Upload Timeout Error on Mega 2560 - Not Sure What Changed

Same problem, here. Went to a friend's place and successfully demoed the Uno and then tried the Mega. Nothing. The L13 led flashed slowly around once a second but never saw the TX or RX lights flash. Tried repeatedly and double checked the COM port.

We purchased the Mega R3 from RS components for $60 recently and it appears genuine with the white screen printing on the back.

Shields_Arduino:
Same problem, here. Went to a friend's place and successfully demoed the Uno and then tried the Mega. Nothing. The L13 led flashed slowly around once a second but never saw the TX or RX lights flash. Tried repeatedly and double checked the COM port.

We purchased the Mega R3 from RS components for $60 recently and it appears genuine with the white screen printing on the back.

I think that the developers think we have cheap copies...

After a couple hours of trying to "brick" my board by uploading and disconnecting when uploading, disconnecting the board randomly, or just flashing it bunch of times i couldn't "brick" it again. Then i took my board and i was sending some data using putty (while TX connected to RX). Then i looked on the led pins TX and RX and they both flashed together. It was a sign that my board was ok.
Next step was to tuch the components. I first touched the mega2560 chip softly. My tx pin stopped flashing ! but the RX was still flashing. It was a sign that something shorted out... Then i tried to use the FIX that i mentioned above, and the board unbricked. Next step was to throw the board on a table from 2-3 cm height.. The board again bricked, and i was able to fix it again using the FIX i mentined.... That leaves me to think that something on our mega2560-s is making a short when under pressure... I will give it a closer inspection as soon i get the magnifier. :astonished:

SUMMARY: If your board "bricks" when putting a pressure on it, only your serial communication will be faulty, but you will still be able to use the program flashed on the board itself. I am looking if someone can confirm what i've found out...

I forgot to mention that we also tried the boards.txt fix - changing the protocol to wiring and this did not help. We even restarted the Arduino IDE several time with the wiring protocol line but still no action.

xvjeko - this is very interesting and we are all waiting for David Mellis to throw some light on this. What you have described sounds like one of two things - bad soldering or incorrect fuses in either the 2560 or the USB chip. Since all the boards were tested at the factory, something must have happened since. Bad soldering can cause this -talking about intermittent open circuits caused by a poor solder mix or not enough paste. Remember that solder paste must always be kept in a fridge when not being used. The other option of having fuses not set correctly can also cause intermittent operation - such as the brown out enable not turned on. A third scenario is faulty Atmel chips which is a small possibility -luckily Atmel is very open about Erratas do these can be easily checked.

Anyway, sounds like a lot of Arduino users have the same problem, so a workaround would be nice.

Problem with Mega2560 is huge. There are very many people with the same problem. Is there any official opinion yet?
I'd really like to use my Mega2560 normally.

Ragnar:
Problem with Mega2560 is huge. There are very many people with the same problem. Is there any official opinion yet?
I'd really like to use my Mega2560 normally.

Awesome, im so glad i got rid of my uno for a mega!

Way to go Arduino, now i cant do anything.

Same issue here. same on mac/ubuntu/and win 7

I was warned not to get a mega and now i see why

automagp68:

Ragnar:
Problem with Mega2560 is huge. There are very many people with the same problem. Is there any official opinion yet?
I'd really like to use my Mega2560 normally.

Awesome, im so glad i got rid of my uno for a mega!

Way to go Arduino, now i cant do anything.

Same issue here. same on mac/ubuntu/and win 7

I was warned not to get a mega and now i see why

sad

OK, picked up the Mega2560 from my friend last night, and tested it out on the Lenovo Win7 32bit desktop and HP Win7 64bit laptop, and it works fine on both. The only variation from the Uno is the driver takes a long time to load (2-3 minutes - OK maybe not that long in the big scheme) and opening the serial monitor takes a while to reset the Mega - maybe 5 seconds. The Mega works well on our LED and LCD shield and takes only slightly longer to load.

So the issue looks like a Dell issue. Maybe if anyone has a dead Mega2560, please report the make, model, operating system, and any other details which are show when you right click on My Computer and select Properties.

Shields_Arduino:
OK, picked up the Mega2560 from my friend last night, and tested it out on the Lenovo Win7 32bit desktop and HP Win7 64bit laptop, and it works fine on both. The only variation from the Uno is the driver takes a long time to load (2-3 minutes - OK maybe not that long in the big scheme) and opening the serial monitor takes a while to reset the Mega - maybe 5 seconds. The Mega works well on our LED and LCD shield and takes only slightly longer to load.

So the issue looks like a Dell issue. Maybe if anyone has a dead Mega2560, please report the make, model, operating system, and any other details which are show when you right click on My Computer and select Properties.

i tossed my mega into junk (i only scalvaged some connectors...), if i will ever need a high end dev. platform, i will go for psoc, mbed, el.imp, chipkit or raspberry... ]:smiley: ]:smiley: ]:smiley:

Hey All,
I had a similar issue when I was trying to use an Uno as a boot loader, and I think the trick is that the chip is getting reset part way into the upload. The reasons this seems plausible are :
A - someone mentioned it looked like his board had reset
B - after a half-assed attempt at uploading, my board just starts up the old code (i.e. looks like it reset)
C - It seems correlated to length of code, and I have no issue uploading the blink code, ever.
Anywho, the hardware solution to this software problem is to toss a BFC (10uF or so, I used an electrolytic) between the Reset pin and ground. What this does is it stops the device from getting reset by little transients that I believe are associated with the serial printing stuff.
Hope this works for Y'all, in the end I got it working with Arduino 023 and a 49K program.

