the process again.

It’s possible that the Crumble has developed a fault. To move things along quickly I’d like to send you another Crumble to test. Could you send me your details using the form on the Contact page?

All the best,

Joseph

[allaboard]

Joseph,

Many thanks for the quick response and support, I’ll send you details in a moment.

thanks again

[allaboard]

Joseph,

Many thanks for quick turnaround – replacement Crumble arrived in mail this morning.

Plugged it in, drivers said to have installed ok, and ran a basic motor program and motor LEDs ran fine.
Attached sparkle baton (D -> D and power on baton…a couple of LEDS came on.
Ran program to drive the baton LEDs…but code console locked up.
Killed code console and restarted – still hangs trying to communicate with crumble.
Killed console and unplugged crumble and put in another USB port. This time windows reports device failure. Try another port….unable to install drivers.
Try another port. Device manager reports that the device is working ok. Try code console…locks up talking to crumble again. mmmmmmmm it must be me or the PC. Can’t be both crumble controllers failing.
Lets try a PC with Windows 10 on just in case.
Plug in crumble…unable to install drivers. Try another USB port – Code 10..cant talk to device. Try another port – Device manager says all ok. Install code console and try basic program…locks up trying to communicate with crumble.

What am I doing wrong please ? I now seem to have 2 broken controllers.
Joseph, I am happy to return both to you for you to inspect but is there anything else you would like me to try from these machines to see if it is me ?

many thanks

Adrian

[Joseph]

Hi Adrian,

I’m looking into this urgently. Over the past 18 months we have had a very small number (5/6) Crumbles die in this way, but recently there’s a couple of users (including yourself) that have had more than one Crumble fail, which is new.

I’m wondering if there is something specific about your machine that is causing problems… Is the PC that the problem first occurred on running Windows 10?

The Crumbles are recoverable by reprogramming them here – the problem is caused by memory corruption. I also have some changes in the software that should make the programming process far more resilient, which I hope to release soon.

If you were able to return the Crumbles in the SAE so I can confirm my theory, that would be very helpful!

All the best,

Joseph

[allaboard]

Joseph,

Many thanks for the prompt attention in trying to resolve this, much appreciated.

Both Crumbles are in the post back to you.

The original machine used is laptop with a Windows 7 operating system and service pack 1 – Nothing too special in any respect. I have access to other machines with Win7 on and also a Windows 10 installation (all on laptops)
I can’t help but think it something in my set up that is exposing this, seems too much of a coincidence.
I’m unsure if I mentioned it before but the very first Crumble interacted for an hour so before I got the lock and there was a hibernate of the OS between it working and it failing. Can’t think how that would affect it but all snippets worth considering.

Hope we are able to identify the cause, and solution, soon as everyone here keen to get creative with the crumble kits and pieces.

Thanks again for all your help

Adrian

[Author]

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