USB Serial Adapter for old vinyl cutter

Hello,

I've recently installed parallels, hoping I could use my vinyl cutter with my MacBook, as all the Mac software doesn't feature my specific model of vinyl cutter, or straight up doesn't work.
Running Win11 in parallels works surprisingly easy, but unfortunately I can't get my vinyl cutter to cut anything.

When I plug my USB/Serial adapter (TrippLite USA19-HS) in, and click the prompt to connect the USB device to windows, the VM freezes and I have to hard-reset the whole MacBook to get it working again.
So I tried to use the "Serial Port" feature in parallels, I can see the COM Port in device manager, but if I send anything towards the cutter, it doesn't cut anything.

Is there anything I oversee in regards of USB passthrough to make it work? It is the single reason I'm thinking about buying parallels, so it would be a dealbreaker if the cutter wouldn't work.
thanks in advance,
Tim

(MacBook Pro M1 2020)
(MacOS Monterey 12.3.1)
(Parallels 17.1.2 Win11 ARM)
(Tripp-Lite USA19-HS USB/Serial adapter)
(Creation PCUT CT630 Cutter)

 

Hello TimT15, Please refer to the knowledge base article to troubleshoot the USB on Parallels Desktop. Thanks.

 

Hello GampaA, I followed through the article, but I don't even get so far as the VM installs anything as it crashes when I click "connect to VM". My Mac recognizes the device and I can fully use it under MacOS. So there seems to be some kind of problem with the device and parallels or Windows.

 

Hello TimT15, please reproduce the issue and generate a technical report Id by following the knowledge article. Thanks.

 

Hello GampaA,
I just submitted the technical report. It has the following ID: 396279449.

Thanks in advance

 

Hello, any news on this?

thanks in advance

 

there is a usb problem that has been causing trouble since version 17.1 - does not seem to be solved even with 17.4:

#62

 

Thanks for the info I tried downgrading to 17.0.0/17.0.1 but unfortunately it still didn't work.. So we have to wait until it gets fixed? Or is there more to the downgrade than reinstalling the correct build? Do I need to do anything in the VM?

 

is that how you did it?

https://kb.parallels.com/8913
in connection with
#35

 

Yes, I did it exactly that way

 

this is getting more and more mysterious here.

hopefully someone from the parallels team can help you!

and hopefully parallels will soon find a solution for the annoying usb-problem:
(https://forum.parallels.com/threads...b-on-windows-11-arm.355190/page-4#post-905143)

 

Yeah, I hope so too!
For now, if I want to use my vinyl cutter, I have to use an extra windows machine, which kind of defeats the purpose.. The Cutters software works fine in Parallels, but I can't communicate due to the unfixed USB issues!
I hope they will find a fix soon, or else I have to check out competitor's software
Thanks for your help though!

 

I'm just guessing here, but is the USB to the vinyl cutter USB 2.0 or 3.x? Wonder if something they changed for ARM did something weird in the way 2 vs. 3 works.

No guarantee this will do anything (I'm still on Intel), but try this:
1. Shut down your Windows VM.
2. From the Parallels menu for the Windows VM, choose "Configure...", "Hardware", "USB & Bluetooth", then click the "Advanced" button.
3. Toggle the Enable 3.1 checkbox to be the opposite of whatever it is now and click Ok
4. Close the Configure window and restart the VM to see if the vinyl cutter now works.
5. If it still doesn't work, restart from step 1 (but only once, just to put it back the way it was - no need to be in a loop, lol).

Again, it's a shot in the dark, but sometimes things like this shock things into place.

 

Sounds like a good idea, but unfortunately the "advanced" option is not available for me. I think it has something to do with the USB3.0 eXtensible Host driver (which isn't available for Win11 for ARM).

 

Damn. Was worth a shot.

As a developer, I get the impression that trying to merge Intel and ARM in the same distribution was massive mistake for something of this complexity. Most other apps can get away with it because they're not necessarily hardware dependent. But in this case, there's way too many moving parts for something like this to make the code even manageable.

 

With the release of Parallels 18, is there any chance this USB problem will get fixed in 17? Does anybody tried USB support with 18 and it will be necessary to upgrade to be able to use USB devices properly?

 

The new version release is usually the 'fix' for the old release. IOW: I sincerely doubt you're going to see a 17.1.5.

 

I guess you're right. I just bought V18 and I can report that (at least for this specific device) USB support ist still broken!
Maybe I'll try nuking the VM and start over, but so far it doesn't work. I'm now over 150€ into this for that specific feature and I'm pretty mad

 

please have a look here: #82

 

Can't remember if this has been asked before, but is it possible that there's a software/driver compatibility issue somewhere? There are some USB devices that require a specific USB driver to work. For example, some software-defined receivers require a specific USB driver to be swapped in using something called Zadig. So, I'm just wondering if the software you use to operate the device installs it's own and can't use the stock one that comes with Windows. If that's the case, uninstalling and re-installing that application software may put it right again... just a thought.