Author Topic: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??  (Read 946962 times)

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Offline KPR8

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??
« Reply #100 on: October 22, 2014, 08:22:24 pm »
Sounds a lot like the BS from freeloaders using 'backups' in their modded XBoxes and then got banned from XBLive. 'We restored the original firmware & still banned - no fair'
 

Offline daveshah

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??
« Reply #101 on: October 22, 2014, 08:24:39 pm »
Given that the terms & conditions aren't actively agreed to by the user due to it being automatic through Windows Update, I wonder if it is a violation of the UK Computer Misuse Act - "unauthorised modification of computer material"?
 

Offline krater

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??
« Reply #102 on: October 22, 2014, 08:27:10 pm »
Make your drivers simply refuse to work with non-genuine ICs ... fair enough I suppose. :-+

Willfully brick devices from another vendor, just because you are having legal issues with that other vendor .... not very nice, and possibly illegal. :--
They haven't bricked anything. They changed the PID so their older drivers will also simply refuse to work with non-genuine ICs. It would be an issue if there were any other legitimate drivers that worked with these non-genuine chips but there are not and FTDI know it because the non-genuine chips use FTDI's VID and FTDI are the only ones able to create a legitimate driver for something with their VID.

Oh yes, like CIH. I doesn't bricked your motherboard, it just flashed your bios with new software....thats a totally other thing !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIH_%28computer_virus%29
"it was working yesterday.  hmmm.  maybe the vendor FTDI'd me via a windows update..."
 

Offline KPR8

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??
« Reply #103 on: October 22, 2014, 08:33:13 pm »
Quote:

This software is provided by Future Technology Devices International Limited ``as is'' and any express or implied warranties, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are disclaimed. In no event shall future technology devices international limited be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential damages (including, but not limited to, procurement of substitute goods or services; loss of use, data, or profits; or business interruption) however caused and on any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict liability, or tort (including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of the use of this software, even if advised of the possibility of such damage.
FTDI drivers may be used only in conjunction with products based on FTDI parts.
FTDI drivers may be distributed in any form as long as license information is not modified.
If a custom vendor ID and/or product ID or description string are used, it is the responsibility of the product manufacturer to maintain any changes and subsequent WHCK re-certification as a result of making these changes.   

I'm betting by plugging in an FTDI device you are accepting the license (you are getting the benefit). You did read the license right?

If Windoze updated your driver without telling you then take it up with MS, see how far that gets you ;)
 

Offline linux-works

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??
« Reply #104 on: October 22, 2014, 08:36:21 pm »
does anyone have a link to the last GOOD driver from ftdi?  I may have a cdrom with it, but will take me a while to find it.  I'd like to blacklist the windows update and reinstall the driver from the last known good version.  what IS the version string that was 'safe' and does anyone have a link to download that good version?


Offline jadew

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??
« Reply #105 on: October 22, 2014, 08:41:27 pm »
Quote:

This software is provided by Future Technology Devices International Limited ``as is'' and any express or implied warranties, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are disclaimed. In no event shall future technology devices international limited be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential damages (including, but not limited to, procurement of substitute goods or services; loss of use, data, or profits; or business interruption) however caused and on any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict liability, or tort (including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of the use of this software, even if advised of the possibility of such damage.
FTDI drivers may be used only in conjunction with products based on FTDI parts.
FTDI drivers may be distributed in any form as long as license information is not modified.
If a custom vendor ID and/or product ID or description string are used, it is the responsibility of the product manufacturer to maintain any changes and subsequent WHCK re-certification as a result of making these changes.   

I'm betting by plugging in an FTDI device you are accepting the license (you are getting the benefit). You did read the license right?

If Windoze updated your driver without telling you then take it up with MS, see how far that gets you ;)

That doesn't mean that if you violate the agreement they have the right to come in and kill your dog.

At worst, it should simply not work.
 

Offline KPR8

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??
« Reply #106 on: October 22, 2014, 08:42:38 pm »
does anyone have a link to the last GOOD driver from ftdi?  ...

And a copy of XP too so I can slowly go out of date & become irrelevant :)

That doesn't mean that if you violate the agreement they have the right to come in and kill your dog.

At worst, it should simply not work.

Erm, well, it doesn't work anymore, does it?

