FAQs for TRACE32

Communication with Acrobat Reader failed under Linux

What needs to be done ? I receive the error message regarding communication with Adobe Reader failed under Linux.

If you use an Acrobat Reader version higher than 7 on a Linux host, you might receive the error message: 

"Communication with Acrobat Reader failed - check if plugin <trace32.api> is started correctly" 

Config File PBI Parameters

Why does the connection to my debugger via ethernet fail? It starts always as a monitor instead.

It looks like you set in the config file:

  PBI=NET 11.22.33.44 ; driver to run TRACE32 without HW    

But this starts the TRACE32-SW as a monitor program for connection via ethernet. 

If you want to connect to a TRACE32 HW by ethernet you need to write the keyword to a second line instead:

  PBI=  NET                 ; host interface to connect to TRACE32 HW  NODE=11.22.33.44    

ERROR about missing entrypoint EncodePointer information (WINDOWS)

Why I get under WINDOWS XP the error message "The procedure entry point EncodePointer could not be located in dynamic link library KERNEL32.dll" ?

If you get one of the following Windows error messages during startup of the TRACE32 executable

"The procedure entry point EncodePointer could not be located in dynamic link library KERNEL32.dll" respectively

"Der Prozedureinsprungpunkt "EncodePointer" wurde in der DLL "KERNEL32.dll" nicht gefunden."

under Windows XP, then the PC operating system installation doesn′t fulfill the following requisite:

Windows XP SP2 or higher

ERROR about missing entrypoint HeapSet information (WINDOWS)

Why I get under WINDOWS 2000 the error message "Entry point HeapSet information could not be found in dynamic Link library Kernel32.dll" ?

If you get one of the following Windows error messages during startup of the TRACE32 executable

"Entry point HeapSet information could not be found in dynamic Link library Kernel32.dll" respectively

"Der Prozedureinsprungpunkt "HeapSetInformation" wurde in der DLL "KERNEL32.dll" nicht gefunden."

under Windows 2000, then the PC operating system installation doesn′t fulfill all of the following requisites:

Windows 2000 SP4

UpdateRollup for Windows 2000 SP4 (KB891861)

TRACE32 software version must be build 25715 or higher

File version conflict after software update or patch install

Why do I get a file version conflict after software update?

The new TRACE32 executable isn′t copied manual to an old previous installation directory. 

The internal subdirectory structure of the update packages has been changed since software version November 2010. 

Now the TRACE32 executables are inside a subdirectory bin\<operating_systemtype> e.g. bin\windows64. 

For older installations the executable must be moved manual to the TRACE32 system directory e.g. C:\t32 or the shortcut property must be corrected. 

We recommand to modify the shortcut property, due to the fact that this kind of subdirectory structure will be used from the installer in the future too. 

When the TRACE32 software for more than one processer architecture is installed in the same TRACE32 system directory, but not a software update for all architectures is done. 

When the update package is used without a preceding TRACE32 software installation. 

The software update doesn´t contain a config file. If you create a copy of the original config file, please don´t forget to adapt the SYStem directory in the config file.

OS=  ID=T32  SYS=<new system directory>  tmp=C:\temp  

Otherwise the version of the executable doesn´t match with the rest of the TRACE32 files.

Fixed Width Font t32sys not found

How do I proceed if I get the error message "Fixed width font t32sys not found"?

When you start TRACE32 the fonts are loaded. If you make an SW update which includes a change regarding the TRACE32 fonts the new fonts will not be activated as long as the old fonts are loaded. This happens even when the old and new fontfile has the identical content. 

Reboot your Windows PC. 

Floating Licenses (Virtual Prototypes)

How can I use TRACE32 for Virtal Prototypes with Floating Licenses?

TRACE32 versions from July 2008 and later support floating licenses for Virtual Prototype debugging.

Download and install the RLM End-User Bundle to obtain your License Server binary and use it to look up your RLM Host ID: 

http://www.reprisesoftware.com/enduser_downloads.htm

Download the Lauterbach Certificate (lauterbach.set - for RLM this replaces the Daemon executable) and copy it into your RLM License Server installation directory.

Register your TRACE32 Serial Number together with your RLM Host ID.

