Feather M4 Express boot issue

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Lucina__
 
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Feather M4 Express boot issue

Post by Lucina__ »

Hi,
Windows no longer recognises my feather and featherBoot does not appear when I try to enter bootloader mode, which does not appear to be working as well.
I am also unable to uploaad any code to the feather either.
The only LED that operates normaly is the yellow charge indicator, the red LED and neopixel show no signs of working.
I have tried connecting it with different usb cables with the same result.
The only cause I can think of is that I used to run a strip of 60 neopixels with the feather, which caused it to generate a decent amount of heat(but no smoke).
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mikeysklar
 
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Re: Feather M4 Express boot issue

Post by mikeysklar »

Has the USB cable or USB port that you are using changed that you were using to communicate with the PC changed?

The soldering would not matter for what we are discussing, but it does need more flow around many pins.

Does your PC recognize the device being plugged whether bootloader or normal running mode?

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Lucina__
 
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Re: Feather M4 Express boot issue

Post by Lucina__ »

mikeysklar wrote:Has the USB cable or USB port that you are using changed that you were using to communicate with the PC changed?
Yes I tried 4 different cables on each of the USB ports I have available.
mikeysklar wrote:The soldering would not matter for what we are discussing, but it does need more flow around many pins.
I understand, but that was one of my first times soldering anything. My first time I ended up destroying the ground pin on an itsybitsy when soldering on the Lipoly backpack.
mikeysklar wrote:Does your PC recognize the device being plugged whether bootloader or normal running mode?
No, my computer does not recognise the feather in either mode. I have tried uploading the blink code to it through the arduino ide, but that also did not recognise the board.

I haven't used the board for a little while, and I discovered the issue when I wanted to change it from arduino to circuitpython.

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mikeysklar
 
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Re: Feather M4 Express boot issue

Post by mikeysklar »

Do you have any other controllers you can plug in to verify the USB cable and USB port combo you are using is good? Another option would be to try another machine Win/Mac/Lin if you have one.

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Lucina__
 
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Re: Feather M4 Express boot issue

Post by Lucina__ »

The only other microcontroller I have is an arduino uno, so checking with that shows that the USB ports are all ok. As for the cables I used they are ones that have worked in the past with the feather, and are all in good condition.
As for trying with another machine I have a raspberry pi, but I have the same issue there.

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mikeysklar
 
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Re: Feather M4 Express boot issue

Post by mikeysklar »

@harri9r,

On the raspbery Pi when connected do you see anything from dmesg or /var/log/messages when connecting? I'm checking to see if the USB detection only responds at all.

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Lucina__
 
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Re: Feather M4 Express boot issue

Post by Lucina__ »

From what I can see after checking dmesg trying multiple cables on all the ports is that it is only recognising my mouse and keyboard as USB devices, while failing to find anything on the other 2. As for /var/log/messages I tried to find out how to access that, but was unsuccessful.

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Lucina__
 
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Re: Feather M4 Express boot issue

Post by Lucina__ »

So, I have found the before mentioned itsybitsy M4, despite the ground pin being useless I verified that a couple of the USB cables I have been using work, as the board succesfully enters boot mode and programs can be uploaded.

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mikeysklar
 
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Re: Feather M4 Express boot issue

Post by mikeysklar »

@harri9r,

It sounds like you have a mostly dead M4 Feather.

We do have a process where you can try to manually load the bootloader from another device by using SWDIO pins. You could also use a JLINK programmer as a last resort. Even those devices have their limitations.

https://learn.adafruit.com/programming- ... an-arduino

https://www.adafruit.com/product/3571
https://learn.adafruit.com/how-to-progr ... s/overview

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Lucina__
 
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Re: Feather M4 Express boot issue

Post by Lucina__ »

Thanks for the help, I will try some of the solutions you offered later.

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