[Solved] Unable to connect to arduino board - possible bootloader problem

Hello, I have an Arduino Uno R3 that I have had for a few years now, about a year ago something happened to it (It's been a long time, I don't remember what I did) that prevented me from communicating with the board, I bought an AVR programmer to attempt to reprogram the bootloader and have not had any success, which made me just put it to the side and forget about it until now.

The AVR Programmer I have is this: USBtinyISP V2 AVR ISP Programmer
When I plug the Arduino into the computer without the AVR programmer, it is shown in device manager as "AVRISP mkii" and has a warning triangle saying there's no drivers for it. I proceeded to use ZADiag to install the libusb-win32 driver for it. After installing the driver, I use AVRDude with the command:

avrdude -v -p atmega328p -c avrispmkII

which outputs:

avrdude: stk500v2_command(): command failed
avrdude: stk500v2_program_enable(): bad AVRISPmkII connection status: Unknown status 0x00
avrdude: initialization failed, rc=-1
         Double check connections and try again, or use -F to override
         this check.

If i try connecting to the Arduino in the IDE, the port selection is greyed out.


So now I try connecting the AVR programmer to the arduino, it shows up as "USBTiny", I followed the instructions listed on the product page and tried burning the bootloader with USBTinyISP as the programmer which fails with the following error:

avrdude: Version 6.3-20190619
         Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brian Dean, http://www.bdmicro.com/
         Copyright (c) 2007-2014 Joerg Wunsch

         System wide configuration file is "C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\hardware\tools\avr/etc/avrdude.conf"

         Using Port                    : usb
         Using Programmer              : usbtiny
avrdude: usbdev_open(): Found USBtinyISP, bus:device: bus-0:\\.\libusb0-0001--0x1781-0x0c9f
         AVR Part                      : ATmega328P
         Chip Erase delay              : 9000 us
         PAGEL                         : PD7
         BS2                           : PC2
         RESET disposition             : dedicated
         RETRY pulse                   : SCK
         serial program mode           : yes
         parallel program mode         : yes
         Timeout                       : 200
         StabDelay                     : 100
         CmdexeDelay                   : 25
         SyncLoops                     : 32
         ByteDelay                     : 0
         PollIndex                     : 3
         PollValue                     : 0x53
         Memory Detail                 :

                                  Block Poll               Page                       Polled
           Memory Type Mode Delay Size  Indx Paged  Size   Size #Pages MinW  MaxW   ReadBack
           ----------- ---- ----- ----- ---- ------ ------ ---- ------ ----- ----- ---------
           eeprom        65    20     4    0 no       1024    4      0  3600  3600 0xff 0xff
           flash         65     6   128    0 yes     32768  128    256  4500  4500 0xff 0xff
           lfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
           hfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
           efuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
           lock           0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
           calibration    0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0     0     0 0x00 0x00
           signature      0     0     0    0 no          3    0      0     0     0 0x00 0x00

         Programmer Type : USBtiny
         Description     : USBtiny simple USB programmer, https://learn.adafruit.com/usbtinyisp
avrdude: programmer operation not supported

avrdude: Using SCK period of 10 usec
avrdude: initialization failed, rc=-1
         Double check connections and try again, or use -F to override
         this check.


avrdude done.  Thank you.

Error while burning bootloader.

if i try to use the same command manually with -F, i get an invalid signature error:

avrdude: Version 6.3.1.1-windows
         Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brian Dean, http://www.bdmicro.com/
         Copyright (c) 2007-2014 Joerg Wunsch

         System wide configuration file is "C:\Program Files\opt\avrdude.conf"

         Using Port                    : usb
         Using Programmer              : usbtiny
avrdude: usbdev_open(): Found USBtinyISP, bus:device: bus-0:\\?\usb#vid_1781&pid_0c9f#5&6044b84&0&3#{a5dcbf10-6530-11d2-901f-00c04fb951ed}--libusb0
         AVR Part                      : ATmega328P
         Chip Erase delay              : 9000 us
         PAGEL                         : PD7
         BS2                           : PC2
         RESET disposition             : dedicated
         RETRY pulse                   : SCK
         serial program mode           : yes
         parallel program mode         : yes
         Timeout                       : 200
         StabDelay                     : 100
         CmdexeDelay                   : 25
         SyncLoops                     : 32
         ByteDelay                     : 0
         PollIndex                     : 3
         PollValue                     : 0x53
         Memory Detail                 :

                                  Block Poll               Page                       Polled
           Memory Type Mode Delay Size  Indx Paged  Size   Size #Pages MinW  MaxW   ReadBack
           ----------- ---- ----- ----- ---- ------ ------ ---- ------ ----- ----- ---------
           eeprom        65    20     4    0 no       1024    4      0  3600  3600 0xff 0xff
           flash         65     6   128    0 yes     32768  128    256  4500  4500 0xff 0xff
           lfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
           hfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
           efuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
           lock           0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
           calibration    0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0     0     0 0x00 0x00
           signature      0     0     0    0 no          3    0      0     0     0 0x00 0x00

         Programmer Type : USBtiny
         Description     : USBtiny simple USB programmer, https://learn.adafruit.com/usbtinyisp
avrdude: programmer operation not supported

avrdude: Using SCK period of 10 usec
avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions

Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.01s

avrdude: Device signature = 0x000000 (retrying)

Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.01s

avrdude: Device signature = 0x000000 (retrying)

Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.01s

avrdude: Device signature = 0x000000
avrdude: Yikes!  Invalid device signature.
         Double check connections and try again, or use -F to override
         this check.


avrdude done.  Thank you.

I have tried following different tutorials for erasing the chip and flashing the bootloader manually with avrdude but nothing seems to work. does anyone have any idea what I did to this board and what i can do to fix it (if it can be fixed)?

extra random information: i installed atmel studio and tried programming it with that, the arduino which shows up as avrisp mkii when plugged directly into the computer is recognized by atmel studio but trying to flash firmware results in an error saying to turn on the device. trying the same thing but with the avr programmer, atmel studio doesnt recognize it.

@puyodead1

Your topic was Moved to it's current location / section as it is more suitable.

Could you also take a few moments to Learn How To Use The Forum.

Other general help and troubleshooting advice can be found here.
It will help you get the best out of the forum in the future.

Looks like i figured it out, I followed the instructions from https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php/topic,118089.0.html and was able to upload sketches and the bootloader

I then followed https://www.arduino.cc/en/Hacking/DFUProgramming8U2 to reflash the 16U2 chip and now it seems that everything is working again.

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