Attiny85 usbasp programming - works on Arduino IDE, fails on PlatformIO

marcosjl31 · October 14, 2020, 8:02pm

Hi
I’m trying to upload basic blink code to attiny85 using a cheap USBasp programmer (from China).
Here is my platfomio.ini config :

[env:attiny85]
platform = atmelavr
board = attiny85
framework = arduino
board_build.f_cpu = 1000000L
upload_protocol = usbasp
upload_flags = 
    -Pusb
    -v

It does not work. Error messages is :

avrdude: error: program enable: target doesn't answer. 1 
avrdude: initialization failed, rc=-1

If I use ‘-F’ option, avrdude complains about bad signature of the chip ?!

I’ve tried Arduino IDE to program attiny85 (using ATtinyCore) and I was able to succesfully program it several time (to change delays for example).

Any help appreciated.
Rgds
José

maxgerhardt · October 14, 2020, 8:16pm

With the exact same programmer and wireup?

Also, can you show a screenshot of your Arduino IDE configuration (board, programmer, …).

marcosjl31 · October 14, 2020, 8:37pm

Yes : no change to wiring of usbasp and attiny85 on breadboard

maxgerhardt · October 14, 2020, 8:46pm

Hm I don’t really see much difference between the Arduino IDE invocation and the PlatformIO invocation for that platformio.ini.

For Arduino IDE:

avrdude -CC:\Users\Maxi\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\ATTinyCore\hardware\avr\1.4.1/avrdude.conf -v -pattiny85 -cusbasp -Uflash:w:C:\Users\Maxi\AppData\Local\Temp\arduino_build_698574/Blink.ino.hex:i

For PlatformIO:

avrdude -Pusb -v -v -p attiny85 -C C:\Users\Maxi\.platformio\packages\tool-avrdude\avrdude.conf -c usbasp -e -D -U flash:w:.pio\build\attiny85\firmware.hex:i

Can you change the upload_flags value to not include -P and retry?

Also upload full “Verbose Upload” log from PlatformIO and Arduino IDE (activatable in File -> Settings -> Tick box for “Upload” )

marcosjl31 · October 15, 2020, 12:50pm

Hi (and thanks for the support !)

Let me mentioned that I’m using Arduino IDE 1.8.13.

This is Arduino verbose output :

 avrdude: Version 6.3-20190619
         Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brian Dean, http://www.bdmicro.com/
         Copyright (c) 2007-2014 Joerg Wunsch

         System wide configuration file is "/home/marcosjl/.arduino15/packages/ATTinyCore/hardware/avr/1.4.1/avrdude.conf"
         User configuration file is "/home/marcosjl/.avrduderc"
         User configuration file does not exist or is not a regular file, skipping

         Using Port                    : usb
         Using Programmer              : usbasp
         Setting bit clk period        : 5.0
         AVR Part                      : ATtiny85
         Chip Erase delay              : 400000 us
         PAGEL                         : P00
         BS2                           : P00
         RESET disposition             : possible i/o
         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    12     4    0 no        512    4      0  4000  4500 0xff 0xff
           flash         65    12    32    0 yes      8192   64    128 30000 30000 0xff 0xff
           signature      0     0     0    0 no          3    0      0     0     0 0x00 0x00
           lock           0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  9000  9000 0x00 0x00
           lfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  9000  9000 0x00 0x00
           hfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  9000  9000 0x00 0x00
           efuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  9000  9000 0x00 0x00
           calibration    0     0     0    0 no          2    0      0     0     0 0x00 0x00

         Programmer Type : usbasp
         Description     : USBasp, http://www.fischl.de/usbasp/

avrdude: set SCK frequency to 187500 Hz
avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions

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

avrdude: Device signature = 0x1e930b (probably t85)
avrdude: NOTE: "flash" memory has been specified, an erase cycle will be performed
         To disable this feature, specify the -D option.
avrdude: erasing chip
avrdude: set SCK frequency to 187500 Hz
avrdude: reading input file "/tmp/arduino_build_626466/Blink.ino.hex"
avrdude: writing flash (636 bytes):

Writing | ################################################## | 100% 0.49s

avrdude: 636 bytes of flash written
avrdude: verifying flash memory against /tmp/arduino_build_626466/Blink.ino.hex:
avrdude: load data flash data from input file /tmp/arduino_build_626466/Blink.ino.hex:
avrdude: input file /tmp/arduino_build_626466/Blink.ino.hex contains 636 bytes
avrdude: reading on-chip flash data:

Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.26s

avrdude: verifying ...
avrdude: 636 bytes of flash verified

avrdude done.  Thank you.

marcosjl31 · October 15, 2020, 12:51pm

And here’s PlaformIO output :

