Developer account no longer works

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DonM
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2015 3:46 pm

Developer account no longer works

Post by DonM »

I created a developer account in 2015 when we added support for the spacemouse to our application. Everything was fine until the most recent driver version, which has broken our application. I tried to email the API Support (Windows) email address, but did not receive a reply.

I then tried to login from the service > software developer page. It says "No account is registered with that email address". Interestingly, that is not the message I get if I enter a random email address. In that case it says "Your account is not registered. Please create a new account." and shows the create account page. Makes me think that my account has been deactivated or something.

My account on the forum is still active.

Is it possible to reactivate my account?

How do I get support for my problem with the latest driver?

Thanks,
jwick
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Re: Developer account no longer works

Post by jwick »

Hi DonM,

While we sort through your account and email problems, I'll try to help you with your application problem.

What application is it?
Which driver version broke it and what happened?

Jim
DonM
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2015 3:46 pm

Re: Developer account no longer works

Post by DonM »

We used your SDK back in 2015 to integrate the SpaceMouse into our application (USB 4D-Stage). Recently we had an issue raised by a customer after they upgraded to the latest SM driver. The SM can still control our device when our application has the focus, but when another application has the focus, the SM talks to that application and not our application. We set Grab mode to Hard in our configuration file to ensure that the SM is always associated with our device. This is desired by the customer, since they can then control the stages with the SM while viewing a video camera and other sensors in a different application.

In addition, the buttons on the SM now bring up the standard menus, rather than performing the operations that are associated with them in our configuration file.

I was able to reproduce this problem on my own system. After upgrading my driver from version 10.2.6 to version 10.6.0, I see the same issues. Unfortunately I am upgrading from a quite old driver, so I don't know for sure what driver version actually causes the issue. But since I haven't heard from a customer about the problem until now, I suspect the problem is with 10.6.0.

We install a configuration file in ProgramData/3Dconnexion/3DxWare/Cfg. This file sets the grab mode to hard, and configures the buttons.

We do not install a configuration file to AppData/Roaming/3Dconnexion/3DxWare/Cfg, but the driver (or SDK?) creates one, that inherits from the one in ProgramData.

After updating the drivers, the ProgramData file is unchanged, but the AppData file has been modified (by the update process, apparently). It seems like the inheritance link has been broken, since the configuration in the ProgramData file is not being seen.

As a test I tried setting Grab mode to Hard in the new AppData configuration file, but that did not work.

1. Is there any way to get the new drivers to work with the old configuration files? Preferably in a way that does not require my users to upgrade our application.

2. If not, how do I write configuration files that work with the new driver? These must set grab mode to hard, and I must be able to configure the buttons to use ID of App_Function1 and App_Function2.

3. How do I manage configuration files so they are compatible with both the old and new drivers? Some users will have the old drivers, some will have the new ones. And of course they may upgrade at any time.

Thanks for your help,
jwick
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Re: Developer account no longer works

Post by jwick »

Hi DonM,

It probably is the old ProgramData cfg file. The %localappdata%/.../3DxService.log file will say. I can't update those on disk, like I can with AppData files. No write access.

PD distribution isn't something we encourage. I never wanted to do that. This is just one more example of why not.

There have been several cfg formats since 10.2. 10.6.2 introduces another variation.
It's no surprise that the driver can't chain all the updates from 10.2 to whatever came next, ..., to 10.6.2's format. I don't even try. It probably works if the customers make one step at a time.

The Grab is still supported. So it's a matter of getting the right cfg format.
If you are using our API, you can also do a Hard grab there and not have to worry about the cfg file.

PM your file to me (you probably have to send a link). Then I can give you some options. It might be that you can put both files in PD and the driver will accept whichever one it can read. The current driver is a little better about that than older ones.
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