aarg:
The code looks okay at first glance. I'm suspicious about your sending instead. Are you sure you are sending end markers in both cases, for example?
I have tried it many times, I'm quite sure. To test I send "", to which the arduino sends nothing in return. I think it is only getting one character at a time. For instance, if I send "", then "world", then "hello>", the arduino prints "w" as it's response. That made me believe it was only getting one character at a time. So I tried entering "<", "h", "e", "l", "l", "o", ">", each time as a separate press of send on the serial monitor. The arduino returns "hello" as soon as I send the end character, '>'. But if I remove the led_Strip.write(), I can just send and the arduino returns "hello."
Robin2:
I don't understand. What are you using to send the data?ALL serial data is sent one character after the other - that's what serial means.
...R
I understand that much. However, the example from the page I linked allows you to send many characters at a time, by using the start character and end ciharacter. When I run my program without the led_Strip.write() in the loop, it functions as I'd expect. The serial monitor sends the data to the buffer, then the arduino reads it one character at a time. When I run it with that line in, it functions as I detailed in the paragraph above.