RoboRun, AX500, Can't read or save config.

Hello Folks. I have just installed a new AX500. I get \"Bad data received\" when trying to read the config from it. I tried to search the forum, but none of the other posts describing this error had any solutions...

I connect to a standard PC port COM1 using the supplied 15/9 pin cable.

Power up controller and start RoboRun. It says \"Controller Communication OK\", and correctly identifies the AX500.

But if I click Yes at \"Do you want to read it\'s configuration?\" I get a \"Reading Controller Settings\" progress bar that looks OK for a few seconds, then \"Bad data received from controller ... etc\"

Reset and Save doesn\'t help since Save also fails.

The controller was shipped with v1.9e firmware, and I have downloaded 1.9f RoboRun, so I thought it was maybe a discrepancy here. I upgraded the firmware to 1.9f, which went smoothly and correctly. The controller is now identified as running v.19f (and hardware code 3-3-3).

However the problem persists.

/jesper

If you were able to update the firmware, this means that the controller & communication are OK.

You may want to clickn on the Console tab and check what data is sent by the controller after it is reset and starts running. Click on the button that sends 10x CR to make it switch to RS232 mode. Then try sending commands manually, like ?a.

We have seen user reporting this kind of problem because they are using Window configured in non-english language.

I have an English Windows XP install, but Swedish language settings.

That was the problem. Setting the \"Regional and Language Options\" control panel to English gets rid of the problem.

However this will of course cause numerous other headaches.

Do you have any more reasonable workaround?

And why on earth does this setting cause the program to fail in the first place?!?

Thanks,
/jesper

We never figured out the reason for the problem. There is nothing in the source that looks like it would be sensitive to a particular language.

There are no workaround at the moments.

This problem appears to be happening only for configurations read/write. After you configured using the english setting, you should be able to switch back to the english setting, ignore the warning, and operate the controller normally in the run tab.

Maybe it tries to convert a string to a date or a number with a decimal point using some Windows builtin function?

Those functions would require a different format of the input string if the language settings are non-english.