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There are many pieces involved in getting a program onto your Arduino board, and if any of them aren't right, the upload can fail. They include: the drivers for the board, the board and serial port selections in the Arduino software, access to the serial port, the physical connection to the board, the firmware on the 8U2 (on the Uno and Mega 2560), the bootloader on the main microcontroller on the board, the microcontroller's fuse settings, and more. Here are some specific suggestions for troubleshooting each of the pieces.
Arduino Software
Drivers
Drivers provide a way for software on your computer (i.e. the Arduino software) to talk to hardware you connect to your computer (the Arduino board). In the case of Arduino, the drivers work by providing a virtual serial port (or virtual COM port). The Arduino Uno and Mega 2560 use standard drivers (USB CDC) provided by the operating system to communicate with the ATmega8U2 on the board. Other Arduino boards use FTDI drivers to communicate with the FTDI chip on the board (or in the USB-serial convertor).
The easiest way to check if the drivers for your board are installed correctly is by opening the Tools > Serial Port menu in the Arduino software with the Arduino board connected to your computer. Additional menu items should appear relative to when you open the menu without the Arduino connected to your computer. Note that it shouldn't matter what name the Arduino board's serial port gets assigned as long as that's the one you pick from the menu.
Access to the Serial Port
Physical Connection
Auto-Reset
[VP 1] Device is not responding correctly. try uploading again (i.e. reset the board and press the download button a second time).
Bootloader
If it still doesn't work, you can ask for help in the forum. Please include the following information:
Did you drag the Arduino.app out of the disk image (and into, say, your Applications folder)? If not, you won't be able to upload the examples.
The latest Java update from Apple attempts to use 64-bit version of native libraries, but the Arduino application comes with a 32 bit version of the RXTX library. If you launch Arduino, you'll get an error like:
Uncaught exception in main method: java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: /Applications/arduino-0016/Arduino 16.app/Contents/Resources/Java/librxtxSerial.jnilib: no suitable image found. Did find: /Applications/arduino-0016/Arduino 16.app/Contents/Resources/Java/librxtxSerial.jnilib: no matching architecture in universal wrapper
To fix this, click on the Arduino application (e.g. Arduino 16.app) in the Finder, and select Get Info from the File menu. In the info panel, click the Open in 32 Bit Mode checkbox. You should then be able to launch Arduino normally.
The Arduino environment does some preliminary processing on your sketch by manipulating the code using regular expressions. This sometimes gets confused by certain strings of text. If you see an error like:
java.lang.StackOverflowError at java.util.Vector.addElement(Unknown Source) at java.util.Stack.push(Unknown Source) at com.oroinc.text.regex.Perl5Matcher._pushState(Perl5Matcher.java)
or:
at com.oroinc.text.regex.Perl5Matcher._match(Perl5Matcher.java) at com.oroinc.text.regex.Perl5Matcher._match(Perl5Matcher.java) at com.oroinc.text.regex.Perl5Matcher._match(Perl5Matcher.java) at com.oroinc.text.regex.Perl5Matcher._match(Perl5Matcher.java) at com.oroinc.text.regex.Perl5Matcher._match(Perl5Matcher.java) at com.oroinc.text.regex.Perl5Matcher._match(Perl5Matcher.java) at com.oroinc.text.regex.Perl5Matcher._match(Perl5Matcher.java)
this is what's happening. Look for unusual sequences involving "double-quotes", "single-quotes", \backslashes, comments, etc. For example, missing quotes can cause problems and so can the sequence '\"' (use '"' instead).
Because the RX pin is unconnected, the bootloader on the board may be seeing garbage data coming in, meaning that it never times out and starts your sketch. Try tying the RX pin to ground with a 10K resistor (or connecting RX directly to the TX pin).
This might be caused by a conflict with the Logitech process 'LVPrcSrv.exe'. Open the Task Manager and see if this program is running, and if so, kill it before attempting the upload. more information
If you're using a Diecimila or older USB board (e.g. NG), make sure that the jumper (little plastic piece near the USB plug) is on the correct pins. If you're powering the board with an external power supply (plugged into the power plug), the jumper should be on the two pins closest to the power plug. If you're powering the board through the USB, the jumper should be on the two pins closest to the USB plug. This picture shows the arrangment for powering the board from the USB port.
