One extra post this week. With a good reason. Because this week, I finally found the solution for one of the most annoying Arduino issues I had for a long time: the stk500 - not in sync error!
To upload to an Arduino, the Arduino needs a reset signal via the DTR pin on your FTDI cable. Otherwise the only cumbersome solution is manual pressing the reset button on the exact right moment. If the reset signal is not received at the right timing, the stk500 error will occur.
Because this really annoyed me, I bought the Sparkfun FTDI Basic, unfortunately I was never able to get the auto reset function working. I even reached out to Sparkfun via Twitter, but never received a good solution.
It all changed this week. When I received my beautiful cute MicroView I needed to install the FTDI drivers to get it up and running. … WAIT? WHAT? FTDI DRIVERS?! No one ever told me those existed!? But apparently they do.
Download the FTDI drivers here.
After installing these drivers, all my stk500 errors were history!
Looking back, this was probably one of the most stupid issues I ever had, and could have been prevented when I had used my brains … Just to make sure you won’t suffer the same annoying issue, I figured to share this embarrassing story and let you solve it with dignity.
