RP2040 Scorpio problem connecting

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jhenges1972
 
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RP2040 Scorpio problem connecting

Post by jhenges1972 »

This would seem like a really stupid post ...

I have been trying to combine playing a Happy Birthday Message for my sister, displaying a text message on an OLED screen and having Neo Pixels making cool patterns.

I had finally got the Music maker feather board and the OLED display talking together and I was happy.

The next stage of the project was to get a strip of NeoPixels working on the device.

So I did that and started with the strandtest sketch and got that working. Lights were blinking and the "red"ness was moving about!! I went to change the colors of the strands that I was using and attempted to recompile and upload the program and magically, nothing doing. It would not find the com port when it went to load. The com port IS visible in the device manager, it is selectable in the port selection on the menu. However, when the update command runs, it says the port monitor cannot find port COM8 to connect to. so NADA. Even when I try to load my original program with the music player and OLED code, I cannot get this device to load.

Here is the error message that I get:
Scanning for RP2040 devices
No drive to deploy.
Failed uploading: uploading error: exit status 1

I tried a different board (a plain RP2040 Feather, not a Scorpio) and it loaded just fine with the same cables, computer, etc (on COM5). I have turned off the power, rebooted the computer. I have done pretty much everything but stand up and turn around 3 times before sitting back down :-)

It would seem that once I upload a Neo_PXL8 program to the device, it will not load again...

[Just for completeness, I have the NeoPixels on a separate beefy power supply, so questions about the power supply "dipping" are not necessary. With two 18" strips, the current peaks at about 500 mA. Independent of that, even if I disconnect the NeoPixel strips, the device will still not load this program or any other program]

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jhenges1972
 
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Re: RP2040 Scorpio problem connecting

Post by jhenges1972 »

So it would seem that I have a "brick", albeit one that actually does something, just not what I currently want :-)

Once again, just for completeness, here are the actual steps I took to achieve the "brickedness:
1) I loaded the NeoPXL8\strandtest\strandtesk.ino sketch from the library
2) I commented out line 124 for the RP2040 Scorpio pins
3) I uploaded this sketch to my board and successfully watched the red lights scroll on the first string of LEDS.
4) Because I just wanted to see something different, I edited the program and swapped lines 141 and 142 to move the orange LEDS to the first position (Yes I realized that I could have just moved the clip lead to pin to of the output but...). I reuploaded the program and it also worked.
5) I went back and swapped lines 141 and 142 back to their original positions and tried to upload the program a third time and this is where I got into trouble and it would not upload.

So even after my Albert Einstein attempt to try the same thing again and expect different outcomes, I truly have come to the conclusion that this is not going to work. So I have some questions:

1) Is there a way to return the unit to its factory goodness? I am fairly new to this world so I am unaware of just how some of the menu options might get me out of this mess.
2) Assuming that 1) works, is there some explanation of what actually is going on here to avoid this whole mess again because I know that I am going to have to do "more than one compile/upload" cycle to get my project working.
3) I suppose that even if we don't find out the answer to 2), would I be able to repeat steps 1) and 2) to achieve my goals?

I am just trying to get this project done for my sister's birthday which is already 3 weeks late ...

Someone's help would be very much appreciated!!

Thanks

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adafruit_support_carter
 
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Re: RP2040 Scorpio problem connecting

Post by adafruit_support_carter »

Try manually entering ROM bootloader mode before uploading the sketch.

Hold the BOOT button while pressing RESET. A folder named RPI-RP2 should show up on the PC. There will be no COM port, but should be OK to leave that unselected in the Arduino IDE - it will look for the RPI-RP2 folder instead.

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jhenges1972
 
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Re: RP2040 Scorpio problem connecting

Post by jhenges1972 »

Thanks for that tip.

That worked. I had to do that originally with this part in order to get it to load as well. However, after I did that, it seem to respond to the COMx method of uploading until the other day.

