This is a new load of 2013a, a new update of NI products as well. NI products do not have any problem finding the temperature logger and getting information from it. It seems like it is some link between Matlab and VISA which is broken.
Digging down further I find that it has to do with the JAVA method, getAliasInfo line 346 in visa.m (this is a matlab classdef, I've changed nothing) info = getAliasInfo(tempobj, name);
comes back without the alias
If I spoof the system and change the alias for the working COM port to COM1, then the system works. More of the file code
% Determine the resource name from the specified resource name. This will % allow users to use an alias for their resource name. try tempobj = com.mathworks.toolbox.instrument.SerialVisa(pathToDll,vendor,'ASRL1::INSTR',''); info = getAliasInfo(tempobj, name); if ~isempty(info) info = cell(info); end tempobj.dispose; catch errflag = true; errType = 1; return; end
% If there is no information returned, then it is an invalid resource % name/alias. If the first element is not an INSTR, error. if isempty(info) errflag = true; return; end
% Otherwise the alias/resource name was mapped to a resource name. rsrcName = info{2}; alias = info{3};