Pro Micro ATMEGA32U4 unable to upload

Question

I have a simple flashing led program that I want to upload on my pro micro (see image) but it doesnt work (see image: no port available, Couldn't find a Board on the selected port. Check that you have the correct port selected. If it is correct, try pressing the board's reset button after initiating the upload.)

I have successfully uploaded this program on my arduino uno.

Ive followed this guide for the drivers and more. https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/pro-micro--fio-v3-hookup-guide/installing-windows

Thanks for help

Answer 1

Your board will only present a serial port if the sketch that is running on it is programmed to present a serial port. The board does not have an actual serial port for communication with the PC - only what the sketch provides.

If the sketch doesn't provide one, or if the sketch isn't running (for example if it was compiled for the wrong board by accident) then you will never see a serial port.

Since the "normal" way of resetting the board to enter the bootloader (which does present its own serial port) is to open the serial port at 1200 baud, since you don't have one to open it's kind of hard to get to the bootloader. However, depending on what bootloader you have installed there are a number of options that can help you:

1. Briefly connecting RST to GND just before uploading may activate the bootloader for a few seconds.
2. Doing the above twice in rapid succession may activate the bootloader for longer (depending on the bootloader version)

Erasing the chip and reinstalling the bootloader is the only real way that is guaranteed to work, though. But that said, I have seen boards come out of China without any bootloader at all - so reinstalling the bootloader is always a good first option with cheap boards. You can use your Arduino UNO as an ISP programmer (using the ArduinoISP sketch and treating it like you're making a breadboard Arduino).

Answer 2

I have also problem with China boards, after 3 days of googling and trying get boards to work, I found out, that chip it self have difference.one chip is for bootloader from arduino micro, and one from lilypad arduino USB, it is about chip ID when arduino IDE is calling for upload sketch, thers are two 4bit id when it cals. And one is chip with cristal 16MHz lilypad arduino USB, and another version 8MHz Arduino micro, but board is it self looks like Arduino pro micro, Chip type have only few letters difference, if I will never find out that solution, if I will not have two chip comparisions .

Last row of numbers makes chip type difference and vendor id depends to what chip type we have. And what clock speed is using. And I see on the veb that many peoples have this problem to not be able to upload simple sketch because of that chip model.