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Author Topic: Munki Won't Talk No More  (Read 767 times)

nirpat89

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Munki Won't Talk No More
« on: August 28, 2019, 10:00:47 am »

So my x-rite ColorMunki Photo spectro stopped connecting to my Windows 10 computer recently.  I thought may be there was something wrong with the hardware, so to check I tried it on another laptop which is Windows 8.1 where it worked fine.  Back to Windows 10: based on what I read, it seems like a known problem and x-rite has some standard suggestions like uninstall/reinstall, check firewall, change USB port,  etc all of which I did to no avail.  Then all of a sudden without any new effort on my part (as far as I could tell) it started working.  Then a couple of weeks later it stopped again - this time it seems for good.

Anyone had any such problems with either their ColorMunki Photo or i1Studio (which have the same hardware)  and found a solution to remedy it?  By the way, I also tried the i1Studio software and found the same problem there. 

I can probably use the Windows 8 machine to do the measurements, profile generation etc and transfer to the Windows 10 as a work-around.  But it would be nice not to.

If it's not one thing, it's another!


:Niranjan.
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Alan Goldhammer

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Re: Munki Won't Talk No More
« Reply #1 on: August 28, 2019, 12:50:37 pm »

It's well known that certain Windows 10 updates can interfere with USB ports and instrument drivers.  That's likely what happened in your case.  I always delay Windows 10 updates for two weeks which appears to be enough time for them to patch things.  Not much you can do other than what X-Rite suggests.  I have an X-Rite colorimeter for monitor profiling with NEC Spectraview and an i1 Pro that I use with ArgyllCMS (it uses a different driver) and have had no issues
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nirpat89

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Re: Munki Won't Talk No More
« Reply #2 on: August 28, 2019, 01:36:43 pm »

It's well known that certain Windows 10 updates can interfere with USB ports and instrument drivers.  That's likely what happened in your case.  I always delay Windows 10 updates for two weeks which appears to be enough time for them to patch things.  Not much you can do other than what X-Rite suggests.  I have an X-Rite colorimeter for monitor profiling with NEC Spectraview and an i1 Pro that I use with ArgyllCMS (it uses a different driver) and have had no issues

Hi, Alan: 

That might as well be it.  The second time it stopped, I vaguely remember a major update from Microsoft before that.  I have been doing auto-update, may be time to take the matter into my hands.  I have ordered a powered USB hub, will see if that helps. 

Thanks.

:Niranjan.
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GWGill

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Re: Munki Won't Talk No More
« Reply #3 on: August 28, 2019, 10:57:55 pm »

That might as well be it.  The second time it stopped, I vaguely remember a major update from Microsoft before that.  I have been doing auto-update, may be time to take the matter into my hands.  I have ordered a powered USB hub, will see if that helps. 

Maybe. But keep in mind that the Munki has a flexible PCB connecting the USB to the sensor itself, and that this is known to go open circuit due to flexing and bad luck. It starts out as an intermittent problem triggered/cured by rotating the sensor, so testing against another system may not show the problem reliably.
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nirpat89

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Re: Munki Won't Talk No More
« Reply #4 on: August 29, 2019, 08:11:11 am »

Maybe. But keep in mind that the Munki has a flexible PCB connecting the USB to the sensor itself, and that this is known to go open circuit due to flexing and bad luck. It starts out as an intermittent problem triggered/cured by rotating the sensor, so testing against another system may not show the problem reliably.

That is a good thought.  May be I should rotate the sensor to one of the other positions while connected and see what happens. I also noticed there was a play in the USB port on ColorMunki when I tried to fiddle around with it (gently) the first time I found it not working.  I am hoping nothing happened to the circuit or the connectors yet.  So far it has worked all the time on Windows 8 and worked intermittently (over longer periods of times) on Windows 10. 

It seems I got a major Windows 10 upgrade last week to Build 1903.  Perhaps that did something....I have half a mind to do a restore from before this upgrade.  Or may be I will just wait for a few weeks, as Alan pointed out, for Microsoft to fix any potential bug that created the problem. 

:Niranjan.
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nirpat89

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Re: Munki Won't Talk No More
« Reply #5 on: September 06, 2019, 12:11:02 pm »

OK, so an update....

None of the potential remedies (like using powered USB hub, playing with mode selector, etc) discussed above worked out.  I tried connecting again today to see if Windows 10 had healed itself with newer updates.  No go.  Then out of curiosity I uninstalled the so-called X-rite Device Manager, which is a separate software from ColorMunki Photo and i1Studio, and installed a new one.  Lo and behold, it's back on line. 

Thought I will document this for posterity. 

:Niranjan.

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