When you receive your Lauterbach License File, copy it into the RLM License Server installation directory. Do NOT rename it.

Modify the first line of your Lauterbach License File: replace the placeholders with hostname and port.

Configure your system boot scripts to automatically start the RLM License Server.

Make a client license file (or set the corresponding RLM environment variable).

For Windows 32bit clients only: Download and unpack the Floating License Client DLL (t32lm.dll) and copy it into the TRACE32 installation directory of your clients.

 TRACE32 Floating License HowTo (printable) (43K) 

 Lauterbach Certificate (for RLMv7.0 and all later versions) (1K) 

 Lauterbach Client DLL for Windows 32 bit (RLMv4.0BL4 and later) (175K)

 Reprise License Manager End-User Bundle Download

Font Problems on Linux

What should I do if I get an error message about missing fonts during driver startup?

The host driver has a few fixed font and fontsize requirements. The fontsizes can lead to unexpected failures during startup, cause one or more of the needed sizes are missing. 

In addition to the default, FONT=SMALL and FONT=LARGE settings via config.t32, the driver supports 3 small variations of each setting.

On systems which use a mixed set of 8bit and 16bit menu fonts, and have only *-iso10646-* system fonts installed, no meaningful glyphs are rendered in the menu or softkeys of TRACE32 main window. 

If this happens, please install the additional iso8859 system font package(s).

   e.g.  yum install xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859-1-75dpi  

Font Problems on Linux II

How to add the TRACE32 font directory under Fedora distributions ?

For adding permanently the TRACE32 font directory to the system font directory list could be used the following command: 

e.g. ln -s /opt/t32/fonts /etc/X11/fontpath.d/t32-fonts 

Please don′t forget the mkfontdir command inside the directory /opt/t32/fonts for building a fontdirectory file named fonts.dir . 

Interface Converter

Is it possible to use an interface converter for TRACE32?

Usually all available converters are not sufficient to convert from a PC interface to a different interface of TRACE32 tools. We do not investigate on the reasons since many applications in the market do not work together with those converters. If you find 3rd party converters usable for TRACE32, please contact us. 

So here is an example of an USB to parallel interface converter (USB2PAR) which was used by a customer successfully. It is usable to debug but downloading files to flash devices on the target is very slow due to the conversion we were told:

 Example of one USB to Parallel Converter (from TU Chemnitz) (21K)

Linux isn′t booting anymore after installing USB driver

Why isn′t booting LINUX after installing USB driver file 10-lauterbach.rules?

If a LINUX system isn′t booting anymore after the TRACE32 USB driver files 10-lauterbach.rules was installed, then please check, whether an irritating CR character is inside this file or not. 

A check can be done with command:

cat -et /etc/udev/rules.d/10-lauterbach.rules  

No ^M should be displayed at all. 

In the directory /dev/lauterbach/trace32 you can find a lot of links from system devices which shouldn′t exists there (e.g. audio, disk, dvd, ..) 

# conversion steps  # if package tofrodos isn′t already installed  sudo apt-get install tofrodos  cd /etc/udev/rules.d/  # converts all CF+LF pairs to LF  sudo fromdos -d 10-lauterbach.rules  

Missing shared library "libstdc++.so.5"

What needs to be done? I receive the error message regarding the shared library "libstdc++.so.5".

If you have updated to a TRACE32-SW later than February 2009 on a Linux host or virt. machine - (VM) you might receive the error message: 

"./t32marm: error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory" 

In such case you need to contact you system administrator to get this library from CD or via internet for your specific Linux machine type to install it on your host. 

Here an example for details on Ubuntu and the related command: 

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-78758.html 

sudo apt-get install libstdc++5 libstdc++5-3.3-dev 

Starting with TRACE32 software DVD April 2010 and newer this effect doesn′t occur anymore. 

Missing shared library for Linux

What to do when a system library is missing ?

General spoken you have to install the corresponding package which contains the missing library too. 

Some examples:

Fedora7:

error while loading shared libraries: libXp.so.6: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

                  yum install libXp   #  note the upper case "X" and lower case "p"  

RHEL5/64bit:

/opt/t32/bin/pc_linux/t32mppc: error while loading shared libraries: libXmu.so.6: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64

Not all necessary 32-bit packages are installed.

