Arduino "Ports" Suddenly grayed out

caslor:
Same problem here

with linux - Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS

suddenly as i was refreshing one library and restarted my arduino ide (1.8.1 x64) couldnt see the ports any more

i was searching almost 2 hours for a solution to this

i have noticed that when i am starting Arduino Ide with no board in the usb then the port is active with the /dev/ttys0 option

but when i have connected previously a uno board the port option is Grey

also i noticed that with some mega 2560 boards the arduino ide can see them if they are connected

after i read the previous posts here i can confirm that mine also after 3 minutes the port became active and can see the usb ports

That's very interesting... "Board Connected BEFORE starting IDE = Greyed Ports Option"

The hub on my Win10 PC normally has an M5Stack device connected just for power/charging. (The M5Stack is an ESP32 device which is supported by the Arduino IDE).

So I tried disconnecting it BEFORE starting the IDE and now I can see the PORTS. If the IDE starts up with the MStack Connected, I can not see the PORTS.

So I have done some more testing testing (using an Arduino Mega2560 variant). It appears:

  1. Having ANY Arduino (compatible) device connected BEFORE starting the IDE will render the PORTS Option greyed out...

  2. Connecting ANY Arduino device AFTER starting the IDE will leave the PORTS Option Functional, but the recently added device will not be listed (just the non-Arduino ports)...

So... Still can't program any of my Arduino devices even if I connect them AFTER the IDE is started...

Something is really wrong here. And as a daily user of the Arduino IDE, this is something very new (and very painful).

(1.6.11 still seems to work OK regardless...)