Windows 8: Freedom Scientific Braille displays are not working even though the Freedom Scientific Braille Drivers are installed

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Reported by winman3000 on 2013-09-09 18:33
If you want to use the Freedom Scientific Braille Display with NVDA under Windows 8, you cannot select the Braille Display, alltough you have installed the Driver from the Freedom Scientific Website.

Steps to reproduce

• Install the latest Freedom Scientific Braille Driver from the Freedom Scientific Website.
• Restart NVDA.
• Go to Options, Braille.

Result

You cannot select the Braille Display in the list of Braille Displays.

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Comment 1 by jteh on 2013-09-09 22:58
Did you download the driver from the URL provided in the User Guide? If not, can you please provide the URL you downloaded it from?

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Comment 2 by winman3000 (in reply to comment 1) on 2013-09-10 20:41
Replying to jteh:

Did you download the driver from the URL provided in the User Guide? If not, can you please provide the URL you downloaded it from?

Yes, I have downloaded the Driver from the user Manual.

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Comment 3 by jteh on 2013-10-22 23:05
Correcting version, since 2013.2 wasn't previously an option. See #3499.

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Comment 4 by jteh on 2013-11-12 01:13
Can you please try the driver from this newer URL? http://www.freedomscientific.com/downloads/focus-40-blue/focus-40-14-blue-downloads.asp

#3585 suggests that we update the URL in the User Guide to this newer URL, but this hasn't been done yet because we're not sure whether it works with older displays. This still needs to be confirmed.

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Comment 5 by winman3000 (in reply to comment 4) on 2013-11-12 06:18
Replying to jteh:

I have installed the latest Driver, but NVDA is not showing the Braille Display on Windows 8 and 8.1.

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Comment 6 by jteh on 2013-11-12 06:23
Mick, are you able to look into this on your 8.1 machine?

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Comment 7 by mdcurran on 2013-11-12 06:25
Yep, will do so tomorrow. Assuming I find my Pacmate dipslay... think I know where that ended up after the move.

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Comment 8 by nvdakor on 2013-11-12 06:38
Hi,
Confirmed on my machine running 8.1: even though you install the Focus Windows driver, when you restart NVDA, the FS driver entry is missing in braille displays list.

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Comment 9 by mdcurran on 2013-11-15 01:50
For me if I use the older focus/Pacmate driver referenced by the NVDA user guide in Windows 8.1, The entry does show in the braille settings dialog, but selecting it causes an error as fbOpen returns -1.
Its worth noting that it also doesn't even want to power it as the default "pm display" doesn't show on the display. yet on my win7 machine it then works fine.
I shall test the later fs driver and report my findings.

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Comment 10 by jteh (in reply to comment 9) on 2013-11-15 01:52
Replying to mdcurran:

Its worth noting that it also doesn't even want to power it as the default "pm display" doesn't show on the display.

That suggests the driver isn't being used/isn't initialising. Iirc, a device won't get full USB power unless it has a valid driver.

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Comment 11 by mdcurran on 2013-11-15 02:45
The new driver does power the display now, and it still shows in Braille settings, but it still fails with a -1 from fbOpen.

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Comment 12 by jteh (in reply to comment 11) on 2013-11-15 04:30
Replying to mdcurran:

The new driver does power the display now, and it still shows in Braille settings, but it still fails with a -1 from fbOpen.

Are you sure the dll isn't just left over from the old driver? Of course, this is going to be pretty tricky to determine, especially if the driver doesn't uninstall itself properly.

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Comment 14 by Michael Curran <mick@... on 2013-11-27 05:38
In [933408a]:

Freedom Scientific Braille display driver:  make sure to give port strings to fbOpen as ANSI rather than unicode. Specifically USB could fail as  it could be unicode when coming from the config. Re #3662 Re #3509

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Comment 15 by mdcurran (in reply to comment 11) on 2013-11-27 05:42
Replying to mdcurran:
Correction: the new driver does work on Windows 8 with NVDA, but currently only when the braille port is not set to USB (e.g. automatic). This particular bug is being handled in #3662.

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Comment 16 by winman3000 (in reply to comment 15) on 2013-11-27 05:47
I still cannot select the Braille Display in Braille dialogue. The Driver is not visible. I am using a new Focus 40 Blue. I've installed the latest Driver.

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Comment 17 by jteh on 2013-11-27 11:55
Are you using the 64 bit version of Windows 8 or 32 bit?