The 32-bit "libXmu" package and all it′s dependencies should be installed.

Missing shared library for Solaris

What to do when a system library is missing ?

error while loading shared libraries:

e.g. ld.so.1: t32marm: fatal: libm.so.2: open failed: No such file or directory killed  

This happens when a TRACE32 executable linked for Solaris 10 is used under Solaris 8. 

Please request a Solaris 8 executable from Lauterbach. 

As a temporary workaround could be a link file named libm.so.2 generated. 

su  ln -s /usr/lib/libm.so.1 /usr/lib/libm.so.2  

Multiple PODBUS USB devices

How can I use multiple USB devices with several TRACE32 instances?

More than one Lauterbach USB device could be used coexistently from the same host. For each USB device on TRACE32 instance will be started. 

Network Preparation for Access by Lauterbach Support

What do I need to tell my network administrator if Lauterbach support wants direct access to my debugger?

There are cases when direct access to the Trace32 debugger of the customer simplifies the support task for the engineers at Lauterbach a lot. But nowadays this involves usually at least 2 levels of network firewalls and various address and port translations. 

What does you have to tell to your network administrator to properly configure the company firewall? 

What we need:

Access to UDP destination port 20000 from the Lauterbach.com IP address range 192.149.90.0/24.

What your network administrator needs to do:

Allow UDP destination port 20000 to debugger from Lauterbach.

Forward UDP destination port 20000 to debugger (if address NAT is involved).

Open the reverse path as well if the firewall does not do that automatically.

Make sure debugger firmware (VERSION.HARDWARE) is V6.9 or later (if port NAT is involved).

Simple Cisco example:

Entry for the IP access-list controlling the packets from Internet:

 permit udp   192.149.90.0   0.0.0.255   host   Your.Debugger.IP.address   eq 20000  

Entry for the IP access-list controlling the packets to the Internet:

 permit udp   host   Your.Debugger.IP.address   eq 20000   192.149.90.0   0.0.0.255  

No Response from InterCom

What could be the reason for the "no response from InterCom" message?

You are using Intercom communication for TRACE32 on your PC. This was activated by a setting in the active configuration for your TRACE32-SW. Either by the Intercom setting in the t32start configuration or inside your TRACE32 config file (default name config.t32). 

The Intercom communication is typically needed if two or more TRACE32 applications shall communicate together (via UDP) as that could be the case in AMP Multicore debug sessions. 

The "no response from InterCom" message appears if the default time-out of 500ms to acknowledge an intercom command exceed. That typically happens if several PoverView Instances have to share the bandwidth of only one debug port. The needed bandwidth could be reduced by decreasing the update rate for each TRACE32 application.

   SETUP.URATE <time> or <frequency>  

If that is not sufficient or the resulting update rate becomes unacceptable the InterCom acknowledge time-out could be increased since Build Revision 34366 with following command as well.

   SETUP.INTERCOMACKTIMEOUT <time>  

The default InterCom command acknowledge time-out has been hold as low as possible to keep Practice execution performance, in case of non existent InterCom participants, in an acceptable range! 

No TRACE32 window comes up on Unix

Why is no TRACE32 main window coming up under Unix ?

No TRACE32 main window is displayed due to one of the following reasons:

The TRACE32 software doesn′t find the TRACE32 system directory.

environment variable T32SYS isn′t set or points to a wrong directory 

e.g.

export T32SYS=/opt/t32/bin/pc_linux        // wrong  export T32SYS=/opt/t32                     // correct  

SYS definition inside the TRACE32 configuration file (default name config.t32) is commented, omitted or points to a wrong or not existing directory 

e.g.

OS=  SYS=/opt/t32/bin         // wrong, should be   SYS=/opt/t32  

The hostdriver t32cde tries to open the file boot.t32 with write access and will fail, when the TRACE32 system directory respectively the file boot.t32 is write protected. 

This is a kind of file semaphore mechanism to avoid problems when several instances will boot and create Trace32 boot images at the same time. 

Please add the following lines inside the used TRACE32 configuration file (default name: config.t32):

            // empty line necessary  BOOT=  NOLOCK              // empty line necessary  

or give at least write access to the file boot.t32 via command

e.g. chmod a+w boot.t32  

PCF Bitmap Font disabled on Ubuntu

What to do if I get a error message under Ubuntu regarding PCF bitmap fonts?

