avrdude: no programmer has been specified

Hi,

I use chinese clone of Arduino UNO rev3
on OSX El Capitan

It worked fine so far.

I'm trying to upload scatch to my Arduino but I always get this messege:

"avrdude: no programmer has been specified on the command line or the config file

  • Specify a programmer using the -c option and try again"*

I can see that Arduino is working well as the last code I successfully uploaded was I2C scanner and I can see it's output in serial monitor.

I tried to upload .hex with HexUploader, but it says that device is busy.

I googled it and cannot find any reference of this error.

Any idea?

See this thread - [SOLVED - IDE update] Did I mess my bootloader ? - Installation & Troubleshooting - Arduino Forum

It's an ide bug in 1.6.8 (may also depend on boards definition version, not sure) use a different ide version - 1.6.5r5 or 1.6.9

Thx for response.

Well, upgrade to 1.6.9 gave me different error message:

avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 1 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x18
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 2 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x66
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 3 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x66
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 4 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x1e
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 5 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x06
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 6 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x98
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 7 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x98
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 8 of 10: not in sync: resp=0xe6
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 9 of 10: not in sync: resp=0xf8
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 10 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x06

downgrade to 1.6.6 gave me this:

avr-g++: error: missing filename after '-o'
exit status 1
Error compiling.

downgrade gave me the same error I had with 1.6.8

avrdude: no programmer has been specified on the command line or the config file

  • Specify a programmer using the -c option and try again*

Some of these errors apear even when I try to upload the code with board not connected to USB so I guess it's the matter of some IDE setting :confused:

I ran into the exact same problem. Errors from 1.6.9 down to 1.6.5. I am using the Chinese clone device on El Capitan as well.

I tried the directions from pert at IDE 1.6.7 Released - Installation & Troubleshooting - Arduino Forum

The problem is caused by using Arduino AVR Boards 1.6.10 with Arduino IDE 1.6.6, they are incompatible. The options to fix this are:
Use Arduino IDE 1.6.7 or 1.6.8
Install Arduino AVR Boards 1.6.8(due to a bug you can't go back to using 1.6.9) by: Tools > Board > Boards Manager... > Arduino AVR Boards(click on it) > Select version > 1.6.8 > Install.
Install Arduino AVR Boards 1.6.9 and then reinstall Arduino IDE 1.6.6, this will get around the bug linked in option #2.

With option #2 or #3 you will continue to get updatable notifications about the more recent Arduino AVR Boards version so you might want to File > Preferences > Check for updates on startup(uncheck) to disable this notification.

At first I thought the instructions did not work, but as it turns out, it instead appears like some combination of changes bricked my Arduino Nano. Luckily, I have another and that one will upload sketches successfully using IDE 1.6.9 and 1.6.8 boards although this results in WARNINGS: Category '' in library {EEPROM,SPI,SoftwareSerial,Wire} because the old core being used.

Thanks!

I found the same problem with IDE version 1.6.8. My fix is to change the Board Manager -> Arduino AVR Boards version => 1.6.10

One of my students had this same problem and was using Arduino AVR Board version 1.6.11 (Arduino IDE 1.6.7). Downgrading to 1.6.10 resolved the issue for him.

Jacob

that's right, I also had this problem and solve it like doing a downgrade to manager boards, attached images.

AYARRIQUITUKIS:
that's right, I also had this problem and solve it like doing a downgrade to manager boards, attached images.

Thank you so much, I do it and now it's OK!

Just to give weight to the "downgrade AVR boards description, via boards manager, to 1.6.11" fix - it worked for me:

OS X El Capitan
Arduino IDE 1.6.10
Board tested: Mega2560

AVR version - was 1.6.12 - caused error as described in OP
AVR version - 1.6.11 - Fixed

Many thanks all for the fix!

Presume the authors are aware and are hard at work fixing 1.6.12!!!

I have been using 1.6.7 for some time now, both before and after Win 7 Pro to Win 10 Pro updgrade.
Uploading etc. worked fine up until a few days ago, then the problem described started with no changes on my part.
Before finding this article, I had to resort to a clean install of 1.6.11 to get things working again.
The only thing different in working practice was more projects involving bare 328PU chips and a Sparkfun FTDI adaptor. The problem had never happened before over quite a few years of using Arduino

I am using a Genuine Arduino UNO and got the exact same issue:

avrdude: no programmer has been specified on the command line or the config file
Specify a programmer using the -c option and try again

This happened after I upgraded to 1.6.12 from 1.6.11
Rolling back the upgrade fixed the problem.

Thank you to everyone for helping me fix this issue.

I agree to mowgli88's note:

I hope that the Authors are aware about this and will come with a fix!

try to instll this

same with 1.6.14 update. received that error msg while trying BLINK prgm on a nano clone. then installed 1.6.13 and it worked...so far.

I believe the issue is explained at Set default values for Arduino AVR Boards upload.verify and program.verify by per1234 · Pull Request #5427 · arduino/Arduino · GitHub, which also fixes the cause of the issue. This means that, once released, Arduino AVR Boards 1.6.15 and newer will not have the problem. Until then, as has been discovered, I would recommend any of the following fixes:

  • Update to Arduino IDE 1.6.12
  • Use Arduino AVR Boards 1.6.13, 1.6.11 or previous with Arduino IDE 1.6.8 and older
  • Manually implement the fix shown here