This suggests that fsbrldspapi.dll is missing on your system. I guess this should be in c:\windows\syswow64 on 64 bit Windows, c:\windows\system32 on 32 bit Windows, though Mick or someone with a working setup would have to verify that.

Just so we're extra clear, what exactly did you choose when using the Freedom Scientific installer? Does the display appear correctly in Windows Device manager?

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Comment 18 by jteh on 2013-11-27 11:57
Also, do you have JAWS installed? I wonder whether the installer behaves differently somehow if you have JAWS installed already.

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Comment 19 by James Teh <jamie@... on 2013-11-28 03:14
In [84fc046]:

Freedom Scientific Braille display driver:  make sure to give port strings to fbOpen as ANSI rather than unicode. Specifically USB could fail as  it could be unicode when coming from the config. Re #3662 Re #3509

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Comment 20 by winman3000 (in reply to comment 18) on 2013-11-28 18:28
Replying to jteh:

Yes, I have JAWS installed.

My System

• Windows 8.1 64 Bit
• JAWS 15.0.4203 DEU
• Freedom Scientific Focus 40 Blue (New generation)
• Installed both old and new Freedom Scientific Drivers from the Internet
• fsbrldspapi.dll is stored in c:\windows\Syswow64

My steps to select the Braille Display

a. First, I press INSERT+N to go to the NVDA menu.
a. Then, I press DOWN ARROW to go to "Settings".
a. I go to "Braille Settings".

Result

I cannot see the Freedom Scientific Braille Display in NVDA.

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Comment 21 by jteh on 2013-11-29 00:19
This is really odd. Please do the following:

1. Press NVDA+control+z to open the NVDA Python console.
2. Paste the following line exactly. It should have no spaces at the start and it should be a single line:

 from brailleDisplayDrivers.freedomScientific import BrailleDisplayDriver as F; F.check()

1. Press enter.
2. Press f6.
3. Press control+a to select all and control+c to copy.
4. Paste the output in your reply.

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Comment 22 by winman3000 (in reply to comment 21) on 2013-11-29 22:34
Replying to jteh:

Here is the Output:

>>> from brailleDisplayDrivers.freedomScientific import BrailleDisplayDriver as F; F.check()

False

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Comment 23 by jteh on 2013-11-30 01:18
That suggests fsbrldspapi.dll doesn't exist in syswow64 or is broken. Please do exactly the same steps as in comment:21, but use this command:

from ctypes import windll; windll.fsbrldspapi

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Comment 24 by winman3000 (in reply to comment 23) on 2013-11-30 13:59
Replying to jteh:

OK, here is my result:

>>> from ctypes import windll; windll.fsbrldspapi

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<console>", line 1, in <module>
  File "ctypes\__init__.pyo", line 435, in __getattr__
  File "ctypes\__init__.pyo", line 365, in __init__
WindowsError: [193](Error) %1 ist keine zulässige Win32-Anwendung

This message means that this file is not a valid win32 application.

I'd reinstall the Drivers and copied the file manually, but nothing changed.

Can you please tell me what files should in syswow64 for the FS Driver? Should be any files in System32?

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Comment 25 by jteh on 2013-12-04 21:32
That suggests the copy of fsbrldspapi.dll in syswow64 is either corrupt or is a 64 bit dll, despite the fact that syswow64 should only contain 32 bit dlls.

What file did you copy manually? Where did you copy it from? The driver should install syswow64\fsbrldspapi.dll itself. If you haven't already, try deleting syswow64\fsbrldspapi.dll and then reinstalling the driver.

There should be a fsbrldspapi.dll in system32 as well, but that is a 64 bit dll which NVDA can't use.

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Comment 26 by winman3000 (in reply to comment 25) on 2013-12-04 22:38
Replying to jteh:[[BR]]

I've deleted both 32 and 64 Bit dll's and tried to reinstall the Driver without success, because the Setup noticed that the Driver was already installed, but I could solve the Problem.

How to resolve when the Driver is already installed?

a. Go to the run dialogue by pressing WINDOWS-KEY+R.
a. Press TAB to go to the "Browse" button and press SPACE BAR to activate the button.
a. Locate the Folder where the Driver is stored and find the file "FSBrlDriverSetupPackage.exe" and press enter to select the file.
a. Press TAB 3 times to go to the Edit Field and press the END KEY to deselect the selection.
a. Press the SPACE BAR and type the following Parameters without quotes: "/type repair"
a. Press enter to start the process.

Result

This solves my Problem.

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Comment 27 by winman3000 on 2013-12-04 22:40
Changes:
State: closed