Board/port drop-down won't let you select anything

Development Tools IDE 2.x
1

Hi,
Have anyone noticed that sometimes when unplugging/reconnecting different Arduinos while having the IDE open, the board/port drop-down doesn't work?
When it happens the unselected board have a brown/orange usb symbol I think:
image

Correct boards and ports are detected but it won't let you switch.

A workaround is to switch board using Tools>Board:> and Tools>Port:>. After you have selected the correct board and port the drop-down starts working and you can switch boards using it again.

I have not found a way to reproduce this but I'll take a video of it the next time it happens.

This has been happening for me in at least 2.0.1 and 2.0.2, maybe also 2.0.0.

2

Arduino on COM1 is quite unusual. Unless you selected that using the tools menu. I do not quite see the brown/orange USB symbol in your screenshot.

What might be the case (cause?) is that Windows enumerated to a different port?

3

Yes I have probably changed the port to COM1 using the device manager. (I had some strange bugs with a Visual Studio project a while back and tried out different ports to understand the issue)

Windows handles ports in a strange way since some are occupied (in use) even though the Arduinos have been unplugged. I think they may free up after a Windows reboot.
image

How do you even know which is the original port? And should it really matter?

True, that picture is a placeholder until I trigger the bug again.

4

I have noticed this (though I didn't notice the icon color). Unfortunately I have never been able to figure out the conditions the bug occurs under despite quite some trying. For that reason, I didn't submit a formal bug report about it yet.

I would love to figure it out though. It doesn't happen to me very often, but it is certainly a poor user experience when it does.

5

I think I have never experienced it without having unplugged/reconnected a second arduino while the IDE is running.