Arduino ide 2.3.3 blank screen

Development Tools IDE 2.x
1

When connecting an ESP8266 mini board which is requipped with an FTDI USB to serial chip, the IDE does not seems not very stable and results eventually in a blank screen .
The initial download goes well and it generally all works for a while.
The only way to get out of it is to kill the Arduino IDE process.

Operating System: WIndows 11
Version of FTDI Driver: 2.12.36.4 (same issue also detected with driver version 2.12.28)
Arduino IDE version: 2.3.3 (same issue also detected on version 2.3.2)

I have a strong suspicion that the blank screen (and freezing of the Arduino IDE) hence has to do with the way the USB/Serial communication is handled in case of the FTDI chipset.

This was tested on different computers by different students, different USB cables and mutiple ESP8266 boards

(When ESP8266 mini boards with the CH340 USB to serial chip are used, things are stable with version 3.5 or 3.7 of the ch340 driver)

2

Can be a bad board or bad cable.

3

We tested different boards and diffeent cables. Also the same cables with ch340 based boards work just fine..

4

Hi @padebo1965. I'm going to ask you to provide some additional information that might help us to identify the problem.

:exclamation: This procedure is not intended to solve the problem. The purpose is to gather more information.

Please do this:

  1. Select File > Quit from the Arduino IDE menus if it is running.
    All Arduino IDE windows will close.
  2. Start Windows "File Explorer".
  3. Open the Arduino IDE installation folder.
    ⓘ The default installation location is at one of the following paths: 
    • C:\Program Files\Arduino IDE

    • C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Programs\Arduino IDE
      (where <username> is your Windows username)
      :exclamation: If looking for it with your file manager or command line, note that the AppData folder is hidden by default. On Windows "File Explorer", you can make it visible by opening the "View" menu, then checking the box next to "☐ Hidden items".
  4. In the folder listing of the Arduino IDE installation folder, hold the Shift key while clicking the right hand button on the mouse.
    A context menu will open.
  5. Select "Open PowerShell window here" from the menu.
    Windows PowerShell will now open with the current directory set to the Arduino IDE installation folder.
  6. Type the following command:
    & ".\Arduino IDE"
  7. Press the Enter key.
    Debug output should now be printed to the PowerShell window as Arduino IDE starts.
  8. Wait for Arduino IDE to finish starting.
  9. Perform whatever actions are required to put the IDE into the bad "blank screen" state.
  10. Switch back to the PowerShell window.
  11. Press the Ctrl+Shift+A keyboard shortcut.
    This will select all the text in the PowerShell window.
  12. Press the Ctrl+C keyboard shortcut.
    This will copy the contents of the PowerShell window to the clipboard.
  13. Open a forum reply here by clicking the "Reply" button.
  14. Click the <CODE/> icon on the post composer toolbar.
    This will add the forum's code block markup (```) to your reply to make sure the error messages are correctly formatted.
    Code block icon on toolbar
  15. Press the Ctrl+V keyboard shortcut.
    This will paste the output into the code block.
  16. Move the cursor outside of the code block markup before you add any additional text to your reply.
  17. Click the "Reply" button to post the output.

Please let me know if you have any questions or problems while following those instructions.

5

5 posts were split to a new topic: IDE hangs on startup: "INTERNAL: Received RST_STREAM with code 1"

10

Any news on the analysis of the logs?

11

I saw that version 2.3.4 is released now. Any chance that this version will have fixed this issue?

12

For my feeling, 2.3.4 can't be worse than 2.3.3. I haven't experienced your specific problem so can't say for sure. I also haven't been working with 2.3.4 much as I only updated yesterday.

13

@padebo1965 you never provided the logs. Please follow the instructions I provided in post #4 and the forum helpers will take a look to see if we can identify the cause of the problem.

14

My system is Linux.

I spent a few months with this horrible problem, when I deleted the directory: ~/.config/arduino-ide/ it went back to normal.
A few days later, the black screen returned, everything ran under the black screen. When I hover the mouse, I sometimes see shadows and see the mouse changing, and I can click on some things. And I see the IDE updating board packages, etc; on logs.

I decided to analyze the structure of ~/.config/arduino-ide/ and I applied changes one by one, until I found it. In my case, ~/.config/arduino-ide/GPUCache is the villain. I delete it, and reopen Arduino IDE 2. Everything always goes back to perfect.

Here is my contribution: If you have this issue: "black screen" when opening Arduino IDE 2, delete ~/.config/arduino-ide/GPUCache . I don't know where it is in Windows, but it's easy to find.

GPUCache will be rebuild. I think it is a problem with GPU Driver update. (Not verified)

Many Thanks. :saluting_face:

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