Unable to create thing if any other serial port device connected to computer

Reported at the request of endorama.

I encountered this when trying to create a new Arduino IoT Cloud Thing but it's really about creating the device, not the Thing. The same issue occurs if you try to create a device via Create Device Manager.

  • Connect any device to your computer that creates a serial port. This could be an Arduino board, but there are many other devices other than Arduino boards that use serial ports and any of them should cause this issue.
  • Connect a MKR WiFi 1010 to your computer.
  • Open Arduino Iot Cloud: https://create.arduino.cc/iot/things
  • Click "New thing".
  • Click "Set up an Arduino MKR WiFi 1010"
  • Click "Start".
  • Setup step 1 fails: "We detected multiple boards connected to your computer. Please disconnect all of the boards from your computer, except for the MKR WiFi 1010 you are trying to configure."
  • Disconnect the device that creates a serial port.
  • Click "Try Again".
  • The process now succeeds.

At the current state of Arduino IoT Cloud, it seems like it should be easy to determine which device is the single MKR WiFi 1010 connected to the computer from the VID/PID. However, this may not be an option as Arduino IoT Cloud is opened up to support more devices and you still have the issue of someone who has additional Arduino boards permanently connected to their computer that they are not targeting. It seems like rather than trying to do everything so "automagically" and inevitably failing for some users, it would be better to simply provide a list of the COM ports for the user to select from when multiple are present.

Hi @pert, thanks for the report! This issue should now be solved with a recent update. Now we are ignoring boards and serial devices that are not related to Arduino IoT Cloud, and if multiple supported boards are found you have the option to choose which one you want to configure.

Thanks! I just tried it out and it works great for me. I only have a MKR WiFi 1010 so I couldn't test the feature for when multiple IoT Cloud compatible devices are connected, but that sounds very nice!

I'm marking this as solved.Thanks again for your effort!