Can't get Serial output on my Mac using ItsyBitsy with BLE

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rtsandiego
 
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Joined: Fri Mar 11, 2016 3:38 pm

Can't get Serial output on my Mac using ItsyBitsy with BLE

Post by rtsandiego »

Hello!

I've just bought the Itsy Bitsy board with the nRF52840 chip (version 2). I use a Mac (13.2.1) and went through the steps for installing the CP2104 Driver (nRF52832) insuring that it wasn't blocked.

I can download the "Beacon" example program and it runs beautifully. I can connect/disconnect the "ItsyBitsy nRF52840 Express" device on my iPhone using the BlueFruit Connect App.

But for some reason, I cannot get my Mac to display the Serial Monitor output from the board. My Port shows "/dev/cu.usbmodem14101 (Adafruit ItsyBitsynRF5280 Express)". Selecting the Serial Monitor opens the serial monitor windows with "/dev/cu.usbmodem14101" shown on the top of the window. The baud rate is set to 115200, same as in the beacon program. But it's just blank. Actually, when I disconnect the ItsyBitsy board from my cable, the serial monitor window grays out, but otherwise no text is displayed.

Update - I downloaded the "Central_scan" program and get serial monitor output. But no output when I download the Beacon program? Hmm. I will look to see what the difference is between the two programs. In the setup portion of Beacon it is supposed to output a text line of "Bluefruit52 Beacon Example".

Update 2 - I resolved it. Very simple fix. I just uncommented the blocking wait in the setup and now its fine.
Very strange. I don't know why the blocking serial wait line was commented out in Beacon. Anyway it works now.

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adafruit_support_mike
 
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Re: Can't get Serial output on my Mac using ItsyBitsy with BLE

Post by adafruit_support_mike »

rtsandiego wrote: Tue Mar 28, 2023 7:01 pm Very strange. I don't know why the blocking serial wait line was commented out in Beacon.
If the board isn't connected to a computer with a USB cable, the blocking wait will hang indefinitely. We get occasional "my sketch stops working when I unplug the USB cable" posts about it.

You can write a more advanced wait loop that gives up and lets execution continue after a certain amount of time, but people like the one-liner.

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