Port monitor and Serial error

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Hi @waltrobinson.

There were some previous reports of this "Invalid serial port" error occurring specifically when using boards that have the CH340 USB chip. It seems that a driver upgrade included in a recent Windows update is the cause of this problem.

The affected users have found that uninstalling and reinstalling the CH340 device fixed the problem. I'll share the instructions you can follow to do that:

  1. Close Arduino IDE if it is running.
  2. Connect the Arduino board to your computer with a USB cable.
  3. Open the Windows Device Manager.
  4. Select View > Devices by type from the Device Manager menus.
  5. Open the "View" menu.
  6. If there is a āœ“ to the left of the "Show hidden devices" menu item, click on "Show hidden devices" to disable it.
  7. Open the "Ports (COM & LPT)" section of the Device Manager tree.
  8. You should see a port identified as "USB-SERIAL CH340 (COM_n_)" under the "Ports (COM & LPT)" section (where "COM_n_" is some serial port e.g., COM4). Right click on that item.
    A context menu will open.
  9. Select "Uninstall device" from the context menu.
    An "Uninstall Device" dialog will open.
  10. Check the box next to "ā˜ Attempt to remove the driver for this device" in the "Uninstall Device" dialog.
  11. Click the "Uninstall" button.
  12. Wait for the uninstallation process to finish.
  13. Unplug the USB cable of the Arduino board from your computer.
  14. Wait for the Device Manager tree to reload.
  15. Connect the USB cable of the Arduino board to your computer.
  16. Wait for the "USB-SERIAL CH340 (COM_n_)" port to reappear under the "Ports (COM & LPT)" section of the Device Manager tree.

My experience is that the device will be reinstalled automatically by Windows after you plug the board back into the computer, as indicated by the "USB-SERIAL CH340 (COM_n_)" port reappearing in the last step of those instructions. However, it is maybe possible that the complete driver removal will actually have been accomplished by the above instructions, in which case it would be necessary to reinstall the driver. If this happens to you, please let me know and I'll provide instructions you can follow to install the driver.

Once the port has reappeared in Device Manager, start Arduino IDE again and repeat whatever you were doing before when you encountered that error. Please reply here to let us know whether the error still occurs.