Problems with Motorola/Symbol Scanner? Here are a few things to check.

If you are trying to use a Motorola/Symbol scanner with POS for .NET, and you encounter issues, here are a few things to check:

1.       Make sure that the scanner is configured properly. For scanners such as the 2208 or LS1900 series, it should be configured as “IBM HAND-HELD USB”. You can configure the scanner by using the configuration barcodes provided with the scanner. First scan “SET DEFAULTS” followed by “IBM HAND-HELD USB.” In this configuration, the scanner will function as a USB Human Input Device (HID) instead of as emulating a keyboard.

2.       If using the scanner with the legacy OPOS service objects provided by Motorola, install the service objects and make sure you select the correct device in your application (such as STI_USBSCANNER). See Step 3.

3.        If using the scanner with the legacy OPOS service object provided by Motorola, always install the Common Control Objects afterwards. It turns out that Motorola will install a custom control object over any existing control objects already installed, yet the current version of the Motorola control object (STI OPSO 1.5) which is included in the latest installer for the service object (version 3.24) does not appear to support late binding. Thus, you should always install a control object that does support late binding (such as the CCO) after installing the Motorola service object. Hopefully, this issue will be corrected soon. WARNING: some of the scanners with a manufacture date between April and May of 2008 may have compatibly issues with HID input. If your scanner was manufactured between these dates, there is a firmware update available from Motorola that should correct this issue.

4.       If you want to test the scanner with Plug-n-Play in a non-production environment, you may use the example service object included in the SDK by adding the following XML to your control configurations folder:

<PointOfServiceConfig Version="1.0">

        <ServiceObject Type="Scanner" Name="Example Scanner">

                <HardwareId From="HID\Vid_05e0&amp;Pid_1300" To="HID\Vid_05e0&amp;Pid_1300" />

        </ServiceObject>

</PointOfServiceConfig>

Currently, native .NET service objects are not available from the manufacture for this scanner, thus features such as plug-n-play are not supported at this time. While it is possible to configure the scanners to work with the example service object in order to achieve plug-n-play capabilities, this is not recommended in a production environment. Other scanners are available that provide native service objects and Plug-n-Play support.