I bought Arduino Uno R4 Minima boards this year. I use them with the app.arduino.cc in my 8th grade class. The kids enjoy plugging in components and then seeing it work on the breadboard. I have 25 boards for my classes. I have 2 issues with the Arduino Uno R4 Minima boards. I would like some help with these issues because I cannot find a way to fix it.
The serial monitor does not work on the student Chromebooks. It does work on my teacher MacBook Air. That is not a big issue.
There are 3 boards that just stopped connecting to any computer. In every case, the students are connected with their Chromebook. They make another project and they cannot connect to the Uno R4 anymore in the same class period. We tried unplugging and plugging it in different ports on the Chromebook. We tried restarting everything - app and Chromebook. I cannot connect to the board on my MacBook Air either. The green "On" light is on, but it will not show up when we try to connect device. We even tried picking the device, but that does not work either. It is weird because it did work for them for a couple of days and earlier in the same class.
I agree this is a good thing to check (you can use Arduino IDE 2.3.3 though).
When you do it, make sure to check in the Tools > Port menu.
In your screenshot, you are using Arduino IDE's "Firmware Updater" feature. It is expected that the UNO R4 Minima won't be detected by the "Firmware Updater" (even when everything is working perfectly) because the "Firmware Updater" only detects the boards that have a supplemental module with updatable firmware. The UNO R4 Minima does not have a supplemental module with updatable firmware so it will never be detected by "Firmware Updater".
BitSeeker, Thanks for the tip. I tried it on a PC with IDE 2.3.2. I also tried it with my Mac using IDE 2.3.3. In both cases, I double clicked the reset button and it worked! After that, it also connected to my Mac like it did before the problem. I can now use the online app.arduino.cc like before. This is good because we do not have IDE installed on the student Chromebooks. Tomorrow, I will see if it works with the students! This gives me hope.
Thanks to the replies here, I have a solution! My students use the Arduino app online on their Chromebooks to connect to the Arduino Uno R4 Minima. Sometimes, the R4 board stops connecting to the student Chromebook.
I take the R4 board and connect it to my teacher computer since it has Arduino IDE installed on it. I open Arduino IDE and double tap the reset button on the R4 board. I can then select the R4 board in Arduino IDE and upload a sketch. After I upload a sketch on my teacher computer, it will work on the student's Chromebook again.
I am having the same problem as above, only worse. I have original Uno R4 Minimas, and both are a real pain to program, as they disconnect from USB with little provocation, and reconnect very unreliably.
I can get them to reconnect by resetting, double-resetting, holding reset down for 5 secs or power-cycling. Which of the above works is a matter of chance; it usually takes repeated efforts. The serial monitor connection (if I get it at all) is good for only a few seconds.
I've downloaded, rebuilt and reflashed the latest firmware. No difference. I've tried the route suggested in this thread of using older IDE versions (2.3.2 and 2.3.3). No difference. This is all on a mac with 2.3.4. BTW.
Firmware reflashing requires Windows, for which I'm using Parallels. This is doubly tricky to get right due to the low likelihood of getting a reliable connection.
Does anyone have an up-to-date, reliable fix please?