(thanks to mrbbp for report and picture)
Some of the Arduino Diecimila boards were accidently burned with the Arduino NG bootloader. It should work fine, but has a longer delay when the board is reset (because the NG doesn't have an automatic reset, so you have to time the uploads manually). You can recognize the NG bootloader because the LED on pin 13 will blink three times when you reset the board (as compared to once with the Diecimila bootloader). If your Diecimila has the NG bootloader on it, you may need to physically press the reset button on the board before uploading your sketch. You can burn the correct bootloader onto your Diecimila, see the bootloader page for details.
If you get an error when double-clicking the arduino.exe executable on Windows, for example:
Arduino has encountered a problem and needs to close.
you'll need to launch Arduino using the run.bat file. Please be patient, the Arduino environment may take some time to open.
If you get an error like this:
Link (dyld) error: dyld: /Applications/arduino-0004/Arduino 04.app/Contents/MacOS/Arduino Undefined symbols: /Applications/arduino-0004/librxtxSerial.jnilib undefined reference to _printf$LDBL128 expected to be defined in /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib
you probably need to upgrade to Max OS X 10.3.9 or later. Older versions have incompatible versions of some system libraries.
Thanks to Gabe462 for the report.
If you get an error like this when launching Arduino:
Uncaught exception in main method: java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: Native Library /Users/anu/Desktop/arduino-0002/librxtxSerial.jnilib already loaded in another classloader
you probably have an old version of the communications library lying around. Search for comm.jar or jcl.jar in /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/ or in directories in your CLASSPATH or PATH environment variables. (reported by Anurag Sehgal)
If you get this error when launching Arduino:
Java Virtual Machine Launcher: Could not find the main class. Program will exit.
make sure that you correctly extracted the contents of the Arduino .zip file - in particular that the lib directory is directly inside of the Arduino directory and contains the file pde.jar.
If you already have cygwin installed on your machine, you might get an error like this when you try to compile a sketch in Arduino:
6 [main] ? (3512) C:\Dev\arduino-0006\tools\avr\bin\avr-gcc.exe: *** fatal error - C:\Dev\arduino-0006\tools\avr\bin\avr-gcc.exe: *** system shared memory version mismatch detected - 0x75BE0084/0x75BE009C.
This problem is probably due to using incompatible versions of the cygwin DLL.
Search for cygwin1.dll using the Windows Start->Find/Search facility and delete all but the most recent version. The most recent version *should* reside in x:\cygwin\bin, where 'x' is the drive on which you have installed the cygwin distribution. Rebooting is also suggested if you are unable to find another cygwin DLL.
If so, first make sure that you don't have cygwin running when you use Arduino. If that doesn't help, you can try deleting cygwin1.dll from the Arduino directory and replacing it with the cygwin1.dll from your existing cygwin install (probably in c:\cygwin\bin).
Thanks to karlcswanson for the suggestion.
If the Arduino software takes a long time to start up and appears to freeze when you try to open the Tools menu, there by a conflict with another device on your system. The Arduino software, on startup and when you open the Tools menu, tries to get a list of all the COM ports on your computer. It's possible that a COM port created by one of the devices on your computer slows down this process. Take a look in the Device Manager. Try disabling the devices that provide COM ports (e.g. Bluetooth devices).
If you're using a USB Arduino board, make sure you installed the FTDI drivers (see the Howto for directions). If you're using a USB-to-Serial adapter with a serial board, make sure you installed its drivers.
Make sure that the board is plugged in: the serial port menu refreshes whenever you open the Tools menu, so if you just unplugged the board, it won't be in the menu.
Check that you're not running any programs that scan all serial ports, like PDA sync applications, Bluetooth-USB drivers (e.g. BlueSoleil), virtual daemon tools, etc.
On Windows, the COM port assigned to the board may be too high. From zeveland:
"One little note if you aren't able to export and your USB board is trying to use a high COM port number: try changing the FTDI chip's COM port assignment to a lower one.
"I had a bunch of virtual COM ports set up for Bluetooth so the board was set to use COM17. The IDE wasn't able to find the board so I deleted the other virtual ports in Control Panel (on XP) and moved the FTDI's assignment down to COM2. Make sure to set Arduino to use the new port and good luck."
On the Mac, if you have an old version of the FTDI drivers, you may need to remove them and reinstall the latest version. See this forum thread for directions (thanks to gck).
