Merged Lexia & Diagbox threads

[Mandrake]

Hey well done guys, glad you've both got it working! That is indeed a good tip! Now that you say it I do vaguely recall reading a note somewhere on the auto-professionals website about 7.02 requiring an active internet connection during initial install, unlike 6.xx ... I had a quick look but couldn't find it though. I honestly can't remember whether I had the internet enabled or disabled on my machine when I installed it.

Once the initial installation is done and the software is successfully activated its a good idea to have the internet disabled when using diagbox though in case it manages to check with PSA and de-activate the software. It's also important to refuse any "internet update" for the software which it will offer from time to time as running the internet update will definitely lose the activation requiring you start all over again. Of course if the internet is turned off when diagbox is running it can't check for updates!

[Chlorate]

It worked for a bit anyway

I don't know how it did it, but the sneaky b*stard had apparently communicated with PSA and downloaded an update whilst it was connected to the internet briefly, which it promptly installed as I started it up this afternoon and asked again for activation

How do you stop it doing this?

[Mandrake]

DOH!!

It doesn't download updates automatically as far as I know, you either have to press F10 or click check for updates near the top right (the downwards pointing arrow) or from time to time it will prompt "do you want to check for updates now" after its launched, make sure you press no if you see that.

The updates are downloaded in the background to a temporary folder and sit there dormant until the next time you launch the app which it then installs during launch. So most likely you accidentally hit yes to check for updates and didn't realise it was downloading in the background.

My suggestion would just be to turn your wifi off before launching Diagbox and don't turn it on again until you've exited it. That's what I usually do although I sometimes forget, so far without incident. Unfortunately you will need to uninstall and reinstall to get it working again.

[Chlorate]

I'm not sure what I did really, it did the same thing on my desktop version too.
After activating it spent about a million years "installing software required by your profile" - which I assumed were drivers etc. but could have been a sneaky update?

Reinstalling now, I'm going to plug my wifi adapter in and connect to a BT Openzone hotspot nearby which I don't have an account for - so it'll detect internet access but won't get anywhere with it.

[Ben82]

"From time to time"? Mine asks every single time I open it.
I really should investigate how diagbox launches Lexia, would be nice to be able to skip diagbox, if only just for my car, would save probably 5 minutes or so, in not having to go through the diagbox menu etc

[Chlorate]

This poxy software is awful....

Ok, so uninstalled, reinstalled all lovely. Executed the update patches from that download link to get it up to 7.15 which ran with the amusing "if you bought this, you have been robbed" screen. But now every time I start the program it tries to revalidate the activation, which works so long as it thinks it has an internet connection but thus renders it useless since my car isn't equipped with a wireless router!
Is this supposed to happen or has something gone wrong?

[Mandrake]

Not supposed to happen no. Did I read you saying before that you actually unplugged your wireless adaptor all together ? Don't do that, just disconnect from the wireless network.

Unplugging the adaptor will cause the network interface to disappear altogether in Windows, this may confuse the background (SIM) service if its binding directly to the wireless interface and the interface then disappears from the system.

Just click on your wireless icon and network and choose disconnect. That's probably all it needs. On mine I disable the wireless adaptor with the 3rd party wireless manager, this stops it connecting to anything but does not remove the interface entirely (as seen by ipconfig /all)

[Chlorate]

There's two reasons I unplug the adapter instead of just disconnecting...firstly I only have the one adapter for two computers, but also there's only one USB port on the old laptop which I need to connect to the interface box...
It does however have a serial port, if I replaced the serial-USB lead for a serial-serial lead would it still be able to communicate with the interface?

Does sticking to 7.01 get rid of this problem?

I wonder if there's a way I could make the PC think it has a connection with no physical hardware...

[Mandrake]

Quite a dilemma you have there, and I don't really have any easy answers for you.

I'm not sure whether using a serial lead will work, although its a DB9 connector on the interface I'm not certain whether its standard RS232 or not. Remember that the interface is powered by the USB port and serial ports can't supply anywhere as much power as USB, so I'm highly doubtful of that working.

Does the laptop not also have Ethernet ? Perhaps install Diagbox with Ethernet connected during install instead of wireless, and don't use the wireless adaptor at all ? To be honest I'm not sure why it won't authenticate for you when the wireless adaptor is unplugged as I'm not able reproduce the issue, nor have I seen anyone else report the same problem...

Are you still running a firewall ? Most firewalls remember allow rules separately for each network interface, although I'm assuming you've already tried it with the firewall turned right off.

[Ben82]

Chlorate,
It maybe worth using some VM software like Virtualbox. Whilst I use it because my laptop runs Windows 7 64bit.. it has a distinct advantage of being able to create snapshots. So you can install Diagbox, create a snapshot, then do the next bit which activates and installs Lexia/PP2000, create a snapshot, install the updates. Once you are happy that you have it working you can get the snapshots merged into the main image. (Note: just a forewarning, the wording of the snapshots is confusing. you have "Restore Snapshot" and "Delete Snapshot", if I remember correctly (and you'll probably want to double check this beforehand) Restore basically takes you back to when the snapshot was taken, and Delete merges the snapshot into the main image).
You'll also want to set up a USB device filter so Virtualbox (when running) will always completely redirect your lexia device to the virtual machine when it is plugged in, the filter that I have is just for "Vendor ID: 103a",

I normally use the snapshot feature when I'm either installing some Windows Updates on the VM or a Diagbox update, just incase I need to roll back, to my known working VM

This also gets around the Network Device issue, as the device in the VM can be set up using NAT (so it basically has it's own adapter and the VirtualBox software (on the host) will use whatever internet connection available to pass through internet traffic) If there isn't one available it'll seem to the VM as if your internet connection has gone down, rather than not having a connection to use. You can also have VirtualBox "unplug" the network cable from the VM, if you want to use it with your wifi in but don't want the VM to have access

[Mandrake]

USB hub ? Not convenient or pretty, but will probably work and is simple! And a second wireless adaptor can be had for under £10 so you're not robbing the one off your other computer...

[Ben82]

USB hub ? Not convenient or pretty, but will probably work and is simple! And a second wireless adaptor can be had for under £10 so you're not robbing the one off your other computer...

I'm guessing you mean one that allows two or more machines to share one usb device?
Works no different (to the computer) than unplugging and replugging the device unfortunately.

[Mandrake]

USB hub ? Not convenient or pretty, but will probably work and is simple! And a second wireless adaptor can be had for under £10 so you're not robbing the one off your other computer...

I'm guessing you mean one that allows two or more machines to share one usb device?
Works no different (to the computer) than unplugging and replugging the device unfortunately.

Nope!

I mean so that he can keep the wireless adaptor plugged in at the same time as the Diagbox interface on his laptop that only has one USB port...he also said he was having to borrow the wireless adaptor from another machine so I was making the observation that small low power USB wireless adaptors can be had for well under £10, such as this one:

http://thepihut.com/products/usb-wifi-a ... spberry-pi" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

PS if the laptop is old enough that it has no internal wifi and only one USB port I doubt its powerful enough to run virtual box...

[Ben82]

Aha, I missed that bit
1 USB port is very stingey even for an old laptop. I wonder if it might have PCMCIA slots? Might be worth getting a usb2 PCMCIA card as its quite likely if it does then then USB port is only USB 1.1.

Edit: specs of the laptop would be good at this stage

[myglaren]

You could be onto something with the USB ports - perhaps they are unable to supply sufficient power, in which case a powered USB hub would overcome that problem.
Amazon have them for under a fiver, been going to get one to use as a charger for my phone as I lost the charger a few years ago.
One day perhaps,