This is even funnier than when Sparkfun got spanked for importing dodgy Fluke clones and the 'maker' world erupted in butt hurt fury... Fluke played a blinder by giving SF a bunch of meters, SF couldn't sell them (had to 'donate' them) and they were still out 1000s of dollars. 100% Fluke win, pure marketing brilliance...
« Last Edit: October 22, 2014, 08:46:40 pm by KPR8 »
 

Offline ve7xen

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??
« Reply #107 on: October 22, 2014, 08:45:47 pm »
Ah, I don't have one of these dongles at hand, but the basic mechanism applies to any driver. You'll need the actual VID/PID combination (see lsusb), the mechanism is described here: http://www.ha19.no/usb/
« Last Edit: October 22, 2014, 08:47:28 pm by ve7xen »
73 de VE7XEN
He/Him
 

Offline Kjelt

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??
« Reply #108 on: October 22, 2014, 08:46:56 pm »
FTDI wants us hobbieists to contact their business dealers instead of buying the few ic's from " dubious" sources as Ebay because they are too lazy to check all Ebay listings with "FTDI" in their advertisement.
Great let all hobbieists unite and email their official FTDI dealer tomorrow to give them an official quote for those one, two or few FTDI chips and if they don,t hear an answer or denial for such quote within one day keep on repeating those emails. I wonder how much they will loose on all that paperwork.
If FTDI wants to do something that really will hurt those counterfeiters they should open up an official ebay store where everyone can buy few pieces of official ic's for decent prices with free shipping, only then will something happen.
 

Online nctnicoTopic starter

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??
« Reply #109 on: October 22, 2014, 08:47:55 pm »
Sounds a lot like the BS from freeloaders using 'backups' in their modded XBoxes and then got banned from XBLive. 'We restored the original firmware & still banned - no fair'
Sorry but this has nothing to do with freeloading. It is as if you buy a PC with Windows but it turns out it has is no valid Windows license. Microsoft notifies you of this issue politely and allows a grace period instead of reformatting your hard drive immediately.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline d18c7db

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??
« Reply #110 on: October 22, 2014, 08:49:37 pm »
Guys we're all supposed to be techies in here. So far there has been debate as to whether FTDI did the right thing or not, talk of suing, very little talk of how to rectify the situation.

Unfortunately I don't have one of those problematic FTDI chips to play with but from past experience with FTDI, I doubt very much that the driver is able to actually kill the chip. Most of the feedback on this issue mentions that the VID/PID is reset to zero. This information is not held on the chip itself but on an attached EEPROM.

This means, and I'm only just guessing here, that the driver may try to update some EEPROM parameters and due to some incompatibility or difference between the real/fake FTDI chips, the fake ones fail to write the EEPROM correctly and it remains erased. This is just me guessing and giving FTDI the benefit of the doubt.

So continuing with my theory, since you can't kill the FTDI chip itself via software, this is just an issue of the EEPROM getting erased. The fix may simply be to disconnect the EEPROM SPI clock trace so that the fake chip cannot detect it, therefore reverting to the hard coded VID/PID which is the normal behaviour of a FTDI chip, whether real or fake.

 

Offline krater

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??
« Reply #111 on: October 22, 2014, 08:51:21 pm »
Quote:

This software is provided by Future Technology Devices International Limited ``as is'' and any express or implied warranties, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are disclaimed. In no event shall future technology devices international limited be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential damages (including, but not limited to, procurement of substitute goods or services; loss of use, data, or profits; or business interruption) however caused and on any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict liability, or tort (including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of the use of this software, even if advised of the possibility of such damage.
FTDI drivers may be used only in conjunction with products based on FTDI parts.
FTDI drivers may be distributed in any form as long as license information is not modified.
If a custom vendor ID and/or product ID or description string are used, it is the responsibility of the product manufacturer to maintain any changes and subsequent WHCK re-certification as a result of making these changes.   

I'm betting by plugging in an FTDI device you are accepting the license (you are getting the benefit). You did read the license right?

If Windoze updated your driver without telling you then take it up with MS, see how far that gets you ;)


Oh, sounds like "If you insert this dvd in your drive, you accept the license and we can format your harddrive". On a text file on the DVD.
really ?
"it was working yesterday.  hmmm.  maybe the vendor FTDI'd me via a windows update..."
 

Offline jadew

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??
« Reply #112 on: October 22, 2014, 08:53:45 pm »
Erm, well, it doesn't work anymore, does it?

I meant the driver, please stop being a troll.


Guys we're all supposed to be techies in here. So far there has been debate as to whether FTDI did the right thing or not, talk of suing, very little talk of how to rectify the situation.

Unfortunately I don't have one of those problematic FTDI chips to play with but from past experience with FTDI, I doubt very much that the driver is able to actually kill the chip. Most of the feedback on this issue mentions that the VID/PID is reset to zero. This information is not held on the chip itself but on an attached EEPROM.

This means, and I'm only just guessing here, that the driver may try to update some EEPROM parameters and due to some incompatibility or difference between the real/fake FTDI chips, the fake ones fail to write the EEPROM correctly and it remains erased. This is just me guessing and giving FTDI the benefit of the doubt.

So continuing with my theory, since you can't kill the FTDI chip itself via software, this is just an issue of the EEPROM getting erased. The fix may simply be to disconnect the EEPROM SPI clock trace so that the fake chip cannot detect it, therefore reverting to the hard coded VID/PID which is the normal behaviour of a FTDI chip, whether real or fake.

