Arduino Uno: avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding

Question

I have an original Arduino Uno board purchased directly from the official arduino website. I have used it successfully with IDE v1.8.5 on my Windows 10 laptop for various projects in the last 6 months.

Recently my laptop stopped working and I tried shifting the IDE to my old windows 8 laptop. I installed the latest IDE v1.8.8 on it. But whenever I am trying to upload the sample blink code to the arduino, I am getting the following - "stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding" error.

I have verified that the I have selected the right board - "Arduino/Genuino Uno" in the IDE. I can also see the driver installed in the windows "Device Manager" with COM3 as the port. I have selected COM3 as the port in the IDE as well.

Thinking that its a bit old windows 8 laptop, I tried installing the IDE on two other newer laptops (windows 7 and 10) along with the same troubleshooting steps as above. But unfortunately, same results.

I looked at the many links on internet and tried the following steps, but no luck so far.

• Resetting the board: It flashes the LED on the pin 13 twice which means the chips are ok and resetting the board. This where I think the board is functioning well.
• Tried using both "Upload" and "Upload using programmer" mode from IDE.
• Restarting laptops multiple times.
• Unplugging USB cable between laptop and arduino several times.
• Reinstalled arduino ide version 1.8.5 which was on my old laptop.

Do I need to choose Tools --> Programmers? I guess this is not needed as I am using USB to upload code, but please advice. What else can I try? Please help !!

Here is the complete error:

================================================================
avrdude: Version 6.3-20171130
         Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brian Dean, http://www.bdmicro.com/
         Copyright (c) 2007-2014 Joerg Wunsch

         System wide configuration file is "C:\Users\Anurag\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\arduino\tools\avrdude\6.3.0-arduino14/etc/avrdude.conf"

         Using Port                    : COM3
         Using Programmer              : arduino
         Overriding Baud Rate          : 115200
         AVR Part                      : ATmega328P
         Chip Erase delay              : 9000 us
         PAGEL                         : PD7
         BS2                           : PC2
         RESET disposition             : dedicated
         RETRY pulse                   : SCK
         serial program mode           : yes
         parallel program mode         : yes
         Timeout                       : 200
         StabDelay                     : 100
         CmdexeDelay                   : 25
         SyncLoops                     : 32
         ByteDelay                     : 0
         PollIndex                     : 3
         PollValue                     : 0x53
         Memory Detail                 :

                                  Block Poll               Page                       Polled
           Memory Type Mode Delay Size  Indx Paged  Size   Size #Pages MinW  MaxW   ReadBack
           ----------- ---- ----- ----- ---- ------ ------ ---- ------ ----- ----- ---------
           eeprom        65    20     4    0 no       1024    4      0  3600  3600 0xff 0xff
           flash         65     6   128    0 yes     32768  128    256  4500  4500 0xff 0xff
           lfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
           hfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
           efuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
           lock           0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
           calibration    0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0     0     0 0x00 0x00
           signature      0     0     0    0 no          3    0      0     0     0 0x00 0x00

         Programmer Type : Arduino
         Description     : Arduino
         Hardware Version: 3
         Firmware Version: 4.4
         Vtarget         : 0.3 V
         Varef           : 0.3 V
         Oscillator      : 28.800 kHz
         SCK period      : 3.3 us

avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions

Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.00s

avrdude: Device signature = 0x1e950f (probably m328p)
avrdude: reading input file "C:\Users\Anurag\AppData\Local\Temp\arduino_build_337690/Blink.ino.hex"
avrdude: writing flash (930 bytes):

***Writing | avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
######avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding***
================================================================

UPDATE 1: In the meanwhile -

• I also changed my USB cable.
• Tried on a MAC laptop as well.

No luck with these approaches as well.

I also tried the Arduino loopback test with my board and it is giving me positive results which suggests that my board is processing the data. May be the problem is only when uploading the code. I have updated my original post as well with these steps.

Still need help!

Thanks in advance,

Anurag

Answer 1

The output shows that avrdude (the uploading program) can contact your Arduino and is able to detect some settings. But as soon as it tries to upload it doesn't get the correct answers. Seems like the bootloader is damaged. Try to burn a new bootloader (you need an ICSP programmer for that, another Arduino with a special sketch and some basic hardware might do the job too).