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Troubleshooting

Drivers

After plugging in your board into the computer, make sure that the drivers for the SAMD21 are installed on your computer. For MAC OSX and Win 10, this should be done automatically once the board is plugged in. I believe this also applies for the more popular flavors of Linux as well.

If needed, you can download the Windows driver using the button below. You can find instructions for this process in the SAMD21 MiniDev Hookup Guide.

Double-Tapping Into the Bootloader

The bootloader is what allows us to load code over a simple USB interface. If you have bricked your board, try to upload code from bootloader mode. To manually enter bootloader mode, rapidly double-tapping the reset button (after hitting the reset button once, you have about half a second to hit it again). The board will remain in bootloader mode until power cycles (happens automatically after uploading code) or the reset button is hit again (once).

On the Turbo, the there are a clues to if it is in bootloader mode:

• RGB LED (on Pin 44) will be solid green.
• The D13 LED indicator will be a solid blue (might fade in and out a little).
• Charge indicator LED will be flashing constantly.
• Board will show up under a different COM port.

Dual Serial Ports

One global issue to be aware of is that each SAMD21 Board appears to your computer as two USB devices, and your computer will assign two different port numbers to your SAMD21 Board - one for the bootloader, the other for the sketch.

• Verify that you are selecting the available serial port for the board.
• If your computer isn't registering the board try double-tapping it into bootloader mode.

Serial Port Not Appearing in Port Menu

If your SAMD21 board is plugged in -- power LED illuminated -- but it isn't appearing in your Arduino port list, first of all, make sure you have the drivers installed (Windows computers only). Then follow these steps to see if you can get the port back:

1. Close all Arduino windows. (Don’t forget to save!)
2. Unplug SAMD21 Board from your computer.
3. Wait a few seconds for the device to be detached.
4. Plug SAMD21 Board back in.
5. Open Arduino back up, check the Ports menu again.

Upload Fails or Freezes

If a sketch upload is taking longer than usual, or fails entirely, try resetting into the bootloader and uploading directly there. If the SAMD21 is in bootloader mode, you may need to re-select your port -- this time selecting the bootloader port.

• Closing the serial monitor before uploading may also make for more reliable uploading.

Reinstalling CircuitPython

If you do your developing in Arduino, you'll find that after uploading your first sketch, the RedBoard Turbo no longer pops up like a removable USB device as it did previously. That's to be expected. In this section we'll walk through a few simple steps to getting CircuitPython re-uploaded onto your RedBoard Turbo.

1. Reset board to Bootloader

   We want the board to reset to the UF2 bootloader, which enables the board to act like a flash drive. To do that we'll double tap the reset button. Shortly after you do that, the board will pop up as a USB drive named TURBOBOOT.

2. Download and Drag CircuitPython Firmware

   Download the CircuitPython firmware below (also found in the GitHub product repository). Drag the contents named turbo-boot_cp.uf2 onto your TURBOBOOT USB drive and the USB drive should disappear momentarily only to reappear as a CIRCUITPY USB drive instead.

   CircuitPython Firmware (ZIP)

3. Re-install the CircuitPython Libraries (to get example code working)

   Download the CircuitPython library bundle below and then drag the lib folder over to the USB drive for the RedBoard Turbo. For more details see the instructions above.

   Download CircuitPython LIbrary