can't get rid of old program (on mini)

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) Hardware Troubleshooting
#1

Hello,

First of all: Arduino rules ... including the website arduino.cc and especially the people who spend their spare time to develop arduino. Thank you very much!

However like most other people I post to this forum because I need help...

Just like described in the following post http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1164357893 I am unable to flash over an old sketch. This happened suddenly and I don't know which of my actions could have caused this problem.

The only difference to the other thread: I have a arduino mini (atmega 168) with Firmware Version: 1.15

Everything seems to upload perfectly - a small sketch takes less long to flash than a big one - however 10 seconds after the process is complete the old scetch starts.

What shall I do? Shall I try to burn a new bootloader as described in the above mentioned thread? What other options do I have?

lg, Mr.M

#2

So it was working before with the same computer and setup?

Is it possible you accidently uploaded a program when the environment was configured for an ATmega8? It's possible that could mess things up.

What does the old program do? Does it appear to be running normally?

#3

Yes, the computer and the setup is the same. Hm, it might be that the board recieved less than 5 volts while running the old program for a while (low batteries). However I am sure that it did not receive more than 5 Volts at any time, because I always use a voltage regulator (and big capacitors).

... I am sure that the environment was set to atmega168 at all times.

The old program runs perfectly (It is pretty big - all parts of it work normally)

Could it be that this strange behavior results from bad soldered contacts, or is the programming done all "in-chip"?

I have a second "normal" USB Arduino-board which I programmed with the software from here http://tinker.it/now/2006/12/04/turn-arduino-into-an-avr-isp-programmer/ , however now I am stuck...

Where can I get the bootloader hex for the mini arduino (atmega168) and what tool should I use to write the bootloader to the mini-board?

lg, Mr.M

#4

You can get the source code from http://www.arduino.ws/: go to Upload, then Software, bootloader_v5 (m168) and download the zip. You'll need to use avrdude to burn it.

#5

Thank you very much mellis. I'll look into it tomorrow...

lg, Mr.M

#6

Hi again,

Just tried to burn the bootloader onto a second USB-Arduino board by using the “AVR-ISP” Arduino-board…

I used AVRDude from WinAVR with the commandline:

avrdude -F -P com3 -c stk500v2 -p ATMEGA8 -b 115200 -vvvv ATmegaBOOT.hex

However I needed to specify the -F switch, because avrdude complained with the following message:

avrdude: stk500v2_command(): command failed avrdude: initialization failed, rc=-1 Double check connections and try again, or use -F to override this check. <\quote>

Everything seems to work fine - but the board worked fine before, so I am not sure if flashing was successful (phew - At least I didn’t brick it)

–

Now I would like to do the same thing with the arduino mini-board. However the sck-pin (pin 17) of the atmega168 seems not to be soldered to any pin of the mini-board. Do I have to contact the pin directly on the chip?

Is the following command correct for flashing the bootloader onto the atmega 168?

avrdude -F -P com3 -c stk500v2 -p ATMEGA168 -b 115200 -vvvv ATmegaBOOT_168.hex

lg, Mr.M

#7

Hi,

I think I wrote the bootloader onto the mini arduino. I gave avrdude the parameters I mentioned in the last post. The last few lines of output were:

... ... ... avrdude: Recv: avrdude: Recv: avrdude: Recv: avrdude: Recv: avrdude: Send: . [1b] [20] . [00] . [08] . [0e] . [1d] . [04] . [04] . [00] P [50] . [08] . [00] . [00] x [78] avrdude: Recv: avrdude: Recv: avrdude: Recv: avrdude: Recv: avrdude: Recv: avrdude: Recv: avrdude: Recv: avrdude: Recv: avrdude: Recv: avrdude: Recv: avrdude: Recv: avrdude: Recv: avrdude: Recv: avrdude: safemode: efuse reads as 7 avrdude: safemode: Fuses OK avrdude: Send: . [1b] ! [21] . [00] . [03] . [0e] . [11] . [01] . [01] & [26] avrdude: Recv: avrdude: Recv: avrdude: Recv: avrdude: Recv: avrdude: Recv: avrdude: Recv: avrdude: Recv: avrdude: Recv:

avrdude done. Thank you.

Then I used the 0007er to upload the led-blink scratch - it still does not work - uploading seems to work, however after the reset, the old scratch still executes.

I tried to upload from completely different machines - the scratch remains flashed...

What do you think... shall I dispose of this mini and buy another one?

lg, Mr.M

Edit: I used avrdude again and tried to erase the chip - without success. The old bootloader is still there. So avrdude did not write the new bootloader to flash as I thought.

#8

i've had terrible results with avrdude and the atmega168

sadly the only reliable way to do this is to use avr studio on windows (yuck...)

massimo

#9