Classic Arduino Nano problem setting up with Arduino Cloud

[jerryemy]

For some reason, my classic Arduino Nano cannot be found by Arduino Cloud. Even though I have no other devices connected other than keyboard and mouse, the board is connected through CH340 driver, Arduino Cloud Agent is up and running, and I've pressed the reset button to blink the built in LED thrice to reset the board (pressing it twice does the same effect).
Here's what Arduino Cloud Agent got in list commands when I plugged in the board:
Serial Ports:
[
{
"Name": "COM4",
"SerialNumber": "",
"IsOpen": false,
"VendorID": "0x1A86",
"ProductID": "0x7523"
}
]
the problem persists even after I reconnected the board and tried setting up again.

[ptillisch]

Hi @jerryemy. I see there is a bug in Arduino Cloud Editor that causes the Arduino Nano board to not be present in the list of boards you can select for use in Cloud Editor:

Is that the problem you are experiencing?

[jerryemy]

yes, that is what I experienced. I also thought that the second option for ESP32 is a bug, or is it?

[ptillisch]

@jerryemy

yes, that is what I experienced.

Thanks for the clarification. I have reported this bug to the Arduino Cloud developers. I'll post an update here if I receive any news from them about a resolution.

It is possible there might be a workaround that will allow you to use your Nano with Arduino Cloud despite this bug. In order for me to know whether that is possible, I need you to provide some additional information:

Please perform this procedure and then report back with the results:

1. Connect the Arduino board to your computer with a USB cable.
2. Press and release the button on the Arduino board that is marked "RESET".

Now please reply here on the forum thread with the answer to the following question:

• Did you see the "L" LED blink multiple times quickly immediately after you released the "RESET" button? Or did the LED only make a single short blink?

@jerryemy

I also thought that the second option for ESP32 is a bug, or is it?

It is confusing, but it is not necessarily a bug.

Support for specific boards in the Arduino development software such as Arduino Cloud Editor is provided by something called a "platform" (or to be more precise, we might use the term "Arduino boards platform"). If you have used Arduino IDE, you might have installed platforms using the Boards Manager.

The list you see in that "Unknown Device Found" dialog is all the boards defined by all the Arduino boards platforms that are installed on the Arduino Cloud servers. Two different platforms for ESP32 boards are installed in Arduino Cloud:

• The "Arduino ESP32 Boards" platform, which is the official platform for the Nano ESP32 board
• The "esp32" platform, which is the 3rd party platform that provides support for all boards that use a microcontroller from the ESP32 family.

Both of these platforms define a board named "Nano ESP32", so the two "Nano ESP32" entries you see on the list are actually two different board definitions. Arduino ESP32 Boards is actually a fork of the esp32 platform, stripped down to only what is relevant to the Nano ESP32 board, so the two board definitions are equivalent and essentially redundant to each other at this time. Perhaps it would make sense for the Arduino Cloud developers to write some code that removes the entry from the esp32 platform from the list. However, it is more simple to just list all the boards from all the platforms without trying to filter them.

[jerryemy]

@ptillisch

Please perform this procedure and then report back with the results:

1. Connect the Arduino board to your computer with a USB cable.
2. Press and release the button on the Arduino board that is marked "RESET".

Now please reply here on the forum thread with the answer to the following question:

• Did you see the "L" LED blink multiple times quickly immediately after you released the "RESET" button? Or did the LED only make a single short blink?

I have already answered this in my first post but maybe there needs to be some clarifications. The "L" LED blinked after I pressed the RESET button, and it did blink multiple times, quickly, immediately, specifically thrice. So after this troubleshooting, what is the workaround?

@ptillisch

It is confusing, but it is not necessarily a bug.

Thanks for the comprehensive answer, now I understand...

[ptillisch]

@jerryemy

I have already answered this in my first post

I apologize. I missed that.

@jerryemy

after this troubleshooting, what is the workaround?

I have great news: the workaround is not needed because the Arduino Cloud developers have now fixed the bug that caused the Arduino Nano board to be missing from the list of boards. So you can simply select "Arduino Nano" from the "Select device" dialog as usual and everything should work fine.

Thanks for bringing this bug to our attention! I apologize for any inconvenience it has caused.