Re: Atmel AVR development tools

On Jan 31, 10:51 am, dbvanhorn <microb...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Frustrated, not knowing where to turn with this.

I love theAVRprocessors. Very clean internally, nice to write code
for.

But, I am on the edge of dumping them due to severe problems with
their dev tools.
Some people seem to have no trouble with them, but I've been having
problems for years, which are inconsistent, unreproducable, and
totally productivity destroying when they happen.

The problems happen mostly in emulation with their ICE-50, Jtag Ice
(and someone's cheap clone) and with their new MkII jtag ice, as well
as their AVRISP chip programmer.

Different computers, including ones freshly scrubbed and rebuilt.
Different processors
Different date codes
Different cables
Different serial or USB ports
Different versions of Studio
Different target boards
Different clock sources, including the internal 1 MHz RC
Different VCC (within spec)

Common threads: XP Pro. AVRStudio (though different versions), Me.

Short version, neither they nor I can figure out WTF is going on.
I've seen it, in the past week, 1: Decide that all my code is NOPs in
sim. 2: Ignore CALL or RCALL instructions. 3: Ignore some LDI
instructions, but not all, just specific ones. 4: Totally refuse to
talk to the target chip with Debugwire. And tomorrow, it will
probably be different.

All that said, for months at a time, everything will be fine.

Any ideas?

It seems to converge on the the connectors. Have you tried
resoldering them?
Also PCBs have a tendency to fail (often intermittently) near
connectors.

HTH

Joseph2k
.

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