Hello All-
This is my fist time posting on the board but I read your information all the time. I haven't been able to find exactly what I need to hopefully someone is out there who can address my question.

So....

As a part of my senior project, I'm hooking up a GPS unit to my computer through VB6, which posts paragraphs of data every second. It will be used to load the coordinates into a MYSQL database to be used for a vehicle tracking webpage. My problem arises with the MSCOMM control. I am using a click control that periodically calls the MSCOmm1_oncomm() subroutine. With in this subroutine I ask if MSCOMM1.commevent has happened because once the recieve buffer has something in it, i want it to download the whole paragraph for that second from the receive buffer. My non functioning code is as follows:

********************************************
Private Sub MSComm1_OnComm()

'set up the comm ports to 4800 baud

MSComm1.CommPort = 1
MSComm1.Settings = "4800, N, 8, 1" specified by the GPS
MSComm1.InputLen = 0 'indetermined amount of data
MSComm1.PortOpen = True

MSComm1.RThreshold = 1


waiting:


If MSComm1.CommEvent = comEvReceive Then
'For pointer = 1 To 30000000
'Next pointer
For pointer = 1 To 300 'cheexy delay so i get all the
Next pointer 'of the paragraph
buffer = MSComm1.Input 'takes what is in the receive buffer
Print buffer

Else: GoTo waiting
End If

MSComm1.PortOpen = False

End Sub
*************************************************

now I know that the gps can communicate with the code because when I step through it, the code downloads and the buffer has the data in it. I have also tried to put all this code under the click control and not calling a sub routine. Both do not work. My problem is, when I just execute the program, it gets locked into the wait loop forever. For some reason the condition never happens that MSCOMM1.commevent = 2. But then if I ctrl break the program and print the contents of MSCOMM1.commevent it is equal to 0, i guess meaning no events or errors have occured. But then if I step through one "waiting" loop again, the program seems to works.

Any hints or suggestions would be really needed, especially since this needs to be done by friday. Ohh yeah, I have gotten it to work if I use this code

*************************************************
'set up the comm ports to 4800 baud

MSComm1.CommPort = 1
MSComm1.Settings = "4800, N, 8, 1" specified by the GPS
MSComm1.InputLen = 0 'indetermined amount of data
MSComm1.PortOpen = True

For pointer = 1 To 30000000 'this is just a one second delay
on my machine
Next pointer

buffer = MSComm1.Input 'takes what is in the receive buffer
Print buffer

MSComm1.PortOpen = False
******************************************


Thanks again for your help in advance. I really appreciate it.


Marko