The chip has built in EEPROM, so there are no bus lines to be disconnected. Also, there is no reason why a driver would alter the VID/PID pair during normal operation.
 

Offline Kjelt

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??
« Reply #113 on: October 22, 2014, 08:55:47 pm »
This information is not held on the chip itself but on an attached EEPROM.
If you read above posts and links you would have seen that the eeprom is on the chip, it is a one chip design.
Only repair is to exchange the illegal chip with a real one which you now can order at the official ftdi dealer at one piece at a time.
 

Offline KPR8

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??
« Reply #114 on: October 22, 2014, 08:56:09 pm »
FTDI wants us hobbieists to contact their business dealers instead of buying the few ic's from " dubious" sources as Ebay because they are too lazy to check all Ebay listings with "FTDI" in their advertisement.
Great let all hobbieists unite and email their official FTDI dealer tomorrow to give them an official quote for those one, two or few FTDI chips and if they don,t hear an answer or denial for such quote within one day keep on repeating those emails. I wonder how much they will loose on all that paperwork.
If FTDI wants to do something that really will hurt those counterfeiters they should open up an official ebay store where everyone can buy few pieces of official ic's for decent prices with free shipping, only then will something happen.

Right, coz who buys the official item when they can get it a dollar cheaper elsewhere? FTDI want you to pressure the suppliers who sell fakes. Eventually those suppliers will give up because of the noise and stock only the real deal - FTDI win

Sounds a lot like the BS from freeloaders using 'backups' in their modded XBoxes and then got banned from XBLive. 'We restored the original firmware & still banned - no fair'
Sorry but this has nothing to do with freeloading. It is as if you buy a PC with Windows but it turns out it has is no valid Windows license. Microsoft notifies you of this issue politely and allows a grace period instead of reformatting your hard drive immediately.

You have had many years of grace period but still buy the fakes coz they are a buck cheaper - M$ give you 30 days iirc. You did nothing because you didn't have to - that's freeloading on FTDIs goodwill in my book

Oh, sounds like "If you insert this dvd in your drive, you accept the license and we can format your harddrive". On a text file on the DVD.
really ?

Last M$ disk I looked at had the words "Do not make illegal copies of this disk" printed on it. Doesn't mention lawyers and going to jail but those are the consequences if you ignore the friendly warning. "Do not use our drivers with knock off chips" - doesn't mention dead HW if you do but, hey! guess what? pfft, freetards, buy the real chips and pay the implicit license fee, how hard is that to understand? Maybe you think quality Windoze drivers (and M$ tax on drivers) grow on trees?

« Last Edit: October 22, 2014, 09:04:01 pm by KPR8 »
 

Online wraper

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??
« Reply #115 on: October 22, 2014, 08:56:28 pm »
Guys we're all supposed to be techies in here. So far there has been debate as to whether FTDI did the right thing or not, talk of suing, very little talk of how to rectify the situation.

Unfortunately I don't have one of those problematic FTDI chips to play with but from past experience with FTDI, I doubt very much that the driver is able to actually kill the chip. Most of the feedback on this issue mentions that the VID/PID is reset to zero. This information is not held on the chip itself but on an attached EEPROM.

This means, and I'm only just guessing here, that the driver may try to update some EEPROM parameters and due to some incompatibility or difference between the real/fake FTDI chips, the fake ones fail to write the EEPROM correctly and it remains erased. This is just me guessing and giving FTDI the benefit of the doubt.

So continuing with my theory, since you can't kill the FTDI chip itself via software, this is just an issue of the EEPROM getting erased. The fix may simply be to disconnect the EEPROM SPI clock trace so that the fake chip cannot detect it, therefore reverting to the hard coded VID/PID which is the normal behaviour of a FTDI chip, whether real or fake.
FT232R* have internal eeprom and supposedly counterfeits have it too.
 

Offline ovnr

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??
« Reply #116 on: October 22, 2014, 08:58:15 pm »
Yeah, this is completely unacceptable. And I wouldn't be surprised for a second if their magical counterfeit-detection code made a mistake and bricked a legit part.

I would have no issue with the driver failing or refusing to install or whatever, but physically damaging a product, counterfeit or not? No. Just no. It is not FTDIs job to police what I plug into my computer, and no EULA on their part is going to change that.


Going to write an exceedingly angry e-mail to them.
 

Offline XFDDesign

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??
« Reply #117 on: October 22, 2014, 08:58:30 pm »

You mean something like real FTDI chips instead of Supereal Microelectronics chips with FTDI written on them?

I had a bunch of boards manufactured in China with fake Fairchild MOSFETS that didn't work - from that I should have concluded that Fairchild makes crap MOSFETs?

