Pyusb on windows - no backend available

Question

I\'m trying to have my python application interface with an NFC device via USB. The best option seems to be pyusb, but I can\'t get it to connect to the libusb backend. I ke

Answer 1

"There are two versions of the libusb API: the current libusb-1.0 API, and its legacy predecessor libusb-0.1." (http://www.libusb.org/) "libusb-win32 is a port of the USB library ​libusb-0.1 to the Microsoft Windows operating systems". "Download the latest release tarball" from the same page (1.0.9 is the current version) to have libusb-1.0 equivalent, you'll find a folder Win32, where you'll find your libusb-1.0.dll to play with! You can even build it: http://www.libusb.org/wiki/windows_backend.

EDIT You have to build it (download from/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/libusb/files/libusb-1.0/) since the tarball is from 2012, while the latest sources are from 2014-06-15.

Answer 2

I had a similar issue recently trying to talk to a USB device I am developing. I scoured the web looking for libusb-1.0.dll's and had no luck. I found source code, but nothing built and ready to install. I ended up installing the libusb-win32 binaries, which is the libusb0.dll.

PyUSB will search for libusb-1.0, libusb0, and openUSB backends.

libusb0.dll was already on my system, but something was still not set up right, do PyUSB was not working.

I followed the directions here to download and install the driver using the GUI tools provided to install the filter driver, and the INF wizard. Note, it didn't work until I ran the INF wizard.

I'm pretty new to programming and I've found the lack of clear documentation/examples to string this all together rather frustrating.

Answer 3

Just in case:

I haven't tried this on Windows but I had to set DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH path to circumvent this error on the Macintosh.

export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/local/lib

Discussion on whether or not to set this variable is here.