Arduino Uno Boards "Forget" Win10 Hidden COM Ports

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Griffin65
 
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Arduino Uno Boards "Forget" Win10 Hidden COM Ports

Post by Griffin65 »

I have been struggling with Arduino for a couple of years - hobbyist and good and enthusiastic Adafruit customer! For a couple of days I've been having an issue, and I can't find any helpful Web suggestions. I have a batch of kosher Arduino Uno boards, and one-by-one, they have been "forgetting" their unique assigned Win10 Hidden COM numbers. Tools/Port dropdown no longer shows (e.g., COM10), just two actual unusable COM ports (Bluetooth dongles). At this point the board become unusable, I can't upload a sketch (board is not recognized at its COM port). I have swapped USB data cables, uninstalled/reinstalled the Arduino IDE. Win10 Device Manager shows the Arduino COM ports (Ports (COM & LPT)/View/Show Hidden Devices), except one I uninstalled as a test. I have a bunch of UBS connections for keyboard, mouse, printer, etc. that do not show as COM ports, but do show further down under Universal Serial Bus controllers. In Device Manager, the hidden COM ports (grayed) have prefexes ("Arduino Uno(COM5)") for Arduino Uno (1), USB Serial Device (2) or USB-SERIAL CH340. I would be grateful for any suggestions.

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blnkjns
 
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Re: Arduino Uno Boards "Forget" Win10 Hidden COM Ports

Post by blnkjns »

Griffin65 wrote: Fri Apr 14, 2023 5:41 pmI have a batch of kosher Arduino Uno boards...... USB-SERIAL CH340. I would be grateful for any suggestions.
There is the contradiction. Kosher boards have a 16U2 chip.
CH340 is known for trouble. USB randomness is a bit what you get for skimping.
You might as well look for Leonardo's, the weird thing of the UNO is that the sidekick of the 328 is the 16U2, which is half a Leonardo, so you can as well combine them into a single 32U4, hence the Leo is cheaper at Arduino.cc! It solves other problems like the UART pins 0 and 1 don't conflict with the serial monitor and the SPI pins are not wired to 10,11 and 13. Cheap clone leonardos also never run into CH340 issues as there is none. Only downside of the Leo is that if you are a bitbanging fanatic, it does not have a complete 8-bit hardware port on successive pins, but if you need that, you are probably having a MEGA already with 5+1 complete 8-bit ports.

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Griffin65
 
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Re: Arduino Uno Boards "Forget" Win10 Hidden COM Ports

Post by Griffin65 »

To: Blinkjns & Everybody
Thank you for your helpful comments on my Arduino Uno Win10 "extra" COM port issues (ongoing).
I have ordered an Arduino Leonardo for delivery tomorrow. Will report back after testing.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * *
The fix suggested by Carter Nelson in Adafruit/Learn on February 7, 2023 "Dude, Where's My COM Port?" (https://learn.adafruit.com/dude-where-s ... t?view=all) does not work for me with IDE 2.1.0 (current version) - specifically, with verbose/upload, the section "COM Port Not Showing Up Anywhere?", double-clicking the reset button Does Not force a reset, it simply says no correct Board COM Port combination has been selected, and terminates.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * *
At present I have six Arduino boards that have worked correctly for some time, but now only three can find a virtual COM port for their board, so I cannot successfully compile/upload a sketch on the other three, so they are dead.
WORKING: one Arduino Uno [unlike the next three, does Not say R3 on the board], one Elegoo Uno R3, and one Sparkfun Red Board.
NOT WORKING: three Arduino Uno R3 - IDE no longer shows their "virtual COM" ports in Tools.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * *
Win10 Device Manager [Ports (COM & LPT)] only shows two port: COM3, COM4, which show as Bluetooth SPP Driver, but View/Show hidden devices reveals five grayed-out COMx ports, three of which (WORKING, above) the IDE sees with the matching board, but does not see the other two (I uninstalled the third while testing).

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