After installation of TRACE32 for Ubuntu and trying to use the TRACE32 fonts you might get an error message like: 

FATAL ERROR from X-windows: XFT available, but not working with PCF bitmap fonts. 

Please check your FontConfig configuration, possibly bitmap fonts are explicitly disabled. 

To enable the PCF bitmap fonts please use the following settings inside Ubuntu: 

# "Un-disable" bitmap fonts 

sudo rm /etc/fonts/conf.d/70-no-bitmaps.conf 

# Clear the font cache 

# (path for the T32 font directory is an example, adjust according to your installation) 

sudo fc-cache -f -v ~/t32/fonts 

PerformanceCounter of PC seems to be buggy

TRACE32 says the PerformanceCounter of my PC seems to be buggy. What does this mean?

The message basically means that the performance counters used by Windows XP on your machine performs buggy: The timers values are not monotonically increasing as they should for every timer. 

This is a general problem with the platform you are using and is not just related to TRACE32.

TRACE32 is using the function QueryPerformanceCounter of the Windows API which is the only correct way to get a time value with microseconds accuracy. However with Windows XP and Windows 2003 running on a dual core CPU, a value returned by QueryPerformanceCounter can be smaller that a value just fetched before with QueryPerformanceCounter. When this happens the first time the message box pops up. 

The problem can occur on any dual core CPU from any CPU manufacturer.

It is recommend to set option "/usepmtimer" in your boot.ini. (See Microsoft kb289022, kb833721, kb895980) 

This option forces Windows to use a different timer (ACPI Power Management Timer) for microseconds accuracy which operates correct (monotonically increasing). 

Why does Windows not always use "/usepmtimer" if this is so much better? 

Well, the CPU needs a little bit more time to access this other timer. Anyway the option is nowadays recommend by AMD (and set when you install the AMD CPU driver).

If you are using TRACE32 inside a VMware virtual machine it is strongly recommended not to use option "/usepmtimer". 

Details on the VMware Knowledge Base KB Article: 1011714

Note: On TRACE32 build 24984 to build 25568 the message "PerformanceCounter of my PC seems to be buggy" can appear by mistake. On this builds it is pretty likely that the message appears after one hour of continuous operation.

The problem is not fatal. It is not very likely that debugging won′t work because of this microseconds timer bug.

See also:

 Article 895980 on Microsoft Support "Programs that use the QueryPerformanceCounter function may perform poorly in Windows Server 2000, in Windows Server 2003, and in Windows XP" 

 Article 1011714 on VMware Knowledge Base "QueryPerformanceCounter behaves improperly inside a virtual machine when /usepmtimer is used with some Windows HALs"

Popup menu problem under Ubuntu 10.04

Why doesn′t occur a popup menu by a right-mouse button click ?

Under Ubuntu 10.04 context sensitive popup menus don′t occur due to a Xserver bug. 

Solution: 

Update to a newer xserver-common package, version 2:1.7.6-1ubuntu7.4 or later. 

For 64bit kernel the additional package xserver-xorg-core, version 2:1.7.6-2ubuntu7.5 or later must be installed too. 

Explanations: 

https://bugs.launchpad.net/xorg-server/+bug/605565 

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg-server/+bug/574157 

http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25400 

Prerequisites for Linux

What are the prerequisites for the Trace32 host driver(s) on Linux?

The Trace32 host driver for Linux tries to be distribution independent and is currently only available for Linux/x86 and Linux/x86_64 (Linux/PPC on request). 

Nevertheless there are some requirements inherited through the build environment. 

For Linux/x86 these are:

glibc >= 2.3.4

X.org X11 >= 6.8.2

These requirements resolve for example to RHEL >= 4 or Suse >= 9. 

For Linux/x86_64 these are:

glibc >= 2.5

X.org X11 >= 6.9

These requirements resolve for example to RHEL >= 5 or Suse >= 10. 

In any case make sure you have all available X font packages (especially both the 75dpi and 100dpi versions) of your distribution installed to get the best possible display. 

Prerequisites for USB on Linux

How do I use USB with the Trace32 host driver(s) on Linux?

