By the way, my appologies for initially neglecting the subject line...it slipped past me.

I will probably not be able to help you with RFID problems but what do you mean when you say it will only work in Debug Mode?  Nothing much should change between the Debug Mode and the Program Mode except maybe your clock source.  Are you using an external clock?

in debug mode the code reads the tag and opens the lock. however , in standalone the code appears to decide halfway through that the card is not valid (judging from the relative length of time before the rfid reader is reinitialized, i dont know for certain). the code is straight from the website, all i changed are pin numbers. the oscillator is internal 4mhz.

Ok.  I highly suspect that your application requires a much more accurate clock signal than the one that is internally generated by the SX itself.  You are probably going to need to use an external 4MHz resonator.  If you do not have one you *MIGHT* be able to get away with adding a "IRC_CAL IRC_4MHZ" statement while you wait for one to arrive.  I really do think you need an external clock source from the problem description you gave even if the IRC_CAL statement gets it to work temporarily.

I hope this helps.

thanks for the tip. i myself suspected a timing related issue because the code is only problematic on the serial com part. ill just plug in some crystal. power isnt an issue so ill clock it at whatever ive got. i tried using irc_cal but imnot very familiar with it. when programming it said calibrating then it stopped and never rewrote the eeprom. i wont make it my fix but so that i know for sure, how is it used?

There are some internal fuses in the SX that can be configured to slightly tweak the timing of its internal RC clock generator.  You can set these fuses manually or let the computer choose the best settings with the "IRC_CAL IRC_4MHZ" statement.  The RC clock generator is not highly accurate and is known to fluctuate with changes in chip temperature.  So what works one moment may not work so well as the chip heats up or if the weather turns cold, etc.  I have used the internal clock generator for several projects so please do not think it is useless.  But if timing is critical, as is the case for asynchronous serial communications, you will want to use something a lot more accurate.

It sounds like it tried to adjust the fuses and got stuck unexpectedly.  It might be worth another attempt but it would really only serve as a Band-Aid solution.

hey sparks,
Just wanted to let you know I plugged in a 50MHz resonator i had lying around and retimed the program and it worked immediately. thanks for the help, its been a while since ive used the sx and i completely forgot about the unreliability of the internal oscillator.

I am glad you were able to get it working!

Thanks for the update.