Error inside Serial.<init>()
gnu.io.PortInUseException: Unknown Application
at gnu.io.CommPortIdentifier.open(CommPortIdentifier.java:354)
at processing.app.Serial.<init>(Serial.java:127)
at processing.app.Serial.<init>(Serial.java:72)
This probably means that the port is actually in use by another application. Please make sure that you're not running other programs that access serial or USB ports, like PDA sync application, bluetooth device managers, certain firewalls, etc. Also, note that some programs (e.g. Max/MSP) keep the serial port open even when not using it - you may to need to close any patches that use the serial port or quit the application entirely.
If you get this error with Arduino 0004 or earlier, or with Processing, you'll need to run the macosx_setup.command, and then restart your computer. Arduino 0004 includes a modified version of this script that all users need to run (even those who ran the one that came with Arduino 0003). You may also need to delete the contents of the /var/spool/uucp directory.
Try installing the latest drivers from FTDI or contacting their support at support1@ftdichip.com.
Most likely because you are sending serial data to the board when it firsts turns on. During the first few seconds, the bootloader (a program pre-burned onto the chip on the board) listens for the computer to send it a new sketch to be uploaded to the board. After a few seconds without communication, the bootloader will time out and start the sketch that's already on the board. If you continue to send data to the bootloader, it will never time out and your sketch will never start. You'll either need to find a way to stop serial data from arriving for the first few seconds when the board powers (e.g. by enabling the chip that sends the data from within your setup() function) or burn your sketch onto the board with an external programmer, replacing the bootloader.
You have selected the wrong item from the Tools > Microcontroller menu. Make sure the selected microcontroller corresponds to the one on your board (either ATmega8 or ATmega168) - the name will be written on the largest chip on the board.
Check for a noisy power supply. It's possible this could cause the chip to lose its sketch.
Alternatively, the sketch may be too big for the board. When uploading your sketch, Arduino 0004 checks if it's too big for the ATmega8, but it bases its calculation on a 1 Kb bootloader. You may have a older bootloader that takes up 2 Kb of the 8 Kb of program space (flash) on the ATmega8 instead of the 1 Kb used by the current bootloader. If yours is bigger, only part of the sketch will be uploaded, but the software won't know, and your board will continually reset, pause, reset.
If you have access to an AVR-ISP or parallel port programmer, you can burn the latest version of the bootloader to your board with the Tools | Burn Bootloader menu item. Otherwise, you can tell the Arduino environment the amount of space available for sketches by editing the upload.maximum_size variable in your preferences file (see: instructions on finding the file). Change 7168 to 6144, and the environment should correctly warn you when your sketch is too big.
The ATmega168 chip on the Arduino board is cheap, but it has only 16 Kb of program code, which isn't very much (and 2 Kb is used by the bootloader).
If you're using floating point, try to rewrite your code with integer math, which should save you about 2 Kb. Delete any #include statements at the top of your sketch for libraries that you're not using.
Otherwise, see if you can make your program shorter.
We're always working to reduce the size of the Arduino core to leave more room for your sketches.
The microcontroller on the Arduino board (the ATmega168) only supports PWM/analogWrite() on certain pins. Calling analogWrite() on any other pins will give high (5 volts) for values greater than 128 and low (0 volts) for values less than 128. (Older Arduino boards with an ATmega8 only support PWM output on pins 9, 10, and 11.)
The Arduino environment attempts to automatically generate prototypes for your functions, so that you can order them as you like in your sketch. This process, however, isn't perfect, and sometimes leads to obscure error messages.
If you declare a custom type in your code and create a function that accepts or returns a value of that type, you'll get an error when you try to compile the sketch. This is because the automatically-generated prototype for that function will appear above the type definition.
If you declare a function with a two-word return type (e.g. "unsigned int") the environment will not realize it's a function and will not create a prototype for it. That means you need to provide your own, or place the definition of the function above any calls to it.
If you get an error like:
avrdude: Yikes! Invalid device signature.
Double check connections and try again, or use -F to override
this check.
it can mean one of two things. Either you have the wrong board selected from the Tools > Board menu or you're not using the right version of avrdude. Arduino uses a slightly modified version of avrdude to upload sketches to the Arduino board. The standard version queries for the board's device signature in a way not understood by the bootloader, resulting in this error. Make sure you're using the version of avrdude that comes with Arduino (source code).
Guide Home The text of the Arduino getting started guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License. Code samples in the guide are released into the public domain.