I've got this mpg in use: http://www.pro-tos.de/site/producte.html
it works like this: everytime a button is pressed or a switch is changed a pin on lpt is set which triggers an macro in mach3. in the macro the vbscript reads the status of all switches over rs232 as a string and sets the "oembuttons" according to the string received. additionally some "success" information is shown in the mach3 information line. the mpg wheel itself is connected directly to the lpt port via 2 pins.
my problem is that mach3 occasionally crashes when I'm using this device. so far i have encountered the following problems:
1) changing a switch -> mach3 crashes with art code 904
2) changing a switch -> mach3 freezes without any information, the text in the information line is red (should blink red/white for a few seconds after being displayed)
3) starting to jog with the mpg -> mach 3 freezes after the first jog step, also no error information
4) mach crashes while jogging, jogging continues for about one or two seconds (even when the mpg wheel is already stopped!) then the motors stop and the spindle relays gets turned off (very bad error, as it already caused 2 crashes on my mill!)
5) while jogging, mach3 closes itself, while jogging continues (this only happened on my lathe so far, i don't know if it stops jogging after a few seconds too as i pushed the emergency stop very quickly to prevent the machine from crashing  )

with any of these errors, the driver of mach3 continues outputting the watchdog signal. also I'm not able to shutdown or restart windows, i always need to power off my computer. (or press the power button for 4 seconds which is about the same)

I'm running mach3 R3.043.056 with the silver/blue screensets for lathes/mills. the errors 1-4 have been seen on lathe and mill

does anyone have an idea what is going on here? if any more information about my detailed hardware or software configuration is needed please let me know.

Have you tried using an earlier version rather than the development version?
Have you asked the vendor of the device if he can be any help?

Hood

so far i have been testing almost every version since 3.042.038, but to be honest i did not try the last lockdown version. I'll try this one the next days but it's hard to say if it solved the problem as the machine sometimes runs for hours without any problems and then crashes 4 times in one hour...
the vendor knew the problem that mach3 sometimes freezes with his first macro version when changing switch positions very quickly. in this case the macro is called while its still running to process the first switch change and mach3's script interpreter crashes. it was solved by executing settriggermacro(0) inside the macro to disable the trigger temporarily. maybe this is something that could be improved in the mach3 script interpreter...
the vendor replied that he newer had problems with the new macro version so far.
Also, i noticed that there is sometimes a short "screaming" noise in the stepper motors when turning the mpg very carefully for one detent (0,01mm). my guess is that when turning the wheel really gently there might be a direction change inside one quadrature sequence and mach cannot really deal with this although the dro works properly. also, maybe mach3 doesn't "see" every phase state while turning the wheel due to a timing problem and then its "confused" what is going on there and freezes? anyone else seen problems with mpg's so far?

If previous releases have been tried then its unlikely the lockdown will solve things.
Hard to test things without your hardware, maybe email  andrewm@machsupport.com and see if he can help you out but as said without the hardware you are using its likely he cant help much.

Regards a MPG, I have been using them since Mach2 days and not had a problem, have them on all my machines, they connect via SmoothStepper, Ethernet SmoothStepper and Scorpion but used to be connected via PP before I got these controllers.

Do you have backlash enabled? Maybe see if you still get the MPG issue with it disabled? Short screaming sounds like the steppers are stalling.

Hood

I now worked on both lathe and mill for the whole day with lots of manual jogging and did not encounter a single freeze - very strange...

i turned backlash off because it really caused some strange behaviour with the mpg. i mechanically adjusted my machines to have about 0,01mm backlash, that is OK for my application without  compensation.

the screaming noise is just very short, maybe 50 milliseconds or so and the steppers do 2 full steps (20microsteps) for 0,01mm travel, so I hope that there is not one lost step included. it might be just the geckodrive g540 current reduction that causes that noise and i should not give too much attention to it. maybe the g540 is switching to reduced current and back to full current in the next moment as one step is needed because of the mpg being turned one step.

i do have lost steps when moving the 3d view of my gcode with screaming steppers - then I'm loosing millimeters up to centimeters! I got no solution for that so far but that's not my biggest problem at the moment, I just don't touch my computer as long as the machines are working 

Still, maybe someone else has seen the problems with mpg and found a solution. If not, I will try to record the mpg signals with an oscilloscope and try to catch some glitch or something when the freeze occurs

Tom