[Not solved] iPac problem - won't work after restart

[raungst]

I have a mini-pac that is giving me trouble all of a sudden. I've been working on updating my MaLa layout and roms, and finally have been able to plug my CP back in. Now that its plugged back in, it only works after I uninstall the "HID Keyboard Device" from the device manager (I don't have any other keyboard or mouse installed) and then unplug/replug the USB cord in. If I restart, it won't work again and I have to follow the uninstall and then unplug/replug steps again. What's even more odd, is that my trackball (connected via the mini-pac) works fine the entire time.

Maybe related, when I try to program it using WinIPAC I get the following error "WinIPAC.fromMain.btnProgrammIpac(Program)_Click: Error 0x1C5 (453): Can't final DLL entry point usb_open_by_id in libusb0.dll.

I'm assuming their related, and it sounds like I have a dll or driver problem of some sort. Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks!

[raungst]

Looks like I fixed it. The minipac seems to only like one USB port. I'm guessing its the one I originally plugged it into when programming it. I'm not sure what I would do I if I ever had to switch computers...

[lilshawn]

That's a weird windows thing. When you switch USB ports, you might as well be installing again for the first time. Windows will detect and install drivers again every time you plug the device into a different USB port.

It's usually fine in most cases, but when you have a pain in the butt device... you get what we had here today.

[raungst]

This isn't as solved as I thought. I turned my cab on this afternoon and the same thing happened again. I ended up trying all of the USB ports to the same effect.

The one weird thing is that I can get it to work if I press a button during my MaLa start up video. This seems odd, but if I don't press anything until the MaLa game list appears, theres no response from any button presses. I'm shelled into MaLa, and MaLa is playing the startup video, so I guess I could blame it for this, but it still seems awfully weird. I've had this setup for a while,  but I suppose everytime I've played on my cab I've quit the startup video early?

Any wild ideas out there? Since the iPac is just a generic keyboard, I can't really blame it on bad drivers or something. The fact that I still can't program it is odd to me as well. What could MaLa be doing that would cause it not to work? I'll try booting directly to the desktop to see if it works there when I have some more free time.

[CpCaveman]

not sure if it`d be described as wild but, i had a problem with the buttons not working occasionally on my mini-pac at the beginning, or as i found out appearing not to work, i have mala running on a dedicated (very old )pc at start-up, but had to link up the pc to the internet for the setup getting codecs and graphics was easier that way, mala started fine but the cab buttons wouldnt work, turned out a different program was taking the focus off mala, I had some software installed on it which i removed, also tended to happen when windows decided to tell me about unused icons on my desktop or updates I dont need or any other "helpful" windows operations like that.

I set mala to not close on "esc" and just return me as far the game menu, which when then pressed brought the focus back to mala and then the buttons worked, also disabled all the "very very not so helpful and unasked for" windows tasks, and as the cab isnt connected to the internet I uninstalled all programs that werent needed anymore. I have a usb keyboard, usb mouse, ps/2 trackball, and usb minipac if that helps.

Failing that, and ask around if youre not sure first, I`m not taking any responsibilty I dont know a lot about computers but i`d check if there are any conflicts(exclamation marks) in your control panel/system/device manager/ universal serial bus controllers section, fix/delete them then start it up reinstall the drivers then plug in and install your ipac again.

Hope it helps/gives you some other options to check out 

[raungst]

I did some more investigation and the mini-pac seems to be working fine. The problem is that MaLa is losing focus on startup. This seems really bizarre, as its the shell. I have a wifi usb dongle and use TeamViewer (basically VNC) to login remotely, so I'm wondering if those are the culprit. I added those as I was refreshing my roms.

There's a new MaLa beta that addresses some focus issues, so I'll try that out too to see if it fixes anything. Thanks for all the suggestions!