USBASP under ubuntu problem.

[jhitesma]

Ok, I'm actually still waiting for my 9x, but since my plan for it is to install er9x and my programmer came today I'm trying to make sure it's going to be ready to use when my 9x gets here.

But I'm having problems getting avrdude to talk to the programmer.

The programmer is a USBASP as far as I can tell:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/270936857478?ss ... 9434wt_956

I made the udev rule as described in the wiki:

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SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="16c0", SYSFS{idProduct}=="05dc", GROUP="adm", MODE="0666"

That got rid of the first half of the error I was getting when not running as root with su.

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avrdude: Warning: cannot query manufacturer for device: error sending control message: Operation not permitted

It took a few tries of editing the udev rule and restarting udev before it worked...but that error is now gone whether I'm root or not. But I'm still getting another error even when running as root. I've done a lsusb and confirmed that the vendor and device ID are correct:

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jhitesma@acer-notebook:/etc/udev/rules.d$ avrdude -c usbasp -p m8
avrdude: error: could not find USB device "USBasp" with vid=0x16c0 pid=0x5dc
jhitesma@acer-notebook:/etc/udev/rules.d$ sudo avrdude -c usbasp -p m8
avrdude: error: could not find USB device "USBasp" with vid=0x16c0 pid=0x5dc
jhitesma@acer-notebook:/etc/udev/rules.d$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 005: ID 16c0:05dc VOTI shared ID for use with libusb
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0a5c:2101 Broadcom Corp. Bluetooth Controller

I've been searching AVR forums and google for a couple of hours now with no luck. Anyone have any suggestions? I'd try it on my windows machine except that computer suddenly reused to boot Monday morning and is asking for the windows install disk to do a system repair...but wouldn't you know it my CD drive died suddenly and won't even open. Swapped in a drive from another computer but it's still refusing to recognize the windows CD as bootable. (arrrgh, this is the 3rd time that computer has needed repairing off the windows CD but these drive problems are new and extra frustrating!)

I did find a few people who had similar problems with similar programmers but were able to get them to work by using a USB hub between the computer and the programmer. And I don't have any spare hubs laying around to try that with right now. I may go try it on my other linux box...but that one is way out of date and I don't want to spend a full day installing updates to get it able to run eepe. Thought just getting avrdude up and going probably wouldn't take as many updates....

[erazz]

Silly question, is it plugged in?
Try removing it and plugging it back in. Sometimes that helps to reset it.

Also, more than likely you have an old FW version on the programmer itself. No big deal, it still flashes fine but I have noticed that it will lock up from time to time. (It's also dreadfully slow because it can't set the SCK period)

[gohsthb]

My Smartieparts board will stop answering if it is plugged in for too long. I have one of Steven's first versions. My fix has always been to unplug it, plug it back in, and immediately try programming. Never seemed slow to me though.
-Gohst

[erazz]

The SM board has the new version of the FW....

Maybe it's an Ubuntu thing....

[jhitesma]

It is plugged it, but that's a good question as that was the source of my very first computer problem when I got my first printer back in the 80's Spent a whole afternoon trying to figure out why printshop on my commodore wouldn't print and was ready to ship the printer back to a replacement...then my dad got home from work and asked why I had unplugged it [facepalm]

It also wasn't sitting plugged in for a long time. I had to try several different times to get the udev rules right and each time I unplugged it then plugged it in just before re-testing. Even immediately after plugging it in it wasn't responding

I'm going to take it to work with me today and see if I can get it working on my windows machine there. But getting it working on my linux notebook (the one I've been trying on) is what I really was hoping for since that's where I'd most likely be using it the most.

Not a huge hurry though, just got the notice yesterday that my 9x shipped (HK USA warehouse) but I still don't have a tracking number so who knows when I'll actually see it.

[jhitesma]

I'm starting to suspect there may be an issue with this programmer....

Just tried it on my work computer (Vista Home Basic 32bit) Windows auto detected it as a human interface device and auto-installed a driver as such. But I don't see it in the device manager and avrdude gives the same error.

