Hello all,
From the investigation at HQ and the results from Zwifters in this thread, we can confidently say the issue in this thread was due to an external change regarding the driver firmware for Computrainer owners’ USB to Serial converter devices. There are still some Zwifters out there working to get their Computrainer setup back up and running, so I wanted to combine the helpful posts from @Jaret_Johnson, @Will_I_Am_Adams, @IL_LAMPO_B_B, and @John_Chaki to hopefully provide a comment that can be marked as the visible solution for this issue.
- Navigate to Device Manager > Ports (COM & LPT) > [Device connecting your Computrainer to your computer] (It may have a name like “USB Serial Port”).
- Right-click the device, then select Properties > Driver > Roll Back Driver to attempt to revert to a previous version.
- If you’re able to revert to a previous driver, confirm the driver version is 2.12.36.4
- If you are not able to revert your driver, please continue to step 3.
- Navigate to FTDIchip.com to locate the relevant FTDI usb VCP driver for your USB to Serial converter device.
- Download driver 2.12.36.4 or 2.12.36.4U from the respective link.
- Extract the downloaded driver to a convenient location on your computer.
- Navigate back to Device Manager > Ports (COM & LPT) > [USB to Serial converter device connecting your Computrainer to your computer]
- Follow Microsoft’s guidance to manually update the driver version for this device to 2.12.36.4
- Note: you may need to locate your USB to Serial device in another location as well (e.g. Universal Serial Bus controllers) to make sure the driver is installed properly.
Once you’re back on 2.12.36.4, your Computrainer setup should be back to broadcasting its signal when connected to your PC.
Although these trainers are still compatible with Zwift, please note there is no longer official manufacturer support. As future changes that are outside of Zwift’s control occur via Windows, MacOS, or driver updates, some legacy devices may lose their ability to broadcast to Zwift as we saw in this case. Ultimately, this may lead to a conflict between best practices- where Zwift might recommend updating to the latest available driver, firmware, or OS version for the latest security and feature upgrades, but older devices may not actually be supported by their manufacturer in those respective updates. As a result, you may need to remain on, or roll back to, no longer-supported driver versions to continue to use your Computrainer. Please note that Zwift can’t guarantee the security of these older driver versions.
Thank you everyone for your patience and for helping the community find the resolution for this issue.
Edit: Provided link to driver download page and clarified risks of using older driver versions on some devices.