In addition to the generic requirements, USB needs:

kernel >= 2.4 for FullSpeed USB support (12 MBit/s)

kernel >= 2.4.22 for HighSpeed USB support (480 MBit/s)

filesystem supporting USB devices

udev filesystem needs kernel >= 2.6 

or

usbdevfs mounted on /proc/bus/usb

hotplug package

The udev or hotplug setup is no strict requirement, but highly recommended if you want to avoid running the Trace32 executables as root all the time. 

udev method: 

su  cp bin/pc_linux/udev.conf/10-lauterbach.rules /etc/udev/rules.d  

hotplug method: 

To enable proper Trace32 hotplugging, change to the directory on the CD (or with an extracted update) with the Linux executables and issue the follwing commands in a shell:

su  grep -iq trace32 /etc/hotplug/usb.usermap || cat usb.usermap.trace32 >>/etc/hotplug/usb.usermap  install -m 0755 trace32 /etc/hotplug/usb/  exit  

You can verify proper operation with the t32usbchecker tool coming with the CD or update. 

Minimum settings in config.t32 to use USB:

PBI=  USB  

NOTE: USB can only be used with the host-based executables (name matches t32m*), NOT with t32cde. 

Sending Commands Remote via t32rem.exe

How can I send commands remote to TRACE32?

syntax: t32rem.exe <localhost or IP address of PC> [port=<n>] <cmd> 

e.g. t32rem.exe my_pcname do testfile.cmm 

e.g. t32rem.exe localhost port=20123 Data.List main 

T32rem.exe (not automatically installed from CD) can be used to send commands remote to a running TRACE32 application. 

Here in the example it starts testfile.cmm (else the extension of the file name is necessary). 

Use "localhost" or the TCP/IP address of the host where TRACE32 is running. The port nummer can be omitted if it is default (= 20000). 

"RCL=NETASSIST" separated by empty lines above and below has to be activated in the config file. If you use "T32Start" for configuration you can activate "RCL" by setting "API Port, Use Port" to "yes". 

Silent installation under Windows

How can I realize a silent installation under Windows?

1. For a simple software roll out of a company unique TRACE32 software installation 

a network mount/drive will be used and the content of the TRACE32 DVD should 

be in a special directory on a server

   xcopy D:\*.*  N:\TRACE32DVD_201011  /E /V /L                   // drive and directory name are only an example  

2. Record once a TRACE32 installation with the following instructions inside a command shell window: 

   cd N:\TRACE32DVD_201011\bin\setup64                            // drive name N: and the directory is only an                                                                    // example and must be replaced by the actual                                                                    // user defined values     setup.exe /r /f1"N:\TRACE32DVD_201011\bin\setup64\setup.iss"   // /r stands for enabling recording the                                                                    // installation process                                                                    // /f1 defines the file which will contain the                                                                    // recorded installation actions  

Step through the complete TRACE32 installation process. 

3. Start a silence TRACE32 installation with the following instruction on a different PC: 

   setup.exe /s /f1"N:\TRACE32DVD_201011\bin\setup64\setup.iss"   // /s means silence installation mode  

If InstallShield didn′t work correctly with a record file on the network drive, please use the following default place C:\rul\setup.iss instead. 

Switch off cleartype font usage

How can I reactivate the old fashioned font usage ?

Since 2008 cleartype fonts are used as default. 

Please add the following lines inside the used TRACE32 configuration file (default name: config.t32) to use the old fonts: 

                    // empty line necessary  SCREEN=  FONT=NOCLEARTYPE                      // empty line necessary  

UDP Intercom Port Collision

What′s the meaning of the error message: "FATAL ERROR from InterCom-driver: can not bind read socket" ?

You are using Intercom communication for TRACE32 on your PC. This was activated by a setting in the active configuration for your TRACE32-SW. Either by the Intercom setting in the t32start configuration or inside your TRACE32 config file (default name config.t32). Please see the screen-shots. 

The Intercom communication is typically needed if two or more TRACE32 applications shall communicate together (via UDP). This is for example needed for multicore debugging or debugging coprocessors like eTPU or PCP. 

The problem is caused by using the same Intercom port address by different applications. Maybe several TRACE32 executables or other applications. You can check the used ports by command: "netstat -a" on your PC. 

