Stk500_recv programmer not responding -Arduino ATMEGA8

Using Arduino IDE 1.x
1

Hey,
I'm using different versions of Arduino for a year now. Off late, a problem has creeped up on ubuntu with regard to my ARDUINO NG board based on ATMEGA8L-8PU. It no longer uploads to the IC and gives the error stk500_recv programmer not responding.
The queer part is that this problem occurs only in ubuntu 11.04 and above versions and NOT with earlier versions(tested on different computers). Neither does this problem occur on windows.
This problem is not limited just to my PC but to a few of my friends as well. As the programmer and the ATMEGA are working flawlessly on windows, i dont see why it is not working on ubuntu.
The trace from the Arduino IDE is as follows :

avrdude: Version 5.10, compiled on Jun 29 2010 at 03:44:14
Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brian Dean, http://www.bdmicro.com/
Copyright (c) 2007-2009 Joerg Wunsch

System wide configuration file is "/usr/share/arduino/hardware/tools/avrdude.conf"
User configuration file is "/home/aravind/.avrduderc"
User configuration file does not exist or is not a regular file, skipping

Using Port : /dev/ttyUSB0
Using Programmer : arduino
Overriding Baud Rate : 19200
avrdude: Send: 0 [30] [20]
avrdude: Send: 0 [30] [20]
avrdude: Send: 0 [30] [20]
avrdude: ser_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding

avrdude done. Thank you.

Please help! thank you

2

Since the driver is included with Linux, perhaps it changed in 11.04 , although according to the FTDI website it's been the same driver for years. Still, you might want to download from the FTDI site and compare versions:

http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm

I'm on Ubuntu 12.04 but I don't have an NG handy. I imagine this would cause trouble on any of the the Arduinos that use the FTDI. I'll see if I can check this out.

3

In fact this was working in 11.04 untill some updates were done for the linux itself.. I'm not aware since which update this problem was caused. Yes, the problem also exists in 12.04 but not with UNO (they did have a problem for UNO regarding some 'upowerd' which was polling the usb..but that was patched). This problem is only for older Arduino boards.
If any idea which update might have caused this problem, it would be great!.
Also, it seems that in 12.04, the Arduino NG sometimes dosen't boot the program written onto it when connected to the serial port.Its as if the serial port has a lock on the Arduino. 'lsusb' and dmesg does not show the port being used by any other software.

I'm pretty sure this is cause of an update on the serial port. Any clues?! :frowning: