RM-IR on OS X Yosemite

ruidosobruce · Post by **ruidosobruce** » Tue Jan 06, 2015 7:07 pm

Earlier this year, on my Mac, I used RM-IR to program several JP1 remotes over USB cables: several URC 6131 and several 1067 Comcast JP1.3. Everything worked great. Now, about a year later RM-IR v2.02a cannot talk to either of them. What changed in the interim is that OS X Mavericks upgraded to Yosemite, and Java upgraded to 1.8.0_25.

I have upgraded all the drivers as recommended by FTDI and Prolific, but neither cable works now. It looks like RM-IR and/or Java cannot see the port. Download and upload in RM-IR are greyed out. Raw download reports "No Remotes Found!"

The RM-IR v2.02a file with Java 1.8.0_25 work fine under Windows XP.

Anyone have any ideas?

3FG · Post by **3FG** » Tue Jan 06, 2015 7:39 pm

This article discusses how the FTDI drivers have been replaced by Apple's own driver in both Mavericks and Yosemite. So it may not be exactly correct for your problem. But I suspect it is worth a try.

ruidosobruce · Post by **ruidosobruce** » Wed Jan 07, 2015 9:25 am

Thanks 3FG. I had previously seen that article and followed the recommended steps. I think the serial drivers and /dev ports look right on my Mac, serial number and other. And, I can connect to the FTDI port with a terminal program CoolTerm written in Cocoa. It just looks like Java is not allowing the port for RM-IR.

ruidosobruce · Post by **ruidosobruce** » Tue Jan 13, 2015 5:18 pm

Problem solved with a workaround. RM-IR doesn't run on my Mac under Yosemite and Java 8. I disabled Java 8 and installed legacy Java 6 and it runs fine. There is a good video of that process at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNFu4Ewryf0X

ruidosobruce · Post by **ruidosobruce** » Sat Jan 17, 2015 3:06 pm

I have found that RM-IR also works correctly in Yosemite with Java 7 installed with jre-7u72-macosx-x64.dmg which can be downloaded from:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/ ... 80261.html

Barf · Post by **Barf** » Sun Jan 18, 2015 7:16 am

The problem appears to be the loading of the jni libraries. I can also reproduce the problem with IrScrutinizer.

It appears that Apple and/or Oracle change the "preferred" extension for these libraries, from .jnilib to .dylib. I just tried with RMIR, and yes, renaming libDecodeIR.jnilib to libDecodeIR.dylib makes DecodeIR found again!

Possibly RMIR should be rewritten to search for both extensions? (Presently it takes it from System.mapLibraryName.)

Post by **mathdon** » Mon Jan 19, 2015 9:52 am

Barf wrote:Possibly RMIR should be rewritten to search for both extensions? (Presently it takes it from System.mapLibraryName.)

I have added the following code into the LibraryLoader:

Code: Select all

      String mappedName = System.mapLibraryName( libraryName );
      if ( osName.equalsIgnoreCase( "Mac OS X" ) )
      {
        int dot = mappedName.indexOf( '.' );
        if ( dot >= 0 )
        {
          String base = mappedName.substring( 0, dot );
          String extn = mappedName.substring( dot );
          if ( extn.equalsIgnoreCase( ".dylib" ) )
          {
            mappedName = base + ".jnilib"; 
          }
        }
      }
      File libraryFile = new File( libraryFolder, mappedName );

I am unable to test it but I think it should resolve the problem. If I've got something wrong, please let me know. I will post this to the SVN and post a new RMIR that includes it shortly.

Post by **mathdon** » Tue Jan 20, 2015 9:47 am

Please see this announcement of RMIR v2.03 Alpha 28. It includes this fix and a number of other improvements, too.

ruidosobruce · Post by **ruidosobruce** » Tue Jan 20, 2015 7:13 pm

The updated version of RMIR that was just posted seems to work fine under Java 8 on OS X Yosemite. I installed the latest version of Java 8 Release 31 (jre-8u31-macosx-x64) and RMIR v2.03 Alpha 28 and had no issues.

