Mega 2560 bootloader revised?

I have a 2560 that exhibits the bootloader problems discussed in various places. Three exclamation points cause the load to fail and the watchdog timer doesn't work right.

Is there a new bootloader yet? I've seen discussions about various fixes, but nothing about a loader being ready. Yes, I could hunt down the various fixes and try to build a bootloader and then a day later the 'official' one would be announced. I would much rather keep with the one other folks are using than do something myself and branch off from everyone else.

Oh, come on. There's got to be someone that knows something about this.

Hello,

thats my question, too. Please could anyone give us some advises?
I only found that there is a solution, but not how and where.

Tobi

Tobi, I got in contact with the developer that wrote the bootloader yesterday. Nice guy. I sent him what I had that didn't work with the watchdog timer and he has already fixed the ! ! ! problem. He's up to his ears in something and will be getting back to me. There may be a fix on the way in a few days.

I'll let you know what happens by a post here. I was beginning to think I was the only person that had this problem.

Hey,

that sounds fine, thanks! So I will wait for news.

" I was beginning to think I was the only person that had this problem."
There are two of us now :wink: .

Tobi

I'm just updating this for those folk that are hoping for a resolution. I have NOT been in contact again with the developer; I didn't want to drive him nuts. However, checking the source file online, there has been work done on this problem. I suspect a solution is getting closer every day.

I'll wait a couple more days and then contact the developer again and see how it's going.

I am a third user with exactly the same problem. All of a sudden after making some changes I have ended up with three consecutive ! in my binary code. I will just have to unpick the changes that I have made to try to get round this until a fix becomes available unless anyone else has a work round?

IanB

I used a binary editor to find where the problem was and then matched it somewhat to my code to find the problem. Really a painful process. In my case it was a data table I had that had the same value in about 6 entries. Easy to fix, hard to find. I don't have a clue if there is some other workaround.

Just subscribing to the thread.

I promised to keep this thread updated as this progresses. Just got another note from the developer regarding the bootloader.

I will have it done in another week. and it will go into the release.

Not really sure when we'll have a module to load on the board, but we'll see in a week.

Thanks! I appreciate you staying on top of this for us.

bump.

anything heard since the 6th july post ?

Actually, I haven't heard anything recently. I'll try and find out something right now. Let you know when I hear something.

Simply a note to let folks know that I did send a message about his and have not gotten a reply.

I've been having problems with my Mega 2560 that i didn't have with my Mega 1280. After much searching I think I've narrowed it down to bootloader issues but would like to find that confirmed. Particularly the inability to upload sketches via XBEE wireless (XBEE Pro 900 MHz). Can anyone confirm that this is bootloader related?

Thanks,
Edwin van Doorn

I just posted (again) on the developers list about this item. I've lost contact with the developer and he may well be extremely busy in his real life, plus, he told me that he had fixes and was just working to get them in the official code. However, there has been nothing said about this for a couple of months so:

Folks,

I've been trying to be a nice guy and not bug the heck out of you about this other than the 
few messages I've sent, but what about the two major bugs in the 2560 bootloader?  1. The 
watchdog timer doesn't work right and, 2. three exclamation points cause the bootloader to 
fail.  There are a number of us 2560 owners out here and many of us are painfully working 
around these problems in some fashion.  The exclamation point problem is especially insidious 
since it can exhibit itself any time the data organizes itself into that pattern, arrays, data 
values, etc.

These have been known about for a year now, and as I understand it, there are fixes in place
 for both of them; they just aren't where any of us normal folk can get them.

So, perhaps someone could delay interminable discussions of return values and text formatting 
and fix a couple of the problems that are driving your users nuts....

I probably made a few enemies, sorry.

draythomp:
I probably made a few enemies, sorry.

If you did, it speaks very poorly about the core arduino (presumably) developer base.

Once again, thanks for representing the best interests of your fellow 2560 users.

OK, progress. I saw the following on the developer's mail list. Note, I'm just posting this, I haven't done anything with it yet. I'll get into that in the next week or so. I haven't burned a boot loader on a 2560 and want to be sure I can put a (sorta) working one back in place if I install one that doesn't work. So, I've got a little research to do first. However, here's the message:

Rick Anderson rick.rickanderson at gmail.com 
Tue Sep 13 09:32:15 EDT 2011
Previous message: [Developers] Repository for source of ADK on labs?
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The latest code from Mark Sproul for the Arduino stk500v2 is in a
github repository.

Arduino stk500v2 bootloader
https://github.com/msproul/Arduino-stk500v2-bootloader

Does need some testing, and many people have talked about issues so
please feel free to file the issues here:
https://github.com/msproul/Arduino-stk500v2-bootloader/issues

Also, it can be forked back to Arduino if it should live there.

-_Rick
-- 
President
Fair Use Building and Research (FUBAR) Labs
http://fubarlabs.org

So, if there's someone out there that already has the experience to try this out, go for it.

I got the zip file and put it in place using IDE 21 and tried to burn it. Got an address exception instantly. Unfortunately, I didn't get it copied down. I had to burn the old bootloader back on the board and reload my sketch because I only have one 2560 right now.

Someone else care to give this a try? If not, I'll try it again later, but right now I need the 2560 running.

Got a chance to try it again and this was the message

avrdude: ERROR: address 0x40010 out of range at line 515 of < and the file name followed >

Does anyone know what this means?