 Verbose mode can be enabled via `-v, --verbose` option
CONFIGURATION: https://docs.platformio.org/page/boards/atmelavr/attiny85.html
PLATFORM: Atmel AVR (2.2.0) > Generic ATtiny85
HARDWARE: ATTINY85 8MHz, 512B RAM, 8KB Flash
DEBUG: Current (simavr) On-board (simavr)
PACKAGES: 
 - framework-arduino-avr-attiny 1.3.2 
 - tool-avrdude 1.60300.200527 (6.3.0) 
 - toolchain-atmelavr 1.50400.190710 (5.4.0)
LDF: Library Dependency Finder -> http://bit.ly/configure-pio-ldf
LDF Modes: Finder ~ chain, Compatibility ~ soft
Found 9 compatible libraries
Scanning dependencies...
No dependencies
Building in release mode
Checking size .pio/build/attiny85/firmware.elf
Advanced Memory Usage is available via "PlatformIO Home > Project Inspect"
RAM:   [          ]   1.8% (used 9 bytes from 512 bytes)
Flash: [=         ]   8.3% (used 676 bytes from 8192 bytes)
Configuring upload protocol...
AVAILABLE: usbasp
CURRENT: upload_protocol = usbasp
Looking for upload port...
Uploading .pio/build/attiny85/firmware.hex

avrdude: Version 6.3, compiled on Sep 12 2016 at 15:21:49
         Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brian Dean, http://www.bdmicro.com/
         Copyright (c) 2007-2014 Joerg Wunsch

         System wide configuration file is "/home/marcosjl/.platformio/packages/tool-avrdude/avrdude.conf"
         User configuration file is "/home/marcosjl/.avrduderc"
         User configuration file does not exist or is not a regular file, skipping

         Using Port                    : usb
         Using Programmer              : usbasp
avrdude: seen device from vendor ->www.fischl.de<-
avrdude: seen product ->USBasp<-
         AVR Part                      : ATtiny85
         Chip Erase delay              : 400000 us
         PAGEL                         : P00
         BS2                           : P00
         RESET disposition             : possible i/o
         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    12     4    0 no        512    4      0  4000  4500 0xff 0xff
           flash         65     6    32    0 yes      8192   64    128 30000 30000 0xff 0xff
           signature      0     0     0    0 no          3    0      0     0     0 0x00 0x00
           lock           0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  9000  9000 0x00 0x00
           lfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  9000  9000 0x00 0x00
           hfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  9000  9000 0x00 0x00
           efuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  9000  9000 0x00 0x00
           calibration    0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0     0     0 0x00 0x00

         Programmer Type : usbasp
         Description     : USBasp, http://www.fischl.de/usbasp/

avrdude: auto set sck period (because given equals null)
avrdude: error: program enable: target doesn't answer. 1 
avrdude: initialization failed, rc=-1
         Double check connections and try again, or use -F to override
         this check.


avrdude done.  Thank you.

*** [upload] Error 1
====================================================================== [FAILED] Took 1.32 seconds ====================================================
==================

Environment    Status    Duration
-------------  --------  ------------
attiny85       FAILED    00:00:01.320
================================================================= 1 failed, 0 succeeded in 00:00:01.320 ==============================================
===================
The terminal process "platformio 'run', '--target', 'upload'" terminated with exit code: 1.

Terminal will be reused by tasks, press any key to close it.

maxgerhardt · October 15, 2020, 12:55pm

Interesting, some delay settings and SCLK configs are missing.

I’ll have a look. Maybe it comes down to the different avrdude.conf being used.

The AVRdude output is verbose, but PIO’s output is not – have you ran the Verbose Upload for sure in PlatformIO? Also the AVRDude invocation line is missing in the Arduino IDE output.

marcosjl31 · October 15, 2020, 1:27pm

WIll do.
For sure, avrdude versions in Arduino and PIO aren’t the same

Arduino : avrdude: Version 6.3-20190619
PIO : avrdude: Version 6.3, compiled on Sep 12 2016 at 15:21:49 (!older!)

marcosjl31 · October 15, 2020, 2:04pm

By the way : how do you run a “Verbose Upload” in PIO ?

marcosjl31 · October 15, 2020, 2:23pm

I’v managed to upload the blink application to attiny85, by copying avrdude.conf from arduino to PIO.

Files are really differents :

Arduino avrdude.conf is 177692 bytes long,
PIO avrdude.conf is 518870 bytes

maxgerhardt · October 15, 2020, 3:14pm

pio run -v -t upload or “Verbose Upload” task (docs, under “Advanced”)

So it seems that the avrdude.conf of this core has a slightly different config for the ATTiny85 than the standard one. Please open a bug at Issues · platformio/platform-atmelavr · GitHub to get this fixed in the tool-avrdude package or the platform code.

marcosjl31 · October 22, 2020, 1:06pm

Ok…
That’s a follow up message on this topic.

One of the differences in Compilation/Upload between the Arduino and PlatformIO IDE is this line (in verbose mode !) :
Setting bit clk period : 5.0
This seems to be atuomagically added in Arduino IDE…

When you set upload_flags to “-Pusb -B5” in platformIO: it solves the problem as well (no need to modify the avrdude.conf file)

I’ll update the issue as well.