Pyportal Titano CIRCUITPY Drive Does Not Appear Moderators: adafruit_support_bill, adafruit

[zeek247]

Hello,

When I first booted up the pyportal it showed a boot error on the display and it was undiscoverable by my computer, unfortunately I wasn't smart enough to write down what it said. I then booted it into its bootloader and loaded the latest circuit python. The red LED rapidly pulsed while the file transfer was occurring, then the neopixel flashed yellow and turned off (if I reset the board this would just repeat), at no point was my computer able to detect the board was connected outside of the bootloader. I then attempted to update the bootloader, this caused the red led to pulse slowly and the board to boot back into bootloader, but I was still unable to find the board outside of the bootloader. I proceeded to trying a couple of other circuitpy versions (5.4.0, 6.0.1, and 6.1.0) all to no avail. I followed the erasure procedure using the erasure.uf2 file, and this caused the board to be discoverable as an available com port and to also show up in my connected devices as Adafruit Pyportal M4, but still no circuitpy drive mapped, when on this would also cause the neopixel to stay steady red. Please note after the original boot error the display hasn't displayed anything. After the computer was able to recognize it as an available com port I was able to load a blinking program onto the baord using Arduino IDE, but after (or before) performing the erasure procedure I was unable to see the circuitpy drive. I'm using windows 10, and I have checked for any installed anti-virus software, but I don't have anything installed at the moment.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Dimitri

[adafruit_support_carter]

Let's start by verifying that you are still able to get into bootloader mode and get the BOOT folder to show up?

[zeek247]

Yes I can still get into the bootloader, and attempt to load different firmware to the board. That part hasn't changed.

[adafruit_support_carter]

OK, that's good. It means the board is OK, we just need to figure out what's going on with the firmware / software.

Just to make sure, where you downloading the CircuitPython UF2 firmware from here?
https://circuitpython.org/board/pyportal_titano/

[zeek247]

Yup, and for the older/newer beta versions I used the link to your guys' github.

[adafruit_support_carter]

OK, so it seems like you're doing everything correctly. So could be something like this:
https://learn.adafruit.com/welcome-to-c ... 3004181-14
but you've checked for that.

You've also tried the erase procedures to deal with a possibly corrupt file system, which seemed to have some success:

I followed the erasure procedure using the erasure.uf2 file, and this caused the board to be discoverable as an available com port and to also show up in my connected devices as Adafruit Pyportal M4, but still no circuitpy drive mapped

The erase procedure also erases the CircuitPython firmware. Did you reinstall it when you tried this process? Steps 6 and 7:
https://learn.adafruit.com/welcome-to-c ... 2978458-27

[zeek247]

If I do reinstall the firmware post erasure my computer doesn't recognize it as an available device (ie it doesn't see the com port), but if I don't it will recognize it, but wont map the circuitpy drive.

Maybe this means the firmware isn't installing, or is corrupted during installation causing it to hang on bootup, but be recognized as a device when there isn't any firmware to boot from (ie after erasure)?

[adafruit_support_carter]

After the erasure, you should get the BOOT folder. Then you drag the CircuitPython firmware .UF2 file to that folder. No com ports are used.

[zeek247]

That is what happens, but if I reset the board without adding the UF2 it will show up as an available com port. However if I do add the UF2 file and allow it to load, it doesn't show up at all, no recognized com port, and no mapped drive. The only time I used the com port was to see if I could load an Arduino IDE blink program to the board which was successful. Outside of that I have just checked to see if the computer even sees a device is connected.

[adafruit_support_carter]

That is what happens, but if I reset the board without adding the UF2 it will show up as an available com port.

That was the probably the com port associated with the bootloader. You should have gotten the BOOT folder again in this case.

However if I do add the UF2 file and allow it to load, it doesn't show up at all, no recognized com port, and no mapped drive.

This sounds like the erase didn't actually work. There isn't a Titano specific one available here:
https://learn.adafruit.com/welcome-to-c ... 2978458-27
so maybe that is the case. See below for what to try next.

The only time I used the com port was to see if I could load an Arduino IDE blink program to the board which was successful.

Yep. Arduino sketches won't be trying to access the file system like the CircuitPython firmware is trying to do. That's why this worked. And you can upload an Arduino sketch with nothing but the bootloader installed on the board.



OK - Let's see if we can get the board into safemode. Copy the CircuitPython firmware to the board again. It will reset and you'll be back to seeing nothing again. Then, try the reset button procedure described here:
https://learn.adafruit.com/welcome-to-c ... 3080804-63
along with paying attention to the NeoPixel color. It's a bit of a dance, so may need to try several times. If you are successful, you'll get the pulsing yellow NeoPixel that indicates running in safemode.

Can you get the pulsing yellow NeoPixel along with a com port showing up?

[zeek247]

I loaded the erasure U2F which caused the PORTALBOOT to show again, then I loaded the circuitpy 6.0.1 U2F, and this caused the board to flash red on the led near the plug-in, then yellow on the status neopixel then both lights go out; So far nothing new. As for booting into safemode, I reset the board then attempted to push the reset button once I saw the yellow light, this caused the red led near the plug-in to light up again before both leds went out (this leads me to believe I'm just resetting the board twice in a row, not getting into safemode). I've played around with timing, but whether I push it as soon as the status light goes yellow or wait until its just about to go out I can't get it to pulse. Unless I'm doing something wrong it doesn't appear I can enter safemode.

[adafruit_support_carter]

There's a chance this could still be some 3rd part software interfering on the Windows machine, even though you checked. If you have a second computer, even a Raspberry Pi, to double check with, that would help.

But continuing with the attempts to clean up the file system, I've attached a special UF2 you can use. This one has been built for the Titano. The process is same as before - get into bootloader, drag this UF2 to BOOT folder, then after it resets, reinstall CircuitPython firmware using the UF2 downloaded from circuitpython.org.

titano-6.0.1-CIRCUITPY-erase-DANGER.uf2

(986.5 KiB) Downloaded 1 time

[zeek247]

I've checked to see if the pyportal would launch the circuitpy drive on 3 separate windows 10 computers and a ubuntu computer with no changes. I've also attempted to load the special U2F file you provided and then install Circuit python 6.0.1 from the website, but again no changes from the prior behavior (including not being able to access safemode).

[adafruit_support_carter]

Weird. OK, I think this board just has something going on. Thanks for trying all these tests. Let's just replace it.

Send an email to support@adafruit.com with a link to this thread and your order number and they can send you a replacement Titano.

[zeek247]

Thank you for your help!