This version (09 Feb 2023 16:48) was approved by S Fernandez.The Previously approved version (27 Jan 2023 14:55) is available.
Table of Contents
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A2B Bus Analyzer Frequently Asked Questions
FAQs on General Information
Q: What is the A2B Bus Analyzer?
A: Analog Devices' A2B Bus Analyzer is a robust development tool supporting the design and debug of AD242x/3x based A2B networks. The A2B Bus Analyzer can be configured to act as an active bus emulation tool and/or as a passive bus monitor.
Q: What are the modes can the A2B Bus Analyzer device be used?
A: It can be used as Bus Monitor, Main Node Emulator and Sub Node Emulator.
Q: What features are supported in the A2B Bus Analyzer?
A: The features that are supported in the A2B Bus Analyzer are: Bus monitoring, Audio recording, Event traffic monitoring, node emulation, register access, exporting register details, configuration logging.
Q: Can I use the same analyzer for all A2B families of transceivers (242x, 243x etc.)?
A: Yes, you can use same analyzer for all A2B family of transceivers (AD242x and AD2435W/33W/32W/31W - HDAC/Duraclik connectors), except AD241x and AD2437 (XLR/RJ45 connectors).
Q: How can I order a new Analyzer device?
A: Orders can be placed through the Analog Devices Website A2B Bus Analyzer Evaluation Board | Analog Devices
Q: Where can I get latest A2B Bus Analyzer Software?
A: The latest A2B Bus Analyzer Software is available in https://wiki.analog.com/resources/tools-software/a2b-bus-analyzer/software-downloads
Q: Which Operating Systems are supported by the A2B Bus Analyzer Software?
A: The A2B Bus Analyzer runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS.
Q: Whom should I contact for A2B Bus Analyzer queries?
A: For any A2B Bus Analyzer queries, you can contact to a2b.analyzer.support@analog.com
FAQs on Analyzer Unit and GUI
Q: Where can I get the Quick Start Guide?
A: The Quick Start Guide is available in https://wiki.analog.com/resources/tools-software/a2b-bus-analyzer/quick-start-guide
Q: Where can I get the A2B Bus Analyzer User Guide?
A: You can get the A2B Bus Analyzer user guide by launching the software and choose Help → User Guide. This opens the PDF which is located in your installation. By default the user guide will be available in the path C:\Analog Devices\A2B Bus Analyzer\extras\docs
Q: Where can I get the licensing guide?
A: The licensing guide is available in https://wiki.analog.com/resources/tools-software/a2b-bus-analyzer/licensing-guide
Q: Where can I find out about known functional limitations?
A: The functional limitations and known issues are available in https://wiki.analog.com/resources/tools-software/a2b-bus-analyzer/known-issues
Q: Do I need to follow any specific sequence for using A2B Analyzer device?
A: Refer to the A2B Bus Analyzer quick start guide https://wiki.analog.com/resources/tools-software/a2b-bus-analyzer/quick-start-guide to guide you through the basics of the software
Q: How can I get latest firmware for the device?
A: The current firmware version on the device is shown on the Home screen after connecting to an A2B Bus Analyzer device. If a firmware update is available, click 'Update Firmware' and follow the on-screen instructions to flash the new version to your A2B Bus Analyzer.
Q: Why is the Analyzer GUI not opening?
A: Some instances may already be active or enabled remotely. Check the task manager, then remove any unneeded instances.
Q: I can see my Analyzer Device in the Device Manager but the Analyzer GUI does not show it, what is the problem? A: There are different reasons why the analyzer GUI may not be able to detect the Analyzer board.
- The A2B Analyzer device is being powered via USB which is not supported.
Please power it with the power supply that was enclosed with the product. - The port that the A2B Analyzer device is already in use by another application in the system.
By default the GUI uses port 5000. While the UI tries to detect when other applications are using the port and show a user notification, sometimes it is not capable of doing so and it just cannot show the Analyzer device in the dropdown. If this happens, you can change the port used by setting the environment variable A2B_ANALYZER_PORT to another value, for example 5001. To do this please refer to how to set up environment variables in your OS of choice.
To know if your computer is using port 5000 you can run the command netstat -abon and search for 5000 in your results.
Q: How do I export a .dat file from Sigma studio?
