Apologies if this is the wrong place to post this question.
Purchased an Arduino Duemilanove from SparkFun and it has been working well. Using Arduino 0017 (Mac OS) to program the device. Last night it all of a sudden stopped allowing me to program it. I had been working on some code and uploading successfully to it when all of a sudden it puked on me. The symptoms are:
When plugged into 5V (barrel plug) or USB the L led flashes incessently for several minutes. This eventually stops but restarts if I attempt to upload to it via the Arduino 0017 app.
I receive the following error in the Arduino 0017 app: “avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding”
The green power LED lights but I never see any TX/RX when attempting to upload.
Have I blown the boot loader? It was working great and then just stopped accepting uploads. The Arduino had not been touched/moved.
Thanks!
Greg
Tried on an Ubuntu box and with/without the “auto-reset disabling ~120 ohm resistor between 5V and Reset”. No change 
Guess I can pull the AVR 328 chip out of another working Duemilanove to verify if its a cooked bootloader.
Meh, swapped processors between a couple of Arduino Duemilanoves and the problem followed the AVR chip. So I guess I toasted my bootloader - yay - userland code can kill the bootloader. Sigh.
So I guess that it is time to buy a programmer that is capable of writing a new bootloader via the ISP connection. I mainly use MAcOS but do have Ubuntu and Windows machines around. SparkFun recommended the AVR ISP2 for max OS compatibility - any recommendations from those out there doing this?
Thanks!
Greg
Hi Greg,
that programmer will do the job just right. You will have to install avrdude in order to use the programmer from the command-line. But instead of installing avrdude you can use the avrdude that comes with the Arduino environment just as well.
Thanks! Ordered it last night 
I’m just confused as to why the bootloader went South. But to tell the truth since I have been playing with the Arduino I have been a bit uncomfortable not having a chip programmer. Came from the PIC world and have a programmer for that.
I’ve used AVRs with serial port bootloaders for years - never had one de-program unintentionally.
But yes, if one wants to do extensive AVR work, you should have a USB serial programmer (ISP) - Atmel’s. Not a clone from China. Better yet, a JTAG for breakpoints plus fast downloading.
Yeah, but my bootloader did go South (or so it seems). The only thing that I can think is that a write to a pointer somehow caused this. Its weird, avr libc seems to be buggy - wrote some code that should have worked but did not on the Arduino. Copied the code verbatim to an xcode project on the mac and it worked perfectly. I know that user code is not supposed to be able to touch the bootloader code but that is the only variable that changed…
Well I’ll have Atmel’s AVR programmer soon and won’t have to worry about toasted bootloaders again.
Thanks!
Quick question about the AVR ISP. When used with an Arduino board I assume that you do not apply external power to the Arduino (via USB or wall wart)?
Thanks!
In fact you have to power the Arduino all by itself. Other ISP’s like the USBtiny can be configured such that they deliver power to the board, yet this doesn’t apply to the mkII.
BTW, the mkII is sometimes awfully slow. If this should happen, you’ll have to manually fine-tune its serial clock via avrdude.
Thanks! So the mkII does not supply the needed power to flash the 328 on the Arduino board? I’m just going to be using it (for now) to write the Arduino bootloader so I don’t imagine speed will be a huge issue?
Thanks!
Greg
Nah, it’s not that slow 
It’s only annoying when you’re making frequent use of it. Anyway, no, it doesn’t work without an external power supply to the Arduino.
There’s a LED on the mkII that display its status. Once you connect the mkII, it will turn red, and only green once you supply the neccessary power to the board. Then you’re ready to go
EDIT: BTW, if you’re only using it to reflash the bootloader, that can be done from within the Arduino app, so that there’s no hassle fiddling around with avrdude and such.
Cool, thanks! Yep, and for now I just plan on controlling it from the Arduino app to restore the bootloader - hoping that is what the problem is anyway
Thanks!
Got my AVR ISP mkII in the mail yesterday and used it to revive my dead Arduino! Thanks all!
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