Something very odd happened that I can’t make sense of.
Existing project, a device that reports how far I walk on an outing. It is a Arduino Uno, serial GPS to Uno uart & LCD display. I’m using the Arduino IDE. The hardware is a 3" x 3" x 2" cube that I want to make smaller. End goal is running on a Seeeduino Xiao, same serial GPS & a small Oled display.
I stripped out the LCD code & brought the remainder up on the Xiao watching the GPS distance data on the IDE serial monitor, all good. Next I had to learn about the Oled display, brought that up on a ESP32 cause I had that library, then merged that with the existing project code. All is well, running fine. Next I modified the Oled library (IIC HelTec) to properly exist with the Arduino IDE and compile with the Xiao, OK.
Compiled & uploaded OK but just after a good upload the Com port disappeared and would not return (per Device Manager & Arduino IDE). Had a spare Xiao so I connected that one & the Com port re-appeared. As a test loaded another unrelated program and ran it on the second Xiao to assure all was well, it was. Uploaded the new project to the second Xiao and the Com port disappeared again never to return.
If you have thoughts on why this occurred I’d like to hear them.