A: The sigma studio schematics should be compiled, Right click the target processor, select “Export System config files”. In the Bus Config File (BCF) tab, there is an option to export .dat file, select “Browse”. Click “Generate” and then “Close”.
Q: Is the bus analyzer capable of streaming audio?
A: You can stream audio from the A2B Bus Analyzer into a file on Host PC, you can also redirect the Audio to Line Out or S/PDIF Out, as well as record using USB Audio 2.0. Windows uses ASIO, Linux uses ALSA, and macOS uses Core Audio. Please refer to A2B Bus Analyzer User Guide → Bus Monitoring → Audio → Audio Stream Input/output configuration on Windows with Reaper for an example setup.
You can get the A2B Bus Analyzer user guide by launching the software and choose Help → User Guide. This opens the PDF which is located in your installation. By default the user guide will be available in the path C:\Analog Devices\A2B Bus Analyzer\extras\docs
Q How do I know if the TDM settings are done correctly in A2B bus analyzer for node emulation use case?
A: The TDM settings on Analyzer will be done automatically based on the settings done in the A2B Transceiver (in Sigma Studio).
Q: Can I log two distinct A2B network activities using single A2B Analyzer?
A: You need two Analyzer Units to log events from two independent A2B networks.
Q: My UI was connected to an analyzer board, I disconnected and switched boards and now I cannot connect unless I restart the UI. Is there a bug?
A: The A2B analyzer UI does not do a re-discovery of the board when it is switched. It is up to the user to press refresh so the new board is found. Otherwise, as displayed in the serial number, the UI is trying to connect to a board that is no longer plugged in.
Q: When I am using emulator and monitor together the monitor does not show the data in the bus even if I enabled emulator
A: As documented, the monitor requires a discovery of the network AFTER monitor has been enabled so in the case of sub a link-compile-download from Sigma Studio (or equivalent) is required or in the case of main the apply of the .dat file. Discovering the network before enabling monitor results on no data being displayed.
Q: If I export my event log to a .csv file and open it with Excel the timestamp is incorrect. Does the export contain different data from the event table?
A: The timestamp on the exported file is in the format HH:MM:SS:uS. Excel does not interpret this timestamp correctly and shows the minutes as hours, the seconds as minutes and part of the uS as ms instead. If you open the csv file with a text tool or with MacOS Numbers for example, you can see the correct values. The exported file may contain more information than what can be displayed on the table like full data if the data was too large for the table cells.
FAQs on License
Q: What can I do if I am connected to VPN and my license activation is failing?
A: Under certain rare circumstances the license activation mechanism may fail if the computer is connected to a VPN. In case of problems you should disconnect their VPN. If you are still having issues after that, please get in touch with a2b.analyzer.support@analog.com.
Q: I re-flashed my analyzer board and now the tools report that I do not have a license. What can I do?
A: Re-flashing the board removes the license information which was stored at the time of license activation. You should have an email from the activation time that contains both your license key and the validation code. You can use that data again on the same board by utilizing the “Offline activation” feature. If you no longer have your validation code, please request the validation code again from the support team at a2b.analyzer.support@analog.com making sure that you inform them of your device's Hardware Serial Number.
Q: In how many computers can I use an analyzer with the same license?
The A2B Bus Analyzer license is related to the A2B Bus Analyzer board and not to the tools or computers. This means that once a license is linked with the specific board, any number of computers (Windows/MacOS/Linux) can use it, there are no limitations.
Q: How do I run more than one instance of A2B Bus Analyzer UI application on the same machine?
A: A2B Bus Analyzer UI uses two ports: which by default are 5000 and 1880. You need to specify different ports for each instance in order to launch additional copies of the A2B Bus Analyzer UI. Note that environmental variables should be set as individual commands and not concatenated together with &.
cd “C:\Analog Devices\A2B Bus Analyzer”
set A2B_ANALYZER_PORT=5001
set A2B_API_PORT=1881
“.\A2B Bus Analyzer.exe”
set A2B_ANALYZER_PORT=5002
set A2B_API_PORT=1882
“.\A2B Bus Analyzer.exe”
set A2B_ANALYZER_PORT=5003
set A2B_API_PORT=1883
“.\A2B Bus Analyzer.exe” …
FAQs on User Accessible SDK (UASDK)
Q: What is the SDK?
A: The SDK (Software Development Kit) is a set of APIs which provide programmers with a C and Python interface to directly access the A2B Bus Analyzer programmatically without using the UI. This means that the SDK allows users to set up automated testing where control via a GUI is not practical. For some APIs the SDK provides more control than the UI. Please refer to the html documentation for more details on each API. This is located in your exported SDK folder at uasdk/C/docs or uasdk/python/docs
Q: Where can I get the UASDK? A: The UASDK comes bundled as part of the A2B Bus Analyzer GUI software and must be exported to your computer before it can be used. Open the A2B Bus Analyzer GUI, Select Help → Export User-Accessible SDK… from the application's menu bar. This generates a self-contained uasdk folder which contains the SDK itself as well as examples and API documentation.
Q: What is the functionality supported by UASDK?
A: The SDK contains C/C++ and Python interfaces to run certain A2B Bus Analyzer commands like connect to a device and get audio levels. The SDK supports both bus monitor and node emulator. For detail information about the APIs supported see the HTML documentation in your exported SDK folder at uasdk/C/docs or uasdk/python/docs.
You can refer SDK User Guide to run the examples.
Q: Where can I get the UASDK User guide? A: Open the A2B Bus Analyzer GUI, Select Help → Export User-Accessible SDK… from the application's menu bar. Once the UASDK got exported from GUI, you can find the SDK User guide in the folder “uasdk”. You can also get the SDK User Guide in this wiki.
Q: Which version of python is supported by the SDK? A: The User-Accessible SDK Python Wheel is now compatible with Python version 3.8.
Q: Can a device be used from the UI and the SDK at the same time? A: The shared libraries used by the SDK and the UI are completely separate and they do not interact. This means that when trying to use the same device, both the UI and the SDK try to use the same USB which results in a failure.
FAQs on Advanced Use cases
Q: How can I record more than 2 channels with the A2B Bus Analyzer?
A: In the current implementation, the File Out control in the A2B Bus Analyzer UI can record a maximum of 2 channels due to the USB bandwidth required to poll the FW for data.
If you need to record more channels, you can set up the required channels to USB Out in the UI and then capture the USB Out traffic with the following python script. This script only deals with the saving of the data. If you are using the user-accessible SDK with python scripts instead of the UI you can also incorporate the relevant parts of this code to your own scripts.
Steps to follow:
- Install python 3.8.5: https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-385/
- Install python modules directly: python -m pip install datetime scipy numpy sounddevice
- Install pyinstaller dependency: pip install pyinstaller (optional if you want to create an executable instead of running the script from python)
Python Script in file A2B_Bus_Analyzer_USBIn_Audio_Record.py
import sys import os from scipy import signal from scipy.io import wavfile import sounddevice as sd def record_audio(sec=5): # Function to detect peak freq in the wav file fs = 48000 seconds = sec searchStr = "Microphone (A2B Bus Analyzer), Windows WDM-KS (32 in, 0 out)" strDevices = str(sd.query_devices()) valDevice = strDevices.find(searchStr) if (valDevice == -1): print("Error: Audio device, \"" + searchStr + "\" not found") exit(1) deviceNum = int(strDevices[valDevice-3:valDevice-1]) print("Info: Audio Device ID is: " + str(deviceNum)) sd.default.device = [deviceNum, 4] myrecording = sd.rec(int(seconds * fs), samplerate=fs, channels=22) sd.wait() if os.path.exists("audio-stream.wav"): input("Warning: About to remove audio-stream.wav. Save file to avoid data loss.") os.remove("audio-stream.wav") wavfile.write('audio-stream.wav', fs, myrecording) if __name__=="__main__": while True: run_time = input("Enter the number of seconds to run: ") print("Info: Running for " + str(run_time) + " seconds.") record_audio(int(run_time)) # Use this for recording line in connected
- Generate a Python executable: Generate .exe by running the command below (optional to generate an executable for the script)
- pyinstaller --onefile A2B_Bus_Analyzer_USBIn_Audio_Record.py
- .exe will be generated in the dist folder
Note: Create the .exe once in your PC and then use .exe for further recording sessions.
The command prompt just expects no. of seconds for recording. The multi-channel wav file is recorded as audio-stream.wav.
resources/tools-software/a2b-bus-analyzer/faq.txt · Last modified: 09 Feb 2023 16:48 by S Fernandez