Arduino XBee Shield Connection Issues

I am using an Arduino Uno with a SparkFun XBee Shield for the XBee 1mW Wire Antenna - Series 1 (802.15.4) (I am a beginner to XBee). I use an USB cable to connect the Arduino to my laptop, and the port shows up in XCTU. However, I am unable to connect my XBee. Whenever I try to connect a window pops up, asking me to press the reset button. But nothing happens whenever I do and my XBee can't be found. I've tried to use the Discover and Manual options, but it still fails to recognize my module. I soldered male header pins into the shield and it looks like everything is correct, with the power and DI05 LEDs are on. Does anybody know what's going on?

I am using an Arduino Uno with a SparkFun XBee Shield

Which shield is that? Is the ATMega328 chip still installed? It can not be if you want X-CTU to talk to the XBee directly.

I'm really new to the XBee, so I'm really not sure what you mean :confused: But here is a link to the shield: SparkFun XBee Shield - WRL-12847 - SparkFun Electronics

When the switch on the shield is in the UART position, the XBee is connected to the hardware serial pins. So is the ATMega328 chip.

When X-CTU tries to talk to the XBee, the Arduino is reset, and the bootloader is started. That, of course, reads from and writes to, the serial port, confusing the hell out of X-CTU.

So, you need to attach the XBee, for configuration purposes, to a board that does not have a micr-controller on it. If you want to use the Arduino board as that board, you need to remove the ATMega328 chip from the Arduino board (that's the big one). Make sure you notice how it is installed before you remove it, so that you can put it back the same way.

Or, get a SparkFun XBee Explorer Dongle - WRL-11697 - SparkFun Electronics or SparkFun XBee Explorer USB - WRL-11812 - SparkFun Electronics

OK thanks for the reply! It really helped me :slight_smile: