mBot not running programs when connected by USB

#1

I would like to preface this by saying I unfortunately do not understand robots and coding very well. That being said, we got my son (8) an mBot2 for Christmas last year. We played with it for awhile doing very basic programming and then kind of forgot about it because…life. He has been trying to play with it again but we can’t seem to get it to run in live mode with the USB cable. We go to the mBlock program we had downloaded and hook it up with a USB to the MacBook, select connect and we get a popup in the program that says “Connected” but it won’t run any of the code in live mode or upload. The mbot runs the preset programs just fine. I can’t seem to find anything in the troubleshooting to help solve whatever issue we have. Any suggestions?

#2

@bca2216 The compiling server might be down. Does it accept uploads?

#3

No we can’t get it to upload either.

#4

Hi @bca2216,
Sadly, since yesterday, the makeblock compiling server (for mBot at least) has been down. You will not be able to upload codes again until they fix the issue.

#5

Sorry I wasn’t here, my power went out. I’m going to ping the address, see if I get packets back.

#6

Looks like the server is back up and running! You might want to try uploading again.

#7

Not for me! I’m still having trouble. I think they are working on it, and it keeps coming up and going down.
I’ll wait a bit…

Also, just getting packets back from the web socket won’t necessarily mean it’s working again, so be sure to upload a code to check for certain. :slight_smile:

#8

Looks like there is new blocks, but I just uploaded a program… on the online IDE.

image

#9

An mBot program? It’s the Arduino C server that’s down, I still have trouble:
image

#10

Hopefully it is back up when I get the mBot Ranger board…

#11

@bca2216 You may have to wait a bit before you could upload again, so do you have the ability to use themobile app?

#12

We’ve been trying to get it to run in the live mode or upload a code for about a week now. Could it have been a server issue that whole time?

#13

Not that likely, since I didn’t have problems until yesterday, but it could be the issue.
I contacted support about the server and we’ll see when they respond and fix it.

#14

I had problems that first time I rebuilt my robot, then it was good for like two days, now it’s gone. So it could be a server issue. How long have you had the robot?

#15

@bca2216 Wait- I might be misunderstanding. Does it accept the code, but it just doesn’t run it?

#16

I’m not sure what the difference is tbh. the robot turns on and can run the preset programs so it does some things. it will say that it is connected to mblock via the usb but it does not in fact seem to be connected because the robot does not seem to be accepting the code, I guess?

#17

I don’t know then. @CommandeR Do you know anything about this? The only conclusion I could make is you have a driver issue, or the mBot might be faulty. Does it upload in upload mode?

#18

It does not upload in upload mode either. I’m still waiting to hear back from MakeBlock support too. I really appreciate you trying to help us troubleshoot.

#19

Your welcome, it is what I am here for :slight_smile:

Makeblock support takes a little bit, they are a Chinese company, so they might not respond during the daytime. It might be faulty, there is nothing else I can tell you. Something might be getting corrupted in the memory chip of the CyberPi the mBot Neo uses.

#20

Sorry chaps, I’m not doing any mBlock programming at the moment, but I’ll try to connect to the server tomorrow.