EDIT: This worked great briefly but now it has gone back to it's old ways of not working.
-Shibbs

shibbs:
Hey All,
I had a similar issue when I was trying to use an Uno as a boot loader, and I think the trick is that the chip is getting reset part way into the upload. The reasons this seems plausible are :
A - someone mentioned it looked like his board had reset
B - after a half-assed attempt at uploading, my board just starts up the old code (i.e. looks like it reset)
C - It seems correlated to length of code, and I have no issue uploading the blink code, ever.
Anywho, the hardware solution to this software problem is to toss a BFC (10uF or so, I used an electrolytic) between the Reset pin and ground. What this does is it stops the device from getting reset by little transients that I believe are associated with the serial printing stuff.
Hope this works for Y'all, in the end I got it working with Arduino 023 and a 49K program.

EDIT: This worked great briefly but now it has gone back to it's old ways of not working.
-Shibbs

Salvage usable components and throw the rest away...

I'm having the same problem as Ragnar. Burn a new bootloader, upload one sketch. Then can't upload again (just hangs). Burn bootloader, upload one sketch... Has anyone found the problem or a fix. I'm using Mega2560 R1 and IDE1.0.2 on Windows 7 x64.

DJ

In reply to Upload Timeout Error on Mega 2560 - Not Sure What Changed - #18 by system - IDE 1.x - Arduino Forum

For the software patch of avrdude (stk500v2.c, patch for gentoo attached) it is necessary to take/leave the protocol "stk500v2" to take effect of patched program.

Wise versa for the protocol "wiring" got to work it is necessary to connect the "RESET-EN" pads on the board.

Good luck, Thomas

arduino-mega-timeout.patch (656 Bytes)

I had this error, the solution was simple. from the tools menu, select the correct serial port. If that doesn't work, try putting the usb into the same port you used during installation of the arduino software. :wink:

I've got this issue today after change my sketch to print three exclamation characters in sequence to the serial port:

Serial.println("!!!");

I'm using Mega 256 with a Ethernet shield however this happens in any sketch, even Blink.ino.
It looks like to me that this is a kind of reserved word for the compiler or for the firmware.
Anyways I've just removed one exclamation character and it is working fine now.

Hey thanks for the hint!
Running exactly into the same mess with MEGA, Arduino 1.0.5 on OSX..
Did some prints with "!!!" too.

B.T.W: I ported some code snippets from a LEONARDO, there it runs flawlessly.....

edugodoy:
I've got this issue today after change my sketch to print three exclamation characters in sequence to the serial port:

Serial.println("!!!");

I'm using Mega 256 with a Ethernet shield however this happens in any sketch, even Blink.ino.
It looks like to me that this is a kind of reserved word for the compiler or for the firmware.
Anyways I've just removed one exclamation character and it is working fine now.

Yes! Me too! I had a println with some text that ended with three exclamation marks. Since attempting to upload that I have lost the ability to upload to the board. It just times out. I have removed the exclamation marks but it still wasn't working. I then unplugged the Mega, removed it's external power (I'm using a USB shield). Then tried to upload. It worked again. Weird. But at least problem is solved.

Mac OSx FIX!!!!

ok so I was really pissed off with this whole thing so I just started messing around with the menus and clicking things.

From what I can remember...

  1. Open a random example sketch
  2. Toggle the the Input Library to "Wire" if you havent already by going to the sketch drop down menu
  3. Toggle the board from Uno and then toggle it back to Mega (not sure why or if it helps, just do it)
  4. Toggle the usb port (I just picked something random)
  5. *Toggle the Programmer from AVRISP mkII to AVRISP
  6. Upload the new sketch and it should run.

My original program that it was stuck on was a basic analog read of a potentiometer voltage and to switch on an LED for greater than 400 threshold then displaying the threshold on Serial Display. Initially it worked fine...then I started to update the code with more statements. I attempted to upload my new version of code and thats when it happened..timeout. SO I'm not sure if that process will work for you guys but it seemed to clear my old code and reset the MEGA and is working fine so far...yet i havent tried any complicated code yet

For what it's worth I've struggled with this issue on my R3 mega 2560 for about a day earlier in the week. My problems was using the RX0 ( digital pin 0 on the board ) as part of my circuit when other pins could have easily been used. This was ( I believe ) interfering with the serial communication w/ the host that occurs during programming. I've since moved the function I had tied to that pin to another output and have had no issues since.

It may seem obvious but it wasn't at the time :slight_smile: Hope this helps.

thanks

Same problem here as well.
avrdude: stk500v2_ReceiveMessage(): timeout

I can't work out what fix actually worked from the pages of this post, but it seems odd so many of us are have the same issue and for so long. After the compile I notice that the Rx/Tx light periodically blink so think it is, as some have said a hardware coms issue with the board not responding back on the USB port.

IDE 1.0.5 (reinstalled fresh copy - made no difference) running on Windows Seven - this started about a week ago and before then everything worked every time. I would also point out that it is holding the USB com port open even when disconnecting the mega and does it with no other items (shields in place) connected. and no changes to the sketch that used to upload apart from a spelling mistake. (Statues to Status on LCD output when shield is connected)

All very strange.
Steve