New bootloader on Nano

Development Tools IDE 1.x
1

Hi,

I have an Arduino Nano whose com port appears in device manager and under tools/port when plugged in, the green LED is on, and the amber LED blinks slowly after at time. I've selected the correct board (Arduino Nano), processor (ATmega328p), and port (under the tool/port menu). The programmer is set to AVRISP mkII. But there is no description of the board displayed on the tools/port menu, and 'Get Board Info' returns 'board unknown'. When downloading a sketch, there are errors such as this

avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 8 of 10: not in sync: resp=0xc1

In another test, when connecting a terminal program to the com port, the RX LED on the board blinks with each key press.

Questions:

  • I got the Nano recently from Digikey. The Nano since January 2018 has an alternate bootloader, which is described in https://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/ArduinoNano. I am not able to follow the instructions where it says "to make sure to have the Arduino AVR Core 1.16.21 or later looking at the Board Manager". Does the 'Board Manager' refer to the 'Additional Boards Manager URLs' box in the preferences dialog box? Is there a URL for the Arduino AVR Core 1.16.21 to be entered in that dialog box?
  • That page also shows a selection for the old bootloader under the tools/processor submenu item. That selection is not present in my IDE. If the Arduino AVR Core 1.16.21 is installed/present, would that selector be available in my IDE? (I want to test if my board has the old bootloader.)
  • Have I selected the correct programmer from the tools menu?
  • Might there be a problem with the bootloader?

My computer is running Windows 7 and the IDE version 1.8.5.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Nathan

2

Tools -> Board -> Board Manager. Locate the official AVR board package on that screen and update it.

You do not need to enter any URL - the official AVR board package will always show up there.

If you don't see an old bootloader option, you don't have 1.6.21 of the AVR board package.

Tools -> programmer is ignored unless you are burning bootloader or doing upload using programmer, neither of which is what you want to do. When doing this, you will know what option to select from this menu, because it is a physical piece of hardware needed for those operations. It is ignored when doing normal uploads (on official arduino boards - on third party board packages that support parts without a bootloader, it is used for all uploads).

3

I had 1.16.20, and 1.16.21 has fixed it.

Thank you!

Nathan