While RMIR worked well for me under Java 6 legacy version, there are other security issues with Java 6. Running under the latest Java updates is recommended.

Thanks to everyone who helped sort out this problem, with a special thanks to Mathdon for the changes to RMIR.

sti491 · Post by **sti491** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 1:52 pm

Essentially I am having the same problem as the OP not being able to connect my MacBook Pro Yosemite 10.10.1 to my RCA remote using a new USB to TTL Serial Cable Adapter FTDI Chipset FT232 USB Cable.

I used this color wire to pin connection:
The JP1.3 pinout by color is:
[1] Empty
[2] Yellow (Yellow)
[3] Black(Black)
[4] Green(Green)
[5] Empty
[6] White(White)

Downloading the latest RM version and the latest Java 8 Release after reading this thread I thought my troubles were solved. But nope, I am still not quite there:

I hit "download remote" and it appears to be working (led's on the cable plug are firing, the wait bar in RM looks like it is processing).... then, bam!.... error message that essentially says:

"Error downloading from remote" This may well be the result of a bug in the RMIR software. Please do a raw download as follows. Close RM, re-open, click "Raw Download". Download it, save it to the default file name shown and post it in the JP1 software forum for the experts to examine.

The raw download produces a spreadsheet-like file I can scroll down. Every cell that I can see has "00" in it. When I attempt to download and save it I do not see any file name, nor can I tell where it went, partly because I don't know the file name.

Not sure what to do next.

Please be patient as I am a rank new user to all this, learning as I go. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Apologize in advance if this is a "double post" of sorts. I was just trying to follow instructions from latest version of RM.

ruidosobruce · Post by **ruidosobruce** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 6:40 pm

The pinout you used works well for me for the JP1.3 connector over the FTDI cable. So, now check your driver.

Go to: Apple / About this Mac / System Report.. / USB / FT232R UART
Hopefully you will see something like this:

FT232R USB UART:

Product ID: 0x6001
Vendor ID: 0x0403 (Future Technology Devices International ...
Version: 6.00
Serial Number: A9E19F3V
Speed: Up to 12 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: FTDI
Location ID: 0xfa130000 / 6
Current Available (mA): 500
Current Required (mA): 90

If not, check the installation of the FTDI driver.

ruidosobruce · Post by **ruidosobruce** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 6:48 pm

I should also say that if I plug my RMIR and that cable into one of my JP1 remotes, I get exactly the same RMIR messages that you got.

I there a chance that your RCA remote is not fully JP1.3?

sti491 · Post by **sti491** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 9:49 pm

Thanks for your help. When I go to : Apple / About this Mac / System Report/ Hardware/USB…. I see a lot of various USB stuff like "High Speed Bus", "Face time camera" with detail in a format like you show for FT232R USB UART, but it is not included there. Is it under Hardware/USB? Somewhere else I am missing perhaps?

The RCR RCRPO5B is fully JP1.3 from what I understand.

How do I check the installation of the FTDI driver? Are there specific steps I need to go through to load that driver on my MacBook? I think you are right, I don't have it.

ruidosobruce · Post by **ruidosobruce** » Sat Jan 24, 2015 12:00 am

In Apple / About this Mac / System Report / Hardware / USB…. you should see the FT232R under one of the two Hubs, depending on which USB slot you have the cable plugged into.

If you don't see it, download and install the FTDI driver from:
http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm

sti491 · Post by **sti491** » Sat Jan 24, 2015 9:37 am

w00 w00...Got it! Had to load the driver. Piece of cake. Now I'll try loading the extender to see if I can transfer some macros to my H900. Actually, just by programing the RCA using the buttons it's a decent back-up to mt H900 as is. Thanks for all the help.

JP1 Remotes