When purchasing swaps sources for parts, because "it's the same thing" and you start getting Field Failures, I strongly doubt your first question will be "is this Fairchild FET legit?"
 

Offline ovnr

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??
« Reply #118 on: October 22, 2014, 09:00:16 pm »
Right, coz who buys the official item when they can get it a dollar cheaper elsewhere? FTDI want you to pressure the suppliers who sell fakes. Eventually those suppliers will give up because of the noise and stock only the real deal - FTDI win

Stop being a dick. The only thing FTDI accomplished here is that I'm not going to design any FTDI chips into anything in the future, fake or otherwise.
 

Offline Kjelt

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??
« Reply #119 on: October 22, 2014, 09:00:41 pm »
Right, coz who buys the official item when they can get it a dollar cheaper elsewhere? FTDI want you to pressure the suppliers who sell fakes. Eventually those suppliers will give up because of the noise and stock only the real deal - FTDI win
An individual can not pressure the suppliers at ebay. We can argue that it was a fake and claim our money back then they ask the product back and the end user can pay the shipping which is more then the price of the product so not going to happen. Result will be that no one is ever going to bet his money on buying any product that has an ftdi chip on it since you can not know if it is a fake or not?
So FTDI will go belly up. If that is winning in your scenario :P
 

Offline KPR8

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??
« Reply #120 on: October 22, 2014, 09:05:47 pm »
Right, coz who buys the official item when they can get it a dollar cheaper elsewhere? FTDI want you to pressure the suppliers who sell fakes. Eventually those suppliers will give up because of the noise and stock only the real deal - FTDI win

Stop being a dick. The only thing FTDI accomplished here is that I'm not going to design any FTDI chips into anything in the future, fake or otherwise.

Oooh, I bet the multi-million dollar FTDI are terrified, you might go use a poor substitute in your next 'maker' project :S

Right, coz who buys the official item when they can get it a dollar cheaper elsewhere? FTDI want you to pressure the suppliers who sell fakes. Eventually those suppliers will give up because of the noise and stock only the real deal - FTDI win
An individual can not pressure the suppliers at ebay. We can argue that it was a fake and claim our money back then they ask the product back and the end user can pay the shipping which is more then the price of the product so not going to happen. Result will be that no one is ever going to bet his money on buying any product that has an ftdi chip on it since you can not know if it is a fake or not?
So FTDI will go belly up. If that is winning in your scenario :P

No, you can't pressure an ebay seller but if enough ppl stop buying/start returning/reporting his cloned shit then he's going to have to take notice - that's the point. Sure, there will be fallout and innocent victims, for that you have to blame the cheap swine who accepted his garbage when they _could_ save a buck - but not anymore
« Last Edit: October 22, 2014, 09:08:07 pm by KPR8 »
 

Offline mrflibble

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??
« Reply #121 on: October 22, 2014, 09:09:31 pm »
Oooh, I bet the multi-million dollar FTDI are terrified, you might go use a poor substitute in your next 'maker' project :S

Is there a minimum number of thread participants you have to bait to qualify for your weekly 4chan achievement?

Stop being a dick.
 

Offline krater

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??
« Reply #122 on: October 22, 2014, 09:11:46 pm »
@kpr8:
Do you have the new driver installed ?
"it was working yesterday.  hmmm.  maybe the vendor FTDI'd me via a windows update..."
 

Online nctnicoTopic starter

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??
« Reply #123 on: October 22, 2014, 09:12:08 pm »
Sounds a lot like the BS from freeloaders using 'backups' in their modded XBoxes and then got banned from XBLive. 'We restored the original firmware & still banned - no fair'
Sorry but this has nothing to do with freeloading. It is as if you buy a PC with Windows but it turns out it has is no valid Windows license. Microsoft notifies you of this issue politely and allows a grace period instead of reformatting your hard drive immediately.
You have had many years of grace period but still buy the fakes coz they are a buck cheaper - M$ give you 30 days iirc. You did nothing because you didn't have to - that's freeloading on FTDIs goodwill in my book
Not many years. I just got the boards a couple of weeks ago and the chips look like the genuine ones even under a magnifier. As I wrote before I have the genuine parts in stock so I put them side by side. Either way there is no freeloading by me. I bought a product in good faith and spend two hours figuring out why the boards (suddenly) didn't work after being used on a Windows machine. If the FTDI driver had prompted me that the chips on the board where fake and therefore could not be used I would not have needed to spend to hours trying to figure out what is wrong.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline Kjelt

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Re: FTDI driver kills fake FTDI FT232??
« Reply #124 on: October 22, 2014, 09:13:24 pm »
No, you can't pressure an ebay seller but if enough ppl stop buying/start returning/reporting his cloned shit then he's going to have to take notice
Oh they are going to take notice and so will FTDI because nobody will ever order anything on ebay with the name FTDI in it ever again.
 


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