USB Debugger not detected by Linux

Why is my USB debugger not detected at all by Linux?

There are a few reasons why this can happen:

The running kernel does not support USB yet.

USB not enabled during kernel configuration

USB enabled as modules in the kernel configuration, but module autoload did fail or is not configured.

usbdevfs is not mounted.

usbdevfs is mounted, but not at /proc/bus/usb.

Bad USB cable, use the original one or make sure it is at max. 3 meters long 28AWG/1PR 24AWG/2C.

Old debugger firmware, you need V 6.5 or later.

USB Debugger not detected by Windows

Why is my USB debugger not detected at all by Windows or doesn′t work anymore?

We′ve had reports that Intel 82801 USB controllers under some circumstances may cause trouble with USB 2.0 devices. 

The problems should (this is unconfirmed) be fixed with the 82801F chipset series. 

Plugging in a USB2.0 device to the PC (e.g. "CPU Switch Lite USB 2.0" from Lindy) could cause the effect that running other USB2.0 devices - e.g. PowerDebug Usb 2, or e.g. a USB2.0 memory stick - couldn′t be accessed any more, or were not recognized from Windows anymore next time they were used. 

USB1.0 devices - e.g. keyboard, mouse,... - seem not to be affected. Some issues concerning cable lengths were reported too. 

In the case of "CPU Switch Lite USB 2.0" from Lindy, the problems stopped instantly when a separate USB cable was used than the USB cable that is part of the combined KVM cable (USB+VGA). 

Noteworthy is the fact that the KVM USB cable part was used for keyboard and mouse functionality only. 

USB problem under MacOSX

Why do I get the error message "FATAL EROR from PODBUS-driver: could not get nodename" ?

If you use a TRACE32 debugger modul on a Mac OS-X host, you might receive the error message: 

"FATAL EROR from PODBUS-driver: could not get nodename" 

In this case the firmware version of the Power Debug USB modul is too old. 

Please update at least to version V8.x. 

The update could be done under a Windows or Linux host. 

The actual firmware version and a PRACTICE script can be found either on your TRACE32 software DVD in 

directory files/demo/etc/hardware respectively can be download from

 TRACE32 firmware version

Using 3 GB RAM for TRACE32 task under Windows

How can I permit 3 GB memory allocation for the TRACE32 task under Windows?

The Windows system file boot.ini must be modified. 

Please add boot switch /3GB. 

e.g.  multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional"        /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn /3GB  

Without special bootswitch /3GB the linker option -LARGEADDRESSAWARE will be ignored! 

Using TRACE32 via USB with VMware

What can I do if the USB interface is not working properly or very slowly with VMware?

These problems are caused by VMware virtualizing the USB interface.

VMware Player 1.x only supports USB 1.1, limiting the transfer speed to 100..300 KB/s.

VMware Player 2.x does support USB 2.0 and thus allows USB speeds up to 1.500KB/s. To use USB 2.0 you need to update your VMX file (virtualHW.version = "6" and ehci.present = "true").

If this does not help, please use TRACE32 with "real" PC hardware.

If your PC and TRACE32 tool have an ethernet interface available you can use ethernet together with VMware. Transfer speeds will be lower than with real hardware, too, but not as low as with USB (we observed speeds up to 50% of real hardware).

WARNING about obsolete Driver (WINDOWS only)

Why does TRACE32 warn about an obsolete driver?

You have seen this message:

   WARNING: Found active PODBUS USB device using obsolete driver.     Please update the driver for your Lauterbach PODBUS USB Controller.     Different USB ports may use different driver versions!     Please see http://www.lauterbach.com/faq_hostdriver.html     FALLBACK: connecting PODBUS USB device NUMBER=1 via obsolete driver  

The USB driver you are using for TRACE32 supports an obsolete interface class that could conflict with other USB drivers. 

Please note:

Using the old driver does not affect the functionality of your Lauterbach device or software.

The warning is a precaution to avoid potential problems with other USB driver software.

Windows Vista/XP/2003 users: Please update the driver with your latest Lauterbach CD.

Windows 2000/ME/98 users: A new driver is available on CDs issued after 2007-APR-18.