Any suggestions before I complain to the ebay seller?

[gohsthb]

Try running this command and see what happens, notice I am telling avrdude what port to look in:

sudo avrdude -c usbasp -P usb -p m8

-Gohst

Also what version Ubuntu are you using?

[jhitesma]

I did try with the -P a few times and was getting the same error. But that was before I got the udev rules working (at least I assume they're working since that first error went away when not running as root now.)

When I go home for lunch I'll give it a try with the -P again.

It's Ubuntu 11.10 I just updated on Sunday because I was on Lucid Lynx but eepe wasn't running because of the older version of qt (found a thread on here that solved that issue for me!) so I spent most of Saturday evening and all of Sunday installing updates and upgrades to get up to the latest version again. Still having a hard time adjusting to the new desktop in 11.10!

[gohsthb]

trying to run the programmer through sudo goes around the problem of udev. I am thinking first we can get it working through sudo, then we need to make it work as a normal user. If it still doesn't work run lsusb both with and without the programmer plugged in. Make sure that it disappears from the list. Also an AVR forum I read said to make sure libusb is installed (apt-get install libusb)
-Gohst

[jhitesma]

Yeah I've been a linux user since 1993 so I fully understand how running with sudo solves the permission "problems" (and can't believe how many AVR forums seem to suggest just running avrdude as root instead of actually fixing the permissions with udev correctly!)

That's why I'm really starting to think there's something wrong with my programmer since it gives the error even when running as root. (Just to be 100% sure I even tried doing a 'sudo su' to get a prompt as root and running it from there.)

I did run lsusb to confirm that it goes away when I unplug it. And I did try it on every USB port on the computer (watching the bus/device listed in lsusb change from port to port)

I also tried apt-get install libusb - and got an error about no such package. So I'm guessing I need to add a new source repository to get it but don't know what to add. So that could be the issue. I'll give it another try over lunch (in an hour or so) and see if I can figure out what's going on and if not post details of the actual errors.

[gohsthb]

When I get home I will look into this further. There I have my ubuntu system and my 9x. I should be more help in about 2 hrs.
-Gohst

[jhitesma]

Eating my lunch and trying a few things.

First I tried to install libusb with 'sudo apt-get install libusb' but got a "E: Unable to locate package libusb" error. (Yes, I did do a 'sudo apt-get update' first)

Remembered something I saw searching about libusb this morning and tried 'sudo apt-get install libusb-1.0' and that did work.

But still having the same problem. With and without the -P usb and both as root and normal user...all immediately after plugging in the programmer and confirming that it's showing up with lsusb:

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jhitesma@acer-notebook:~$ sudo avrdude -c usbasp -p m8
avrdude: error: could not find USB device "USBasp" with vid=0x16c0 pid=0x5dc
jhitesma@acer-notebook:~$ avrdude -c usbasp -p m8
avrdude: error: could not find USB device "USBasp" with vid=0x16c0 pid=0x5dc
jhitesma@acer-notebook:~$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0a5c:2101 Broadcom Corp. Bluetooth Controller
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 16c0:05dc VOTI shared ID for use with libusb
jhitesma@acer-notebook:~$ sudo avrdude -c usbasp -P usb -p m8
avrdude: error: could not find USB device "USBasp" with vid=0x16c0 pid=0x5dc
jhitesma@acer-notebook:~$ 
jhitesma@acer-notebook:~$ sudo avrdude -c usbasp -P usb -p m8
avrdude: error: could not find USB device "USBasp" with vid=0x16c0 pid=0x5dc
jhitesma@acer-notebook:~$ avrdude -c usbasp -P usb -p m8
avrdude: error: could not find USB device "USBasp" with vid=0x16c0 pid=0x5dc

Guess I'll spend the rest of my lunch break trying to get my windows machine to boot off CD so I can finish restoring it...

(FWIW - Lunch is the only time I have right now to work on my windows machine because it's in my office which is separate from our house. And between my wife's schedule and mine most of my "free" time is spent watching our 23 month old daughter...can't wait till she's a little bigger and doesn't need as much supervision so I can get more things done! )

[erazz]

libusb 1.0 ?

