Can't upload to one blank, programmer not supported

hoskinsw · November 12, 2020, 4:08pm

Hello!

I have been working through the tutorials and just hit a snag. One of my blanks stopped letting me upload to it, giving this error:

     System wide configuration file is "C:\Users\hoski\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\arduino\tools\avrdude\6.3.0-arduino17/etc/avrdude.conf"
     Using Port                    : usb
     Using Programmer              : usbtiny
     Setting bit clk period        : 5.0
     avrdude: usbdev_open(): Found USBtinyISP, bus:device: bus-0:\\.\libusb0-0001--0x1781-0x0c9f
     AVR Part                      : ATmega168PB
     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        512    4      0  3600  3600 0xff 0xff
       flash         65     6   128    0 yes     16384  128    128  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: Setting SCK period to 5 usec
    avrdude: initialization failed, rc=-1
     Double check connections and try again, or use -F to override
     this check.

    avrdude done.  Thank you.

    An error occurred while uploading the sketch

I checked another blank and it worked fine, and then I felt the failing blank and it was really hot. I waited about an hour to put the battery back in, and when I did it does a few faint blinks of red and shuts off. I checked the battery in another blank and the battery is fine. Is there a way to hard reset the blink or something?

Thank you!

hoskinsw · November 12, 2020, 6:26pm

Update: Tried a few more things, when the programmer is touching the pins the Blink turns on, but it fails to upload still. When the battery is put in it just blinks a faint red then goes off completely.

I tried to see if other blinks could connect to it, but they don’t recognize it either.

jbobrow · November 12, 2020, 7:53pm

Hi @hoskinsw,

Do you have the Dev Tools v.10.2020? (this is printed on the box that the developer tools came in)

hoskinsw · November 12, 2020, 9:19pm

Hello!

I just checked, it is v.10.2020. I haven’t used the blink in that box, just one of the six blanks that I bought with the kit

jbobrow · November 13, 2020, 1:40am

Thanks for confirming. The Developer Blink included in the box is the best place to start with programming your Blinks. The Developer Blink is safeguarded from an accidental short circuit. This is however possible with the Publish Tool, which if placed incorrectly, can result in the Blink getting hot and no longer fully functioning. This is avoidable as we do this hundreds and thousands of times, but if you sacrificed one in the learning process, we’ll take care of you

There are some other nice benefits of the Developer Blink, in the meantime, we’ll continue to publish helpful photos and videos to continue to make the dev process better and better.

hoskinsw · November 13, 2020, 5:46am

Thanks for letting me know! So the proper way is to upload to the Dev Blink and then have the other blinks download it? Now that I think about it that would make it way easier than popping the battery in and out of the blanks. I may have watched the old developer kit video which is why I was using the blanks the way I did, no biggie though!

BGA · November 13, 2020, 4:31pm

If you are developing things, yes, that is the way to go. But if you want to make the game “permanent” in a Blink, you must use the publishing tool.