Arduino Sync Error when loading code

Development Boards Arduino
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I have a homemade arduino built with the Atmega 328 with optiboot : https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10524

The board I built is essentially a copy of this board: http://itp.nyu.edu/physcomp/Tutorials/ArduinoBreadboard

The board was working fine but I stopped using it for several months and over the time forgot how to use it. I remember that the board required a manual reset, but I cannot remember if there was any special configuration with the Arduino IDE (which I had to reinstall). In other words, I am not sure if the preconfigured Baud rate of 112500 is correct for the optiboot bootloader. I also don’t remember if I needed to set the “programmer” in the IDE to something other than AVR ISP. Since the bootloader is already installed, I get the sense that I do not use this feature so do not need to change it.

Anyways, I connect my computer ot the FT232R and the lights light up, I’ve also done a loopback test on the FT232R and I am able to send serial data. However, when I connect it to the arduino and try to upload a program, the TX light on FT232R lights up but apparently the atmega chip is not sending data back because the RX light on the FT232R never lights.

As a result I get the following common error:

avrdude: Recv:

avrdude: stk500_getsync(): not in sync: resp=0x00

Clearly data isn’t being sent back from Arduino.

I have tried swapping out the Atmega chip with another one I had and I’ve tried swapping out the 16mhz crystal with another one I had.

I have spent hours reading online about this error and doing everything I can to upload a program but nothing works. I continue to get the sync error.

Please help give me suggestions on what I can try. I am not sure when or how to hit the reset button but I have tried at all points of the upload process.

What I can tell you is that the FT232R board seems to work fine since. I can tell you that the last program I have programmed the arduino board with is running fine. The problem is I cannot recode the chip because I am unable to upload a new program.

Thank You in advance for any help

I started to toy with it again yesterday and have since spent hours and hours trying to get around the sync error which reads:

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I discovered the problem more or less. Something seems to be bad with my breadboard so that data wasn’t being sent between the FT232RL and the RX pin of the arduino chip. In other words, it was a hardware issue.