The concern that I had/have with this approach is that it requires access to the boot button. This is not an issue with just a bare board, but with a MP3 player and a OLED display board plugged on it it means taking it apart.

After the board is running, can I use the Boot button as an input? I would want to parallel the boot switch with another off the board switch. I see from the schematic that it is connected to the the QSPI-CS (pin 52 on the schematic).If so, what would I call that as a pin command? It doesn't come out to one of the edge pins so it is not identified on the "pinout" picture. In addition to acting as an input for a switch, it would solve the problem expressed in the previous paragraph.

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Re: RP2040 Scorpio problem connecting

Post by adafruit_support_carter »

Yes, it can be used as an input.
https://learn.adafruit.com/introducing- ... in-3131612

Manually entering bootloader mode should generally not be required for a sketch upload. It's more of a recovery process. Try uploading the basic blink sketch after manually entering bootloader mode. After that - can you then upload blink again (change blink rate or something) without manually entering bootloader?

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jhenges1972
 
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Re: RP2040 Scorpio problem connecting

Post by jhenges1972 »

Well, now that works (just like it did a couple of weeks ago).

But when I tried that a few minutes ago, it did not respond to COM8 ... so I had to continue to use the Boot/Reset bit.

Very curious.

Why does it "lose" the ability to connect to COMx sometimes?

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jhenges1972
 
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Re: RP2040 Scorpio problem connecting

Post by jhenges1972 »

So after getting the COMx thing to work perhaps 20X, it is back to requiring UF2 loading again...

This is frustrating...

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Re: RP2040 Scorpio problem connecting

Post by adafruit_support_carter »

When that happens it's usually related to the sketch being uploaded. The sketch itself interferes with the soft reset done for uploading a new sketch.

Is it working reliably with repeated uploads of the blink example? If not, then it could be something else.

It's only losing the COM port when uploading a different / specific sketch? That'd indicate the issue described above.

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jhenges1972
 
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Re: RP2040 Scorpio problem connecting

Post by jhenges1972 »

It is with the same sketch.

It seems as though if I unplug the USB cable, everything seems to be reset and it works on COMx again. It is almost like there is something leaving the COM port connection in a bad state.

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Re: RP2040 Scorpio problem connecting

Post by adafruit_support_carter »

It is with the same sketch.
The blink sketch?

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jhenges1972
 
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Re: RP2040 Scorpio problem connecting

Post by jhenges1972 »

I was unable to find the "blink" sketch? Oh wait, I found it, but when I try to compile it, it says it isn't recognized by this platform (RP2040 Scorpio).

This result is with my sketch.

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Re: RP2040 Scorpio problem connecting

Post by adafruit_support_carter »

Sorry, should have specified. For blink, use the "built in example".

In the Arduino IDE:

Files -> Examples -> Basics -> Blink

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jhenges1972
 
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Re: RP2040 Scorpio problem connecting

Post by jhenges1972 »

So here is what my testing has found:

If I disconnect the board from the USB cable, the "COMx" action is restored and I can Upload the sketch.

If I press the reset button before trying to Upload the sketch, everything seems to work okay.

I believe I noticed this change when trying to use the "fire.ino" sketch. I have then taken that sketch and blended it in with my other elements and this "reset" effect has followed with it.

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Re: RP2040 Scorpio problem connecting

Post by adafruit_support_carter »

And just to be clear - that behavior is unique to the fire.ino sketch? It does *not* happen with repeated uploads of the Blink example sketch?

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jhenges1972
 
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Re: RP2040 Scorpio problem connecting

Post by jhenges1972 »

I did not try the Blink sketch because it wasn't supported by the RP2040 Scorpio platform and I didn't have time to research what it would take to do that.

I hadn't noticed this before I tried the Fire sketch. so I am guessing here.

But since I wrote the message yesterday, I have not had any trouble uploading if I pressed the reset button on the board before trying to upload. So it does appear to be something related to the reset...

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