PyPortal Titano Recently Stopped Functioning

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mthrfcknruckus
 
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PyPortal Titano Recently Stopped Functioning

Post by mthrfcknruckus »

My PyPortal Titano recently stopped functioning. On boot, it displays the Python logo along with scrambled characters like !#+) before blanking. The CIRCUITPYTHON drive is not visible on my host machine as before. PORTALBOOT does display after clicking reset twice, but any attempt to load a UF2 file results in the
process hanging for a few seconds followed by an error "0x00701B1: A device which does not exist was specified". I'm unable to find anything helpful on the forums and am worried I inadvertently bricked my PyPortal somehow. The
following video details the issue: https://youtu.be/DvvPpUNEmAU.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Order Number : 2957620-9824353829 placed 11/10/2022
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2023-03-04 10_07_33-PyPortal Titano Issue 002.png
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2023-03-04 10_07_33-PyPortal Titano Issue 001.png
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danhalbert
 
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Re: PyPortal Titano Recently Stopped Functioning

Post by danhalbert »

This might be occurring for several reasons. Sometimes various Windows utilities can interfere with copying to the BOOT drive. See https://learn.adafruit.com/welcome-to-c ... ed-3047716, about Western Digital software that causes this problem. Also see the item above it, about various disk utilities and anti-virus software that can cause problems.

If the above does not seem to be true, if you leave the board alone for 15-30 seconds, does it restart spontaneously? It's possible certain settings (called "fuses") on the board were reset, causing it to do a watchdog-timer rest every 16 seconds or so. (This is not related to CircuitPython).

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mthrfcknruckus
 
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Re: PyPortal Titano Recently Stopped Functioning

Post by mthrfcknruckus »

Thanks for the reply and the insight on the Western Digital bug. I am trying with multiple Windows and Linux devices (I usually just have it plugged into a portable LiPo cell). The result is usually some form of "USB device not recognized" but I will let you know if I see any changes. I haven't seen any kind of spontaneous restarts lately, but when I had the PyPortal running daily I remember some incidents that could absolutely be related to fuses being reset.

I am thinking the characters displayed at boot may be debug strings of some kind? Curious if anyone has seen these (they're too short and I haven't turned up anything w/ Google). Thanks again for the help and will keep you posted on troubleshooting.

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danhalbert
 
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Re: PyPortal Titano Recently Stopped Functioning

Post by danhalbert »

Those are not debugging strings, but the fact that they are recognizable characters means something is writing the correct pixels to the display to display characters. What program was running on the board before it started acting up?

Following up on double-click reset: does the BOOT drive appear on on all systems you try it on (Windows and Linux)? Are you able to copy a UF2 file to the board on Linux?

Are you able to connect to the board with a terminal program, like Tera Term (WIndows) or Mu or tio (Linux)? Do you see anything being printed after reset is pressed?

It is possible that the internal flash or external flash is failing in some way, but that would be unusual.

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mthrfcknruckus
 
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Re: PyPortal Titano Recently Stopped Functioning

Post by mthrfcknruckus »

I was usually just running a slideshow, but sometimes PyCalc or weird things like this: https://learn.adafruit.com/twin-peaks-l ... e?view=all

I do see the BOOT drive appear sporadically on my Windows 10 and 11 PCs, but unfortunately my deck running Debian doesn't even recognize it: https://youtu.be/V4wuqVXdcfk

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mthrfcknruckus
 
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Re: PyPortal Titano Recently Stopped Functioning

Post by mthrfcknruckus »

to append this post, per the screenshot I am able to see the PyPortal running the command

Code: Select all

lsusb | grep "PyPortal"
. The device just isn't showing up as a mounted drive on the desktop nor is it visible in /media/user.
2023-03-13 16_01_59-Window.png
2023-03-13 16_01_59-Window.png (66.98 KiB) Viewed 40 times
When attempting to copy a UF2 to the device, the progress appears to complete and PORTALBOOT disappears. The problem is, from this point I can't get the PyPortal to boot normally. Pressing reset results in the green LED but nothing on the display, while double pressing reset brings up PORTALBOOT again.

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