Serial Port Issues

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Windows hosts.
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ptoddy
Posts: 2
Joined: 25. Jun 2013, 10:38

Serial Port Issues

Post by ptoddy »

Hi

Hoping someone can help.

I have identical machines setup, one as vmware and one as virtual box. I am trying to use a piece of Siemens software to communicate with a serial device via the serial port. Using the vmware machine it works perfectly but using the virtualbox it doesn't work at all. I have attached a serial monitor dump for both machines to see if anyone can tell me if it is possible to change any settings on the virtual box to make it work.

Virtual box version 4.2.12 with Windows XP SP2 installed and serial port enabled, Port Number - COM1, Port Mode - Host Device, Port/File Path - COM1.

Thanks in advance for any advice

Kind regards,

Paul
Attachments
vboxserialdump.txt
Virtual Box serial monitor dump
(4.23 KiB) Downloaded 28 times
vmwareserialdump.txt
vmware serial monitor dump
(114.65 KiB) Downloaded 15 times
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39134
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: VirtualBox+Oracle ExtPack
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Serial Port Issues

Post by mpack »

Your two dumps show different baud rates and parity. RS232 does not auto-adapt, you must manually configure both ends of the channel identically. Besides having a different bit rate, your VBox config is set for 7 data bits and no parity, which in my experience is highly unlikely to be correct. Your VMWare config is set for 8 data bits no parity, which is usually the correct setting unless the spec says otherwise.
ptoddy
Posts: 2
Joined: 25. Jun 2013, 10:38

Re: Serial Port Issues

Post by ptoddy »

thanks for the reply mpack. If you look further down the serial dump for the Virtual Box you will see it changes to 8, None, 1
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