I got a new laptop and have been trying to get the ECU data from the my car for the past two days with no luck. I had previously been able to pull it from my Mac running Bootcamp but can't seem to get my Windows laptop to communicate with it.
I've uninstalled and reinstalled Life Racing three times, followed the suggestions in another thread but after changing the Working Directory path was finally able to get the image below.
Unfortunately the OK button is grayed out so I still can't get the data. SO CLOSE!
Any suggestions on how to get this to work properly?
I finally got it to work but not sure that I really figured it out. What I did was; uninstalled the Life software from my laptop and installed the Life software from the Radical website (I was previously using the downloads from the Life Racing website). Followed the Life Racing ECU Download Instructions from the Radical website exactly as they are written. At first when I plugged in the USB, it still wasn't reading from the ECU. So I unplugged the USB, went to File>Working Directory>Desktop>Create to create a new working directory on my desktop, plugged the USB back it and it worked.
I had tried this before with the software from the Life Racing website and it didn't work so the only thing I can think is that there is some kind of key from the software on the Radical website that allows it to read the ECU.
I can't explain why moving the Working Directory worked.
I had a similar issue with the software from life vs Radical.
But I also had read issues on the USB to ethernet adapter. It would only work when my computers wifi was disabled. Couldn't figure out why I had issues at the house, and not the track, but that was it for me.
I have been struggling to reliably download Life ECU data. The only way I have gotten it to work was to download the software from the Radical Website, go through the install process, and then download from the car. Once I leave for the day or restart the machine the Life software can't find the ECU to download data.
Has anyone else found an issue? I see turning off Wifi, I will try that next. I am using the cable from Radical which connects via the laptop ethernet port. I am using the latest version of Windows on an Acer machine.
Kevin
I always use Device-->autoread to find and read the ECU. I don't know if this will help you or perhaps you are already doing this. I have struggled to use Device-->read data option.
I use the data cable too because on my model WIFI is not an option (I think this is for all cars with SW4 steering wheels).
This is an ongoing issue for me and I have no idea why. A few weeks ago I had to send my ECU back to Radical to replace the battery. Apparently if you don't start the car every so often, the battery will die (I have an SR10) and only the factory can replace it.
When I got it back, I was getting an error message that there were no devices to read but when I went to the track someone was able to hook their laptop to it and no problem. Their laptop had a direct ethernet port. So I uninstalled, reinstalled the Life software - same thing. Uninstalled and reinstalled again and then got an error message about not being able to install the ethernet driver so I wiped Windows out and reinstalled it and the Life software. Hooked up the ethernet adapter from Radical - got the same error. Tried a different one and it worked. Tried it again later and it didn't.
So I have no clue...
Thank you Clark, I am going to try to debug this again tomorrow, will share what I learn. My laptop is very clean and only used for the Radical; hoping that keeps it simple. It does seem to be something tied to the ethernet driver, I do see it receives packets but isn't sending when it gets a connection.
I spent more time on this yesterday and I think I have identified the issue. I am using the latest version of Windows on a clean laptop that has nothing else on it.
To recreate the error, I can install the LifeECU software from the Radical downloads and it will work with the car to download the data. When I restart the computer I cannot communicate with the car.
To solve this I have found the LifeServer.exe file in the LifeECU folder of the Program Files x86 directory in my C: drive. I right click on the program and "Run as Administrator"; this appears to enable the software to manipulate the ethernet port and work.
I have not spent any time making sure that LifeServer always runs as an administrator yet. For reference, the LifeServer appears to be a separate program that starts when you open LifeData and I believe it is the application that interfaces with the hardware drivers.
Similar to Clark, others at the track could read my ECU but my laptop could not which is why i started to debug the laptop and not the car.
Hope this helps others
Kevin
