CWLite-OSError: Unable to communicate with found ChipWhisperer

Embedded Security
1

I’m using CWLite with STM32F Target Board for Chipwhisperer CW308 UFO Board, and I came across some problems while running the jupyter notebook of “1 - Connecting to Hardware” program.
I downloaded the Chipwhisperer by Windows Bundled Installer according to this website: Windows Installation — ChipWhisperer 5.7.0 documentation. My computer is Windows 11.
However, I got an error message “OSError: Unable to communicate with found ChipWhisperer. Check that another process isn’t connected to it and that you have permission to communicate with it.” at scope = cw.scope(). The entire error message is showed in the following picture.

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The LED on the boards lights up as the pictures below. The LED in the second picture is flashing.

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signal-2024-01-11-2307391600×1200 440 KB

I’ve searched on the forum to find topics which discuss similar problems and I’ve tried unplugging and replugging the board to my computer, but it didn’t work. In OSError: Unable to communicate with found ChipWhisperer. Check that another process isn't connected to it and that you have permission to communicate with it, this problem was solved with the file: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/newaetech/chipwhisperer/cw305_ecc_in_progress/hardware/99-newae.rules However, it led to 404 now.

I currently have no idea what is the reason causing this error. Does anyone have any suggestion about finding the root cause or dealing with this problem? Thanks!

2

Did you check the CW drivers?
here is the link to check

3

Thanks for the remind. I checked the CW driver and it is the correct one according to the website: Windows Drivers — ChipWhisperer 5.7.0 documentation, while the problem is still there.

4

Other options I can suggest

  1. Replace USB cable.
  2. Install the USB sniffer and check what is wrong.
5

Thank a lot for your help and suggestions! I finally figured out what is going on with the CWLite and the OSError from code scope = cw.scope().
I think the error arose from running the code scope = cw.scope() twice. Since each time I execute the line scope = cw.scope(), I get either

(ChipWhisperer NAEUSB WARNING|File naeusb.py:713) Your firmware (0.62) is outdated - latest is 0.64 See https://chipwhisperer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/firmware.html for more information

or

OSError: Unable to communicate with found ChipWhisperer. Check that another process isn’t connected to it and that you have permission to communicate with it.

I observed that when running scope = cw.scope() the first time, I got the red warning. If executing scope = cw.scope() more than once, I will keep getting the OSError. And it seems like getting the warning is fine for executing the rest of the codes in the notebook, and the CWLite is in the right state working normally as well. I will later update the firmware to solve the warning.

Thanks again for trying to help me solve the problem!

6

Glad to hear you found the reason of the issue!

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