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General MicroView Support area - You have questions, find your answers here.

Moderators: marcus@geekammo, Help@GeekAmmo

By swarmmaster
#173986
I received my MicroView unit this week and happened to attempt using it when the boot loader issue first got posted in the official threads around 8/20. I also purchased a USB programmer with my unit and I am connecting directly to the USB port on my PC running Windows 7.

My initial problem is that the demo code does not appear to run on my unit. It powers on and the Sparkfun logo is displayed on the OLED however that is where the unit seems to cease functioning. From what I gather the unit should step through the demo display sequence (lines, sprites, timers, etc) and then move on to test pins. My unit does not do this and remains frozen on the Sparkfun logo despite multiple resets/reconnects. Note that I have not yet attempted to power the unit directly through pin connections on the breadboard, this is through the USB programmer only. I have verified that it is correctly oriented and seated in the programmer.

When attempting to verify presence of the boot loader using the "getting started with microview" guide using the codebender plugin for Chrome the device is not detected on the suggested port after installing the FTDI drivers.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I will have more time tomorrow to power the unit directly on the breadboard but it seems odd that the demo code doesn't execute when plugged in to USB power.

Thank you,
SM
By swarmmaster
#174012
Update:
I have been able to successfully run the uView demo sequence using a different laptop for USB, as well by powering the uView pins directly with 5V on the breadboard. The Win7 PC still does not allow the demo to run when the programmer is plugged in, it is not yet clear why but i will update again if I can resolve that issue.
I was also able to verify the missing boot loader problem on my unit using the Arduino IDE and got the stk500_getsync error.
By Help@GeekAmmo
#174197
Hi swarmmaster ,

The Demo unable to run and bootloader issue are two separate problems.

1) The demo unable to run with just SparkFun logo being displayed is due under rare situations, the MicroView entered into testing mode and was waiting for test command. This can be easily be corrected by uploading the MicroViewDemo example in the library.

Since your bootloader is not working too, you will not be able to upload the MicroViewDemo example.

My suggestion is to wait for your replacement or alternatively you can follow the "how to fix your MicroView bootloader" using the following instructions

Installing a Bootloader on the MicroView - SparkFun

or

How to Fix Your Broken MicroView - Make:

Hope this helps.
By swarmmaster
#174243
Thanks for your detailed response. I'm happy to report that after getting my Uno dusted off and following the great tutorial from Alasdair Allan here: http://makezine.com/2014/08/21/how-to-f ... microview/
I was able to flash a bootloader to my microview and can now upload sketches. 8)

This is a fun device, thanks to the team and community for this great kickstarter! :clap: