[44th]

My serial to usb cable works fine on my pc but my macbook will not recognise my gps
I have installed the latest pl2303 driver I can find and still no joy
Any suggestions?

[B+L]

44th, on Mar 19 2009, 11:58 AM, said:

My serial to usb cable works fine on my pc but my macbook will not recognise my gps
I have installed the latest pl2303 driver I can find and still no joy
Any suggestions?

You did not say where you obtained the drivers or what you are attempting to use them with, such as what software is reading/writing the device. That information might prove to be helpful. However, if you are using the factory drivers, that might just be your problem.

The MacCaching blog states the Prolific drivers do not work and suggests using these.

There is also an Open Source driver project for the PL2303 that can be found here, which may or may not be the same drivers as above. I did not look.

We have used the factory drivers successfully with our old eTrex Vista, but the connection sometimes failed intermittently or would not connect or be recognized even when it had worked earlier on the same day. The factory Windows drivers did work using Parallels to run Windows XP and since we mostly used the device with GSAK and Windows, we did not try the alternative drivers. Other people have reported they work fine and they are Universal binaries so they should be OK even if you have a PPC MacBook.

[44th]

B+L, on Mar 19 2009, 12:10 PM, said:

44th, on Mar 19 2009, 11:58 AM, said:

My serial to usb cable works fine on my pc but my macbook will not recognise my gps
I have installed the latest pl2303 driver I can find and still no joy
Any suggestions?

You did not say where you obtained the drivers or what you are attempting to use them with, such as what software is reading/writing the device. That information might prove to be helpful. However, if you are using the factory drivers, that might just be your problem.

The MacCaching blog states the Prolific drivers do not work and suggests using these.

There is also an Open Source driver project for the PL2303 that can be found here, which may or may not be the same drivers as above. I did not look.

We have used the factory drivers successfully with our old eTrex Vista, but the connection sometimes failed intermittently or would not connect or be recognized even when it had worked earlier on the same day. The factory Windows drivers did work using Parallels to run Windows XP and since we mostly used the device with GSAK and Windows, we did not try the alternative drivers. Other people have reported they work fine and they are Universal binaries so they should be OK even if you have a PPC MacBook.

Hi and thanks for the reply

At present I use my PC and serial to usb cable to simply download caches by using the Garmin Communicator plugin on Firefox to an etrexH and it works a treat

The cable is http://gpsbitz.co.uk/shop/index.php?act=vi...mp;productId=42

I would like to do the same on my macbook and have installed the mac communicator plugin which collects cache information but says no gps found

I have tried the mac driver recommened by the cable supplier and the open source driver you suggested was my last attempt before posting here

Have also tried connecting the cable on another mac and still the same problem of not recognising the gps

[44th]

B+L, on Mar 19 2009, 12:10 PM, said:

44th, on Mar 19 2009, 11:58 AM, said:

My serial to usb cable works fine on my pc but my macbook will not recognise my gps
I have installed the latest pl2303 driver I can find and still no joy
Any suggestions?

You did not say where you obtained the drivers or what you are attempting to use them with, such as what software is reading/writing the device. That information might prove to be helpful. However, if you are using the factory drivers, that might just be your problem.

The MacCaching blog states the Prolific drivers do not work and suggests using these.

There is also an Open Source driver project for the PL2303 that can be found here, which may or may not be the same drivers as above. I did not look.

We have used the factory drivers successfully with our old eTrex Vista, but the connection sometimes failed intermittently or would not connect or be recognized even when it had worked earlier on the same day. The factory Windows drivers did work using Parallels to run Windows XP and since we mostly used the device with GSAK and Windows, we did not try the alternative drivers. Other people have reported they work fine and they are Universal binaries so they should be OK even if you have a PPC MacBook.

Hi and thanks for the reply

At present I use my PC and serial to usb cable to simply download caches by using the Garmin Communicator plugin on Firefox to an etrexH and it works a treat

The cable is http://gpsbitz.co.uk/shop/index.php?act=vi...mp;productId=42

I would like to do the same on my macbook and have installed the mac communicator plugin which collects cache information but says no gps found

I have tried the mac driver recommened by the cable supplier and the open source driver you suggested was my last attempt before posting here

Have also tried connecting the cable on another mac and still the same problem of not recognising the gps

[B+L]

44th, on Mar 19 2009, 01:58 PM, said:

At present I use my PC and serial to usb cable to simply download caches by using the Garmin Communicator plugin on Firefox to an etrexH and it works a treat.

I'm afraid you are out of luck with the Garmin Communicator plugin. I believe Garmin mentions somewhere that it does not work with usb to serial converters.

[DiS02]

B+L, on Mar 19 2009, 05:19 PM, said:

44th, on Mar 19 2009, 01:58 PM, said:

At present I use my PC and serial to usb cable to simply download caches by using the Garmin Communicator plugin on Firefox to an etrexH and it works a treat.

I'm afraid you are out of luck with the Garmin Communicator plugin. I believe Garmin mentions somewhere that it does not work with usb to serial converters.

Actually, thats wrong. The USB to serial converter & the Garmin Comm plugin used to play nicely on my winxp pc, now vista on the other hand just hates my converter. And I have/had access to a Garmin V & a Legend (B&W).

Sorry I can not help on the mac issue.

[B+L]

DiS02, on Mar 25 2009, 10:02 AM, said:

Actually, thats wrong. The USB to serial converter & the Garmin Comm plugin used to play nicely on my winxp pc, now vista on the other hand just hates my converter. And I have/had access to a Garmin V & a Legend (B&W).

Sorry I can not help on the mac issue.

Thanks for the info, but we are talking about on a Mac. The Communicator Plugin does not work at all on a Mac with serial devices and apparently never will. Even on Windows, serial devices are unsupported, but some people are lucky enough to have one of configurations that do work.

This is what Garmin said, when asked:

Quote

We (Garmin) have no current plans to include support for RS232 GPS devices on the Mac.

[44th]

B+L, on Mar 25 2009, 09:31 PM, said:

DiS02, on Mar 25 2009, 10:02 AM, said:

Actually, thats wrong. The USB to serial converter & the Garmin Comm plugin used to play nicely on my winxp pc, now vista on the other hand just hates my converter. And I have/had access to a Garmin V & a Legend (B&W).

Sorry I can not help on the mac issue.

Thanks for the info, but we are talking about on a Mac. The Communicator Plugin does not work at all on a Mac with serial devices and apparently never will. Even on Windows, serial devices are unsupported, but some people are lucky enough to have one of configurations that do work.

This is what Garmin said, when asked:

Quote

We (Garmin) have no current plans to include support for RS232 GPS devices on the Mac.

Hi all and thanks for the comments

I too have contacted Garmin and told the same that Mac Communicator will not work with serial to usb cables

However

I have downloaded MacCaching onto my Macbook, inport cache data into this programme and my serial to usb cable works a treat. This programme also strips the GC part of the code when exporting to the gps which is great for the small field size on th etrex