busTRACE 5.0 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. Does busTRACE 5.0 support Windows 2003 x64 or Windows XP x64?
Yes. We have supported these x64 versions of Windows since busTRACE 5.0.033 was released in May of 2005.

2. Does busTRACE 5.0 support Windows Vista?
No. We only support Windows Vista with busTRACE 6.0 and later.

1. Why does my busTRACE USB Flash Drive cause my system to hang during Windows boot?
This is a conflict between some system BIOSes and the SanDisk Cruzer Micro flash drive. It is not related to the busTRACE software. If your system exhibits this problem, the system might appear to hang during Windows boot when you have our dongle (i.e. SanDisk Cruzer Micro) installed in a USB port. If you remove the dongle, the system continues to boot just fine. You can plug the dongle back in and everything works fine.

One resolution to this problem is to disable the USB Boot option from your system BIOS. We have a Dell Dimension 4550 that we use to duplicate this problem. On the Dimension 4550, we resolve the problem by running the BIOS configuration utility and following these steps:

Select the "Integrated Devices (LegacySelect Options)" menu option
Change the "USB Emulation" setting from "On" to "No BOOT"

Your BIOS settings may vary from our above example. Please consult your BIOS configuration utility.

2. Can I run busTRACE without Administrator privileges?

If you try to run busTRACE with regular user privileges, you will receive an error notifying you to run busTRACE with Administrator privileges. You can work around this by performing the following steps:

Create a shortcut to btrace.exe on your desktop (or anywhere). You can locate this executable in your \program files\busTRACE 5.0 folder.
Right click on the newly created shortcut and choose the "Properties" option from the context menu.
Click on the "Advanced" button.
Place a checkmark next to the "Run with different credentials" option and click on "OK."

When you double-click on the shortcut, to run busTRACE, now enter a username with Administrator privileges and busTRACE will run with the raised level of access.

busTRACE 5.0

1. Why doesn't busTRACE capture I/O activity on my peripheral device?
busTRACE only captures I/O activity going on between Windows and any USB device or storage class device (e.g. hard drives, tape drives, CD/DVD drives, etc.). Any other device type will not appear to busTRACE. Is your device a supported device?

If you have a supported device that does not appear to busTRACE, please contact us so that we can assist you.

If busTRACE does see the device, but is unable to capture I/O activity going to the device, select the Driver Settings option under the Tools main menu (Windows 2000 and above only). Make sure you have Advanced Filtering Enabled checked and try again.

If you are running the checked build of Windows (available with MSDN), please try against the free build to see if that makes a difference.

Lastly, verify that your settings are properly configured in the Driver Settings dialog box (available under the Tools main menu).

2. Why is busTRACE reporting the number of "Bytes Transferred" as being greater than what I know was actually transferred to/from the device?
The first thing you need to check is whether or not you are seeing this on an IDE/ATAPI bus. There is a limitation with the IDE/ATAPI bus, and miniport driver, in that it cannot properly return the number of bytes transferred when configured for DMA mode. The end result is that the miniport driver will report the number of bytes transferred as the number of bytes requested. For example, you pass in a 256 byte data buffer for an Inquiry command, and you only receive 36 bytes. The "Bytes Transferred" would incorrectly return back 256 bytes. The only known workaround is to disable DMA and leave the transfer to PIO mode. You typically alter these settings through the Windows Device Manager.

3. We're a storage device vendor and would like some of our vendor unique commands/data to be added to the busTRACE CDB database? Is this possible?
Yes! We work with many peripheral vendors in the industry to ensure that our CDB database is kept up-to-date, including support for vendor unique information. Please submit a feature request and we will get back to you promptly.

4. Can busTRACE Technologies help me analyze my busTRACE capture?
We provide technical support on using busTRACE. This does not cover understanding the various peripherals out there and how they behave. For that, you'll want to turn to the command specifications for the device.

5. Sometimes busTRACE shows a different device name than busPROBE. Why?
busPROBE sends down an actual Inquiry CDB to the device to get its device name. busTRACE, on the other hand, asks the operating system what the device name is. While these names usually match, they are sometimes different. You will find that busTRACE matches what Device Manager reports. This is normal behavior.

6. Why doesn't busTRACE see my 1394 storage device under Windows 2000/XP?
There could be a variety of reasons. One thing to check is whether you installed the 1394 controller after installing busTRACE. If you do, busTRACE will not see the device by default. The reason for this is that our software is designed to insert our filter driver into bus architectures that are known to the operating system at the time of installation (whether they have devices connected or not). One quick thing to check is to run busTRACE and select Driver Settings from the Tools main menu. Verify that the SBP2 IEEE 1394 Devices option is checked.

The second thing to check is whether or not your 1394 device is a storage device. For example, a DV camera is not a storage device (i.e. it does not process CDBs), and will not appear to busTRACE.

7. When running the "busTRACE Remote Server," I receive an error of "Only one usage of each socket address (protocol/network address/port) is normally permitted (00002740h)." Why?
You probably have another application on your system using the same TCP/IP Port (e.g. port 99). You will need to close the other software using the port number, or reconfigure the busTRACE Remote Server to use a different port. When changing port values, be sure that both the remote server and busTRACE application are configured to use the same port value.

8. Why is my system crashing with a DRIVER_LEFT_LOCKED_PAGES_IN_PROCESS blue screen?
When you are capturing I/O activity with busTRACE 5.0, we have received isolated reports of a DRIVER_LEFT_LOCKED_PAGES_IN_PROCESS blue screen. If you have a kernel debugger attached, the system may be incorrectly reporting that the failure is due to busTRACE. This problem is caused by a bug in some bus drivers, not by busTRACE. Please check your bus driver to ensure it is the latest revision. If you would like assistance, please contact us.

busPROBE 5.0

1. Why does the CDB Exerciser not show my storage device?
busTRACE shows you the storage class devices that process CDBs, as enumerated by Windows. This is typically your hard drive, tape drive, CD/DVD drive, etc. If the device does not appear, you may want to try setting the Show Unallocated Devs value to TRUE in the Properties docked window. This option is only valid for Windows 2000 and above.

2. I am customizing the CDB that I send, from the CDB Exerciser, and I notice a system hang or possibly even a system crash. Why?
Are you setting the data buffer size in busPROBE smaller than what the device actually wants to transfer (i.e. a data overrun condition)? If so, this is likely the cause and is NOT the fault of busPROBE. There are some port/miniport drivers that do not, or cannot, handle this situation. You may encounter a momentary hang until the command times out (e.g. 20 seconds). In a worst case scenario, on some versions of Windows, you may experience a system hang. Please be aware of this before adjusting the CDB and/or buffer length. The built-in predefined CDBs that busPROBE includes do not exhibit this problem.

3. The CDB Exerciser is showing me more data transferred than what was truly transferred by the device. Why?
Some port/miniport drivers do not properly report the number of bytes transferred. This is often caused by a hardware limitation. For example, we may pass down a buffer size of 1024 bytes, but the device returns back 256 bytes. The port/miniport driver should return back that the device transferred 256 bytes. Instead, it might report back the full length of 1024 bytes. We have put in special handlers to attempt to detect this situation and display only the data that is transferred in the CDB window. However, our workaround is not possible with all commands. This problem is common when the device is an ATAPI device, and DMA mode is enabled. To assist you in discovering this issue, we fill the buffer with the value CCh before issuing the command. The Raw Data window will always show you the data transferred as reported back to us from the port/miniport driver.