Arduino Mega Pro Download Error

Development Boards Arduino
1

Hello, I have had my Arduino Mega Pro for just over a week now and I still havent been able to download code to it. I am using Arduino IDE 0023 on a mac (but I’ve tried downloading code through windows too, same issue arises) and attempting to download through a pair of series 1 XBee pro units (which work perfectly downloading code to my regular Arduino pro). When I hit download in the Arduino IDE the light on the board flashes and the board resets but then it just starts giving me an error and will not stop until I force the Arduino IDE to close or remove the USB cable from my computer. The error I keep on getting is as follows:

avrdude: Send: . [1b] . [01] . [00] . [01] . [0e] . [01] . [14] 
avrdude: ser_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_2_ReceiveMessage(): timeout

Any suggestions or help would be greatly appriciated.

Thanks!

2

Quick/silly question - have you got the board type in the IDE drop down menu set correctly?

I think you’d get a “wrong processor” error, but still, worth checking :slight_smile:

3

Unfortunately I do not think that that is the issue. I installed the board files in the hardware directory as the readme.text instructed me to. Then I selected it in the drop down. Thanks for the suggestion though!

Any other suggestions?

4

I have same problem.

I heard that they say that the bootloader is faulty from other forums.

So I did try to upload new bootloader, but the bootloader on the link on the product page doesn’t seems like for atmega2560 it named like it would be the one for atmega644.

But I get the bootloader named like for atmega2560_8Mhz from comment of Mega Pro 3.3V product page. But I can’t upload the bootloader

I want sparkfun guys upload the right bootloader and reprogramming guide

And correct the Mega Pro 3.3V product page. Wiring doesn’t support this board.

5

Did this ever get solved? I ordered two Arduino Mega Pro 3.3’s and I am completely dead in the water due to this issue. I even tried to use the exact Arduino build they used, no luck. So probably a bootloader issue?

The problem is, there still is no bootloader image on the page.

6

on my second board, same problem. got my first mega pro about a month ago, got the timeout error right out of the box. contacted tech support and they shipped me a new board, got it yesterday and having the same exact issue. i’m ready to try flashing the bootloader with arduino ISP and a duemilanove, but i don’t know how to do that and haven’t been able to find a clear solution anywhere.

this is pretty frustrating, i need those hardware serial ports and extra pwm pins to continue work on my senior project, and i’m running out of free time to work on it =/

7

Well I’ve been talking to tech support for a while and still haven’t figured anything out. Although I have noticed that the bootloader file on the product page is incorrect, it is labeled ATmega644. I did however find a link to the ATmega2560v Arduino Mega pro bootloader file in a link on the product page if anyone has the capabilities to upload it to the board. http://code.google.com/p/wiring/downloa … o-8MHz.hex I will try to get a setup working to reflash the board to this, but if anyone else would like to try fell free to, it may take me a while to get it working :confused:

8

I sent an email to tech support over the weekend, but I haven’t heard back yet.

As a long time customer since 2005, I have not seen anything like this before from SparkFun. Stuff has, for the most part, worked. Any issues were rectified promptly. I have tight deadlines, and I have always been able to rely on them in the past.

For $60, and a product labeled “Pro”, I just expected it to have a working bootloader and most of the hardware bugs worked out. Or even a broken bootloader with a link to where to find the one they intended to use. This is why i don’t just buy crap from china instead. I’ll gladly pay for quality.

9

SparkFun might have an OSX fix for this tomorrow. However, they are on the path that users are putting the board files in the wrong location. I am putting it inside the application, so i am not sure what i would be doing wrong. They say the boards work fine in windows. I will have to borrow a windows PC tonight and see if its the case with my 2 boards.

10

I’ve tried this on a window’s computer and the same problem happens. I simply add the “mega_pro_3.3V” folder directly to the “hardware” folder in the application as stated and I get the same error (slightly different notation) on a windows machine as I get on my Mac. This leads me to believe that it isn’t a Mac issue, rather a bootloader issue. This is because it would appear the bootloader isn’t responding and the bootloader file they have uploaded on the board files is the wrong one. So I think, somehow by some mistake, they may have flashed the boards with the wrong bootloader. But like I said previously there is a link to the actual link in the product comments and in my previous comment, but I do not have the tools to reflash my board and Sparkfun wants me to send it to them to have it checked for bootloader issues.

11

I am a bit nervous to put on a “random” binary without more guidence. Also, is the wiring bootloader the same as arduino?

12

I’ve never gotten my Arduino to work with my Mac. Ever. I had to dig out the crusty Windows laptop to develop for it. Anything that involves the use of Java, serial ports, and the Mac OS is always asking for trouble.

13

Good point. And I do think that they would be because they both use avrdude so that’s all it needs to communicate with.

14

Just got an email from support about the same problem:

“Sorry about that, we just realized this was an issue, it seems that it doesn’t want to work with MacOS or linux, but we haven’t had any complaints with windows yet. We are working on figuring it out, and should hopefully have a solution up in the next couple of days.”

15

my latest reply from tech support:

“Sorry about that, it looks like we’ve gotten a few more complaints about this board and it looks like there are compatibility issues with MacOS and Linux. We haven’t had any issues with them on Windows and we’re trying to figure out the MacOS/Linux issue. We should have an answer soon and will let you know.”

i’m running out of precious winter break time to work on this project, so i ordered a seeeduino mega from nkc/amazon. got it today and it works, imagine that. i love sparkfun, but i’m pretty disappointed by this =/

16

I don’t really see how the platform is relevant, unless the board files have some sort of very specific windows dependency.

17

I dropped by one of the hacker spaces (Metrix in Seattle) to see if anyone else could make sense out of this issue.

I found someone with windows. While the board definitions are tricky to install, once we were able to silence the compile errors, we were able to build “blink” for the arduino mega pro 3.3. The compile errors are due to the fact that the core files are specific to arduino 18. All you need to do is install the newest core and overlay any of the files in the core provided in the archive that it complains about (usually its arduino pinouts, etc).

As expected, two OSX machines and a linux machine had the typical avrdude timeouts.

My theory is that when the bootloader was adapted to 8MHz 3.3V, it developed some serial timing issues, and due to the screwy way Windows serial ports operate, it is tuned specifically to that operating system.

18

The product page should be updated shortly with a new boards definitions file that will fix the compile errors in arduino 1.0. Windows is fine, but as for the linux and mac issues, we are seeing the same thing in both the Arduino IDE and Wiring IDE. We are working on a solution. Thanks for the patience.

19

Humm… :\ I seem to still be having problems with downloading code to my Mega Pro on my completely windows computer running Vista. I get the same timeout errors but they happen further in the download. I get the same errors both in Arduino v 18 and v 23. Only one time I have received the error complaining about the missing files. Am I doing something wrong? I simply insert the “Mega_Pro_3.3V” folder right into the “hardware” folder in the Arduino IDE folder. Is that right?

20

We have not seen issues on Windows machines using Arduino 0022. The ‘Board Definition File’ on the product page is configured for Arduino 0022. I am not sure if 0018 or 0023 will work.

Overall, Wiring 1.0 (http://wiring.org.co/) and Windows is probably the best option right now. You can follow the instructions here to get the Mega Pro 3.3V working with Wiring:

http://wiki.wiring.co/wiki/SparkfunHardware

FYI, Wiring is basically the same thing as arduino. you can write the same sketchs and include libraries in the same way. The Arduino IDE is actually based on the Wiring IDE.

I hope the linux/mac issue will be worked out shortly, it’s probably something obvious I am missing. Keep an eye on the product page for any updates.