Win7 "loses" PodBus/USB device after one hour idle time

Why does my PodBus/USB device connected to Windows 7 not work anymore after some time ?

From the Microsoft Knowledge base entry with a hotfix for this problem: 

"You connect a USB device to a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2. When the computer is idle for more than one hour, the USB device may not work any longer. When this problem occurs, the USB device is not displayed in Device Manager." 

Title: "USB devices that are connected to a computer may not work after the computer is idle for more than one hour Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2" 

 Microsoft KnowledgeBase Entry #978258

Windows 7 does not install TRACE32 USB driver

Why does Windows 7 report "installation failed" when I connect TRACE32 to USB?

When Windows 7 detects a new device and does not find a driver pre-installed or online, it reports failure (incorrectly: the TRACE32 USB driver is fully compatible with Windows 7). 

How to install the driver using "TRACE32 USB Driver installer for Windows":

Download the "TRACE32 USB Driver installer" (t32usb_setup.exe, see link below)

Start the installer by double-clicking on t32usb_setup.exe

Follow the installation wizard

How to install the driver manually:

connect your TRACE32 USB Power Device and wait for the "install failed" bubble note

open "Device Manager" (e.g. run "devmgmt.msc")

right-click "Lauterbach PODBUS USB Controller"

select "update driver software"

select "search on this computer"

"browse" to your TRACE32 installation directory (or on the Lauterbach DVD to "bin/windows/driver")

"continue" to install the driver

Note_1: The installer (link below) is a self-extracting RAR file that contains the driver files and the Microsoft "Driver Package Installer" (DPinst) binaries for Windows 32bit and 64bit. (Lauterbach added "dpinstselect.exe", a small program to auto-invoke dpinst32.exe or dpinst64.exe depending on your Windows platform.) 

Note_2: Due to a certificate problem (not caused by Lauterbach), with the 2010-05-28 version of the installer archive on some Windows 7 64bit installations the driver installation would succeed, but then the driver would not start. This problem has been fixed in the 2010-06-24 version of the driver binary. If you are affected, please downlod the current t32usb_setup.exe 

Windows USB driver installation per USB port

Why do I have to install a Lauterbach PODBUS USB driver for each USB port?

Microsft Windows needs a way to assign the proper type of device driver to an instance of a device.

To achieve this for USB devices, Microsoft does not use the USB VendorID/ProductID/bcdDevice fields, but either (a) the USB Serial Number or (b) the exact device position in the USB tree.

If a device has (a) a "USB Serial Number" set, each individual USB device instance used on a given PC requires an extra driver installation. In other words, if you e.g. swap a device with a co-worker, you need to install a driver.

Without a "USB Serial Number", Windows wants a driver installed _once_ for each USB port where a certain type of device is used. (E.g. swapping devices with a co-worker does not need additional driver installation.)

The USB device design choice was to go for a maximum of one driver installation _once_ per (_used_!) USB port. Normally PCs don′t have many USB2 ports, and this prevents the necessity to install additional drivers if you ever use a Lauterbach PodBus device with a different serial number on the same Host PC.

Administrators maintaining restricted user right environments have problems with user-triggered driver installations.

As a pre-requisite, they should use the most current installation package. E.g. the "t32usb_setup.exe" binary from this website is a self-extracting RAR archive that contains the Microsoft DPinst driver package pre-installation tool. This "DPinst" copies the USB driver to Windows driver store and allows "automatically install" for subsequent installations. This should already get rid of most "restricted environment" problems.

If you still have problems, we see two possibilities to further ameliorate the situation:

(1) Allow "standard users" to install the Lauterbach driver by adding the embedded driver certificate to the "Trusted Vendor" certificate store (group settings). This should enable restricted user to install the driver. You need to test this with your specific version of Windows and your set of group policy settings, of course!

(2) If all affected Host PCs are identical, a System Administrator can configure one "Template Machine" with all ports installed, and export its USB enumeration tree for the PodBus USB device type from the Registry. After installing the Lauterbach PODBUS USB driver once an a hardware and OS-identical target machine, the administrator could then import the enumeration subtree. (For e.g. XP the subtree would be "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB\Vid_0897&Pid_0002". It is unknown if this would work on Windows versions newer than XP. Also any added hub will change the USB tree and require additional installation.)