Unable to upload programs

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) Hardware Troubleshooting
1

I am unable to upload anything to my arduino. This problem seemingly just manifested itself out of nowhere. I have been able to upload programs since I got it months ago, and I recently tried it and it wouldn't work.

I am on Mac OS X Intel 10.5, on a new 17inch MacBook Pro, I have tried arduino 10 and 11, I am using an arduino decimila over usb. It won't work on another (almost exactly the same) computer, either.

Here is the error mesage, with verbose uploading on:

avrdude: Version 5.4-arduino, compiled on Oct  9 2007 at 11:20:31
         Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brian Dean, http://www.bdmicro.com/

         System wide configuration file is "hardware/tools/avr/etc/avrdude.conf"
         User configuration file is "/Users/MYUSERNAME/.avrduderc"
         User configuration file does not exist or is not a regular file, skipping

         Using Port            : /dev/tty.usbserial-A1001NcB
         Using Programmer      : stk500v1
         Overriding Baud Rate  : 19200
avrdude: Send: 0 [30]   [20] 
avrdude: Send: 0 [30]   [20] 
avrdude: Send: 0 [30]   [20] 
avrdude: Recv: . [e6] 
avrdude: stk500_getsync(): not in sync: resp=0xe6
avrdude: Send: Q [51]   [20] 
avrdude: Recv: ` [60] 
avrdude: stk500_disable(): protocol error, expect=0x14, resp=0x60

avrdude done.  Thank you.
2

Maybe the bootloader got corrupted somehow? What were you doing with the board? Are you uploading without anything attached to it?

You might try buying a pre-bootloaded chip or reburning the bootloader onto the chip you have.

3

I was hooking it up to a motor controller, using digital pins 8-13.

I have reburned the bootloader. Now, on my Mac, it says :

avrdude: Version 5.4-arduino, compiled on Oct  9 2007 at 11:20:31
         Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brian Dean, http://www.bdmicro.com/

         System wide configuration file is "hardware/tools/avr/etc/avrdude.conf"
         User configuration file is "/Users/USERNAME/.avrduderc"
         User configuration file does not exist or is not a regular file, skipping

         Using Port            : /dev/tty.usbserial-A1001NcB
         Using Programmer      : stk500v1
         Overriding Baud Rate  : 19200
avrdude: Send: 0 [30]   [20] 
avrdude: Send: 0 [30]   [20] 
avrdude: Send: 0 [30]   [20] 
avrdude: ser_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: Send: Q [51]   [20] 
avrdude: ser_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding

on a windows machine (which I used to burn the bootloader because my mac doesn't have a parallel port) it still has the old out sync error except some of the numbers resp=0xfiftysomething instead of 0x60.

4

What if you the parallel programmer to directly upload / burn a sketch (like LED blink)? Instructions at: http://www.arduino.cc/en/Hacking/Programmer. Does that work? If so, try uploading a program that sends serial data, like Graph. Does that work?

5

I am able to load programs with the parallel programmer and I am able to load programs that use serial communication and the serial communication (over USB, just like the failed program uploads) works as far as I can tell. If I tell it to println 4, I read 4.

6

Is the baud rate right? That is, does the value you pass to Serial.begin() match the baud rate you select in the Arduino serial monitor? If you upload, say, Graph or ASCII Table, does the output look consistent? What about a sketch that reads serial data from the computer?