Hi there,
My first post and having swam through the internet on this famous subject many, many times I'm feeling marooned on my Arduino island!
Like many times before the problem seems to arise out of the blue (Although this time it was after an Adobe update and restart). All's going swimmingly then BANG - 'can't communicate with device'. I thought I found a neat solution which I was going to post and share the benefits of however the relatively simple procedure of only restarting the IDE followed by briefly unplugging USB during upload worked a treat (btw!) .... until now!!
Just trying to upload Blink I've gone through all the basics (I hope):
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Yes, I've checked the com# in Device manager matches the IDE com setting and tried other ports.
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Restarted IDE each time and often restarted OS too (with USB connected and without, etc.).
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Yes, the same problem with UNO and another MEGA board.
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Yes, the cable has been checked and others tried.
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Yes, at Device Manager the board is recognized.
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Same problem with IDE 1.06 and 1.6.4
What seemed to do the trick once, when all else had failed, was to shut down laptop (Dell latitude XP) - take battery out and try and turn on - I read this somewhere - they said that just restarting was sometimes too quick to let all the capacitors properly drain to 0 volts (sound plausible?). Anyway NOT this time.
It doesn't seem to me a bootloader issue because when I get connected again all's fine and dandy.
My feeling is that the issue lies on the computer side as there is absolutely no LED action at either Rx or Tx when trying to upload and also because once connected I can have weeks of uploading heaven but not sure if relavant.
Sadly everything has ground to a halt again and now and I'm left wishing I'd gone down the raspberry pi route!! I appreciate that there is possibly not one simple solution to what might be the result of a combination of bugs but can anyone offer an Arduino fan some hope again??