I thought that the current lib is 0.1-4

Weird, I'll also check when I get home.

[erazz]

In any case, it's worthwhile to install libusb-0.1-4 as well.

[jhitesma]

1.0 and 0.1 are apparently vastly different beasts. I wasn't sure which is needed so I tried 1.0 as the AVR forum I spotted that bit of info on suggested it for usbasp.

I just tried 'sudo apt-get install libusb-0.1' and it's showing as already installed at the latest version:

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jhitesma@acer-notebook:~$ sudo apt-get install libusb-0.1
[sudo] password for jhitesma: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Note, selecting 'libusb-0.1-4' for regex 'libusb-0.1'
libusb-0.1-4 is already the newest version.
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libgladeui-1-11 kdesudo libesd0 libkprintutils4 libknewstuff2-4
  wine1.2-gecko update-manager-kde libgnome-desktop-2-17 python-kde4
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

Really appreciate the help so far guys. Just wish my windows computer hadn't died so I could try it on there...but since it's Vista 64bit I doubt that would make things any easier.

FWIW - I know USB works on this notebook since I use it for adb on android devices and USB hard drives/flash drives and my Yubikey on a daily basis. Just to rule out one other possibility

The way the programmer was identified as a HID instead of as a USBASP on my windows box at work really has me suspecting that there's something funky about this programmer as all the info I've found about setting up a USBASP programmer on windows seemed to indicate that windows shouldn't recognize it and should prompt me for drivers. I also find it a little suspicious that the ebay listing had a link a "special program" to use with this programmer but no link to windows drivers...and the special program looks mighty suspicious...the readme in it is the worst chinglish I've ever seen (and I've seen quite a bit of bad chinglish lately with my 9958 heli and accucel-6!) and seems to warn to turn off anti-virus before use. It just doesn't seem to pass the sniff test to me if you know what I mean.

But still hopefull it's something I'm doing wrong and I can get it to work....don't want to have to wait to order another programmer when my 9x gets here

[gohsthb]

I found a way to get more information from your programmer.
Do an lsusb. Find the bus and device number and insert them into the following command
lsusb -v -s x:x
Here is what I got on my system

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sudo lsusb -v -s 4:4

Bus 004 Device 004: ID 16c0:05dc VOTI shared ID for use with libusb
Device Descriptor:
  bLength                18
  bDescriptorType         1
  bcdUSB               1.10
  bDeviceClass          255 Vendor Specific Class
  bDeviceSubClass         0 
  bDeviceProtocol         0 
  bMaxPacketSize0         8
  idVendor           0x16c0 VOTI
  idProduct          0x05dc shared ID for use with libusb
  bcdDevice            1.03
  iManufacturer           1 www.fischl.de
  iProduct                2 USBasp
  iSerial                 0 
  bNumConfigurations      1
  Configuration Descriptor:
    bLength                 9
    bDescriptorType         2
    wTotalLength           18
    bNumInterfaces          1
    bConfigurationValue     1
    iConfiguration          0 
    bmAttributes         0x80
      (Bus Powered)
    MaxPower               50mA
    Interface Descriptor:
      bLength                 9
      bDescriptorType         4
      bInterfaceNumber        0
      bAlternateSetting       0
      bNumEndpoints           0
      bInterfaceClass         0 (Defined at Interface level)
      bInterfaceSubClass      0 
      bInterfaceProtocol      0 
      iInterface              0 
Device Status:     0x0000
  (Bus Powered)

I wonder if yours matches this? And then I did an avrdude check and this is what I got:

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sudo avrdude -c usbasp -p m8

avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions

Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.01s

avrdude: Device signature = 0x1e9602
avrdude: Expected signature for ATMEGA8 is 1E 93 07
         Double check chip, or use -F to override this check.

avrdude done.  Thank you.

[erazz]

Looks OK to me.

[jhitesma]

I'll see what mine returns soon. I'm at the office for another half hour then have to pick up my daughter. If she lets me I may have time in about an hour to give it a quick try and see what that command returns about my programmer. If not it will probably be later tonight (I'm in AZ so it's 4:30 here right now, my wife doesn't get off until after 8 tonight though so worst case I wouldn't be able to try anything for about 4 hours.) But I have a feeling my girl will be good and let daddy spend a few minutes on the computer - she got to go to our county fair yesterday and an easter egg hunt today so I expect her to be pretty worn out

[jhitesma]

ok, yeah. Something is apparently not right with my programmer:

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jhitesma@acer-notebook:~$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0a5c:2101 Broadcom Corp. Bluetooth Controller
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 16c0:05dc VOTI shared ID for use with libusb

jhitesma@acer-notebook:~$ lsusb -v -s 3:3

Bus 003 Device 003: ID 16c0:05dc VOTI shared ID for use with libusb
Device Descriptor:
  bLength                18
  bDescriptorType         1
  bcdUSB               1.10
  bDeviceClass          255 Vendor Specific Class
  bDeviceSubClass         0
  bDeviceProtocol         0
  bMaxPacketSize0         8
  idVendor           0x16c0 VOTI
  idProduct          0x05dc shared ID for use with libusb
  bcdDevice            1.00
  iManufacturer           1 XWOPEN.
  iProduct                2
  iSerial                 0
  bNumConfigurations      1
  Configuration Descriptor:
    bLength                 9
    bDescriptorType         2
    wTotalLength           27

   bNumInterfaces          1   
    bConfigurationValue     1
    iConfiguration          0
    bmAttributes         0x80
      (Bus Powered)
    MaxPower              250mA
    Interface Descriptor:
      bLength                 9
      bDescriptorType         4
      bInterfaceNumber        0
      bAlternateSetting       0
      bNumEndpoints           0
      bInterfaceClass         3 Human Interface Device
      bInterfaceSubClass      0 No Subclass
      bInterfaceProtocol      0 None
      iInterface              0
        HID Device Descriptor:
          bLength                 9
          bDescriptorType        33
          bcdHID               1.01
          bCountryCode            0 Not supported
          bNumDescriptors         1

          bDescriptorType        34 Report
          wDescriptorLength      22
          Report Descriptor: (length is 22)
            Item(Global): Usage Page, data= [ 0x00 0xff ] 65280
                            (null)
            Item(Local ): Usage, data= [ 0x01 ] 1
                            (null)
            Item(Main  ): Collection, data= [ 0x01 ] 1
                            Application
            Item(Global): Logical Minimum, data= [ 0x00 ] 0
            Item(Global): Logical Maximum, data= [ 0xff 0x00 ] 255
            Item(Global): Report Size, data= [ 0x08 ] 8
            Item(Global): Report Count, data= [ 0x01 ] 1
            Item(Local ): Usage, data= [ 0x00 ] 0
                            (null)
            Item(Main  ): Feature, data= [ 0x02 0x01 ] 258
                            Data Variable Absolute No_Wrap Linear
                            Preferred_State No_Null_Position Non_Volatile Buffered Bytes
            Item(Main  ): End Collection, data=none
Device Status:     0x0000
  (Bus Powered)
jhitesma@acer-notebook:~$ 

[jhitesma]

Just to make sure I had the command right I tried it again after removing the programmer and got no results.

Guess this explains why my windows machine at work identified it as a Human Interface Device.

I'm thinking my best bet is to file a complaint with the ebay seller I bought it from at this point - anyone have any better ideas?

[erazz]

Does seem like it.

You know, HK are selling USBASPs for $4.75:
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/stor ... ssors.html

[gohsthb]

I wonder if you could flash the correct firmware if you have another programer. Maybe when you get the next one you flash the one you have and sell it.
Yes looks like it is not a real usbasp. Sorry to hear that.
Gohst

Sent from my LG-P999 using Tapatalk

[jhitesma]

Yeah, but I didn't want to wait and found a us seller with one for $11 shipped. I've been planning to get a battery and backlight as well so I may as well just place an order, just can't do it this week with the fair in town

Knowing myself though if I have to wait that long I may end up just end up hacking together my own.

Sent from my Incredible 2 HD using Tapatalk

[jhitesma]

I wonder if you could flash the correct firmware if you have another programer. Maybe when you get the next one you flash the one you have and sell it.
Yes looks like it is not a real usbasp. Sorry to hear that.
Gohst

That's what I'm thinking. I'm tempted to whip up a quick and dirty bit bang programmer and try to use that to reflash this one. I've got a few other things laying around that may be able to fill in as a programmer as well. I was king of wanting two programmers anyway so I could dedicate one to the 9x and use one for other things (like flashing kk boards and such.)

Guess I get to give my first negative ebay feedback.

[MikeB]

I believe the PonyProg is a method of using either a serial or a parallel port on a PC to program Atmel devices by bit banging, and AvrDude understands it.

Mike.

[jhitesma]

Yeah I'm thinking I'll just breadboard up one of these:
http://diy4fun.blogspot.com/2009/01/sim ... r-avr.html

The author of that page claims to have used it with a USB-Serial adapter and I've got a few of those laying around.

I just don't trust it for reflashing the 9x (which arrived today! Can't wait to flash it because the stock beep is driving me crazy trying to do anything!)

The "programmer" I got doesn't have a jumper to enable reprogramming itself, but I should be able to solder on a few wires and be good to give it a try. Even if the ebay seller requests it back I wouldn't send it because I could see it being some kind of scam to get people to plug a keylogger into their computer then send it back. For the money I spent I'd rather just try reflashing it even if I killed it in the process.

Just may not be able to do that for a few days due to time. But I think I've got all the bits to whip up that serial programmer on hand so with the sudden budget crunch of unexpectedly buying a new computer it will give me something to do until I can justify spending money on another programmer.

Thanks for the help guys. I'd suggest staying away from that ebay seller. I've alerted them to the problem but so far it doesn't sound like they want to admit there's a problem with it so I'm not expecting any kind of help from them. And for barely $10 it's not worth my time to chase after them. Rather just try and reflash it and make it useful myself

[rperkins]

I wonder if you could flash the correct firmware if you have another programer. Maybe when you get the next one you flash the one you have and sell it.
Yes looks like it is not a real usbasp. Sorry to hear that.

I got a couple of these usbasp
http://www.ebay.com/itm/USB-ISP-Program ... 0358378857?
one did fail. It was the crystal osc.

periodically it would hang and I reflashed one with the other with the official usbasp firmware. I think the firmware on these had an auto speed for less then 1mhz speeds. I gave that up for a more stable operation.

quote below taken from the manufacturer website at
http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=10052532429

An example: AVR microcontroller factory was a 1MHz internal oscillator circuit, then the firmware automatically with a lower speed download, its download program to be about 4K of about 3 seconds; for the same model using an external 12MHz crystal microcontroller, the clock speed up can support higher download speed, download the same program, the firmware automatically accelerated, the download only to be less than one second. The above experiment reflects the automatic speed control, customers can verify their own!

[jhitesma]

Well after going back and forth with the ebay seller all weekend they just agreed to refund my purchase price and not ask me to send the device back.

They still claim it is a USBASP but that they've "Modified it to improve it" and that it now only works with their special windows only software which has a filename made up of non-alphanumeric characters and has two readme files with chinglish warnings that you must disable all anti-virus before running. Yeah...like I'm going to trust that.

At least they made good and I get to keep the hardware so I can always try reflashing it down the road.

I'll be back soon though - either I'll find time to rig a serial programmer or I'll get another. Either way I've got a fire lit under me now that I've experienced the "joy" that is the stock 9x experience That beep! Ugh. Can't wait to get er9x on here!

[merinkumar]

yes I too have the similar device from ebay, and atlast it worked only with their specific software from the ebay, even that too dint work initially, after some communication they gave a link , and that did work, and i flashed by er9x at last !!!!!

https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?ci ... parid=root


thanks,
merin