7 ms·

FTDI have been anti-consumer for years - their last several drivers have introduced intentional instability and Code 10 errors for suspected counterfeit devices

• wrl 12y ago
  The FTDI OSX drivers will still randomly cause kernel panics when the device is unplugged and a program still holds an open file descriptor for the serial port. While working with a company which was developing and selling products with FTDI chips in them, we made FTDI aware of this issue and attached many panic logs. It's been about 5 years and they've still yet to actually fix it.
  • tcas 12y ago
    They luckily did fix this in a relatively recent version -- try updating your driver. Still crazy that it shipped in the first place like that. EDIT: just realized that I was thinking of the PL2303, which had a similar issue, not FTDI.
    • wyager 12y ago
      The newest version I can find on their site says it's from 2012. Link?
      • tcas 12y ago
        Oops, was dealing with a similar issue with the Prolific 2303, which was dealt with by using a newer driver, I haven't run into the issue yet with FTDI (which I don't as much).
        • wyager 12y ago
          Bummer. The FTDI driver crashes my mac quite frequently.
    • wrl 12y ago
      The funny thing is that we reported this sometime in 2009 (might have been 2010), they "fixed it" and released a new version, but the new version only crashed somewhat less often.
  • Ecco 12y ago
    OS X ships with an FTDI driver since 10.9. I suspect this one is made by Apple. Maybe because of this kind of issues. Do you still have crashes on 10.9+?
    • duskwuff 12y ago
      Unfortunately, the Apple driver exhibits the same issue. It also doesn't support the control lines on the FT232 (e.g, DSR/DTR, RTS/CTS).
• sliverstorm 12y ago
  screwing over innocent consumers who buy a device The consumer isn't exactly innocent. Hold on, hear me out. It's similar to black market goods. A consumer wants the lowest possible price. It turns out the goods he bought are stolen property. He didn't know, but he is not waived of responsibility. If he was truly unwitting he will not be prosecuted, but the goods will still be repossessed, etc. Basically, it is the consumer's drive for the lowest price that creates the market for these illicit goods, so they are not blameless. Additionally, illicit supply chains are hard to attack and often times the consumer "really should have known better", so one of the ways to attack that supply chain is by slapping the hand of the consumer who patronized it, whether or not they actually meant to buy stolen goods. It's hard to deal with the "Well it was cheap and he was shady but I just didn't ask too many questions" purchases; responsibility is very diffuse, with everyone doing their best to avoid responsibility.
  • 13 12y ago
    No, that's not the case here. Fake FTDI chips are going to be used in absolutely everything, products from Alibaba to name brand professional stuff. It's pretty much guaranteed not everybody has complete control of their semiconductor supply chain, and even if they do there's an incentive for all companies to cut costs where they can. A consumer buying a product doesn't make an informed decision about the type of serial interface in their devices, much less whether it's genuine or not. There's an expectation that the product will work and that falls on the manufacturer, who might not even be responsible either.
    • sliverstorm 12y ago
      It shares the critical element of diffuse responsibility. Everyone can half-reasonably shrug their shoulders and say, "Well it isn't MY fault". If a Sony product happens to have a fake FTDI chip in it, this is FTDI's way of incentivizing Sony (via angry customers) to manage their supply chain, because as you say there's an incentive even for Sony to cut costs where they can- perhaps by turning a blind eye when they get some suspicious batches of chips for a great price, and claiming ignorance later... Everyone, in demanding the lowest price no matter what (all the way up the supply chain) bears part of the blame. We are of course witnessing a visceral response on the part of HN voters reacting to my comment, who are exemplifying why this is a hard problem to tackle. It isn't MY responsibility!
• lttlrck 12y ago
  It's not a great situation, but where does FTDI responsibility for supporting counterfeit devices start and end? If they let it continue more devices may hijack their USB VID, perhaps with bugs and glitches. Should they patch their driver to protect their reputation?
  • bri3d 12y ago
    Your 'bugs and glitches' strawman is humorous because FTDI intentionally introduced bugs and glitches with the counterfeit devices, so they're certainly not trying to protect their reputation, just their profits. FTDI's responsibility for supporting counterfeit devices ends a long way before tampering with them. I think the moral high road to take in this situation would be to ignore the clones, but failing that, the approach which Prolific have taken (make the driver refuse to start on a known counterfeit device) seems a lot better than intentionally introducing bugs and not completely ludicrous like damaging the hardware.
    • daeken 12y ago
      Not to mention that FTDI's chips are not exactly known for their bug-free nature. If I had a dollar for every time I ran into a bug in their RS485 implementation, I would be a friggin' millionaire.