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Grogster

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Location: New Zealand
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Posted: 05:11am 25 Apr 2018

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Hi folks.

I cannot make IPE connect to one of my MM chips, no matter what. I have tried all sorts of things.

MM2 170 chip in SSOP footprint. Pins 4 and 5 are NOT connected to anything else - they are reserved for the ICSP.

MM2 powered by on-board 3v3 regulator, PK3 set to NOT power the device.

All I get is this

message over and over:

EDIT: Text in image is a little fuzzy. It says:

Unable to connect to the target device.
Failed to get device ID.

If I use Rob's PIC32PROG GUI application, I can program the chip just fine, so I know the link wires etc from the chip to the ICSP are fine, or I would get an error message when PIC32PROG tries to re-flash the chip.

It's excrement like this, that made me jump ship to Rob's utility in the first place, but currently at least, Rob's utility can't READ a chip into a HEX file.

Rob?
Any plans for that?

Can anyone suggest why stupid

IPE is unable to talk to the chip?
I need to be able to READ the device into a HEX I can then use to flash other units.
This process works well, if you can get stupid IPE to co-operate.

EDIT: I see there is a newer version of IPE-X(4.15). I will download and reinstall IPE and see if that helps. 642MB of download, just to get the bloody IPE........
Edited by Grogster 2018-04-26

Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!

palcal

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Joined: 12/10/2011
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Posted: 06:00am 25 Apr 2018

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Do I detect that you are a little upset.
Paul.

"It is better to be ignorant and ask a stupid question than to be plain Stupid and not ask at all"

JohnS
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Joined: 18/11/2011
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Posted: 06:14am 25 Apr 2018

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IIRC pic32prog is a wrapper. Could the (command-line) program it wraps not be used?

I know that's not ideal, but hey if it works...

John

Grogster

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Posted: 06:30am 25 Apr 2018

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@ Paul: LOL!!!!

Yes, I was at the time I posted.

@ JohnS: Will look at anything really. Do you have a link for me to have a read?

Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!

Grogster

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Posted: 07:02am 25 Apr 2018

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UPDATE:

Well, after installing the latest update to 4.15, the PK3 now sees the chip and can connect and read it fine.

Crisis averted.

Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!

JohnS
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Posted: 07:03am 25 Apr 2018

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I don't think Rob posted the source code but I'll try some searches. If he did it will hopefully make it easier to figure what to try.

Maybe Rob will chime in...

I've not actually had a use for pic32prog (or IPE other than to try it a couple of times) and haven't generally wanted to read back a chip.

---

edit: just seen the latest post so will avoid the searches :)

JohnEdited by JohnS 2018-04-26

Azure

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Joined: 09/11/2017
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Posted: 08:01am 25 Apr 2018

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I have different problem with Microchip IPE (and IDE). I share your pain with IPE Grogster.

My notebook has a 4K resolution screen and this is one of a few apps that do not display properly. Here is what it looks like on my screen. I have tried several version up to current 4.15 optimistic that they will get it fixed.

Here is what the app screen looks like closer up. This is in advanced mode (normal mode has the same problems) most of the screen is not displayed and there is no way to access the bits that are not showing.

The problem is in their development environment which is based around netbeans. There are some supposed fixes but nothing I have tried so far fixes it. The latest netbeans is supposed to be better but the Microchip IPE and IDE are still using old verion.

My current solution is to dig out my old machine (a MAC) and move everything I need to that. So I avoid using either app even though I sometimes want to.

Grogster

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Posted: 08:09am 25 Apr 2018

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Can you change your screen resolution to something less then 4k for the purposes of testing? That would probably make it display OK. You would have to put the resolution back to 4K later, but that might be a work-around.

Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!

matherp
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Posted: 08:57am 25 Apr 2018

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Quote My notebook has a 4K resolution screen and this is one of a few apps that do not display properly.

Works fine for me on 4K. What is your display scaling - normally defaults to 150% for 4K and that is what I'm using

Azure

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Posted: 11:37am 25 Apr 2018

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Wonders never cease.

I just tried resetting everything again and it now works. With my normal settings (resolution 4K and scaling 300%).

@Grogster
I have previously tried changing the scaling many times on several different IPE/IDE versions, including reboots in between changes and every other tip I could find, none of them had worked before.

@Matherp
I usually run my screen scaling at 300%, it is the recommended setting and I find it makes emails and forum text readable. It is only a 13" screen so even 150% is still small (to me anyway).

I won't try to figure out why it didn't work before, I'll take it as working as is and leave it at one of the wonders of Win10 (maybe its a post for that long win10 thread).

robert.rozee
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Posted: 10:30am 26 Apr 2018

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JohnS said IIRC pic32prog is a wrapper. Could the (command-line) program it wraps not be used?
John

"P32P gui.exe" is a graphical 'helper' application, written in delphi and specific to windows, that launches "pic32prog.exe" with a set of commandline parameters based upon .bin filename and selected comm port. it looks like i've never got round to posting the source, but i am happy to - though it will not reveal anything useful i'm afraid.

"pic32prog" is a commandline utility, created by Serge Vakulenko, that supports a number of platforms (win32, linux, osX, etc). i created an extension to pic32prog (with a great deal of help from Serge) that allowed it to talk 'ascii ICSP' to an attached simple/cheap programming head based upon an arduino or (later) 1455.

those extensions work at a very low-level within pic32prog, and i only ever tested them for programming pic32mx devices. however, there is no reason why they should not support reading from a pic32. according to the pic32prog repository at github, the magic incantations are;

pic32prog -d ascii:comport -r file.bin address length

you'll need to work out the required address(es) and length(s) yourself. you may also need to make several different reads (for main flash, bootloader, and configuration bits) and assemble the resulting three text files together manually.

if someone can work out the exact magic incantations, i'd be happy to write a variant of "P32P gui" to automate the process.

cheers,
rob :-)

Grogster

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Posted: 01:02am 27 Apr 2018

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Yeah, well, we might need to do that.

Tried to read an updated MM firmware today with the latest version 4.15, and got exactly the same freakin' errors - again. So Microchip have not fixed this issue as I thought they had when I was able to read the chip the other day after the update. Mother-

EDIT: Tried another USB port from the one I normally use for the PK3, and this time it did work. Still seems a little flaky to me though.

Edited by Grogster 2018-04-28

Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!

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