Pickit 3 failed to program

[Michael]

anyone know anything about this issue? bought a powered hub and now even more problems.
everything has been fine with this pickit3 and then "failed to program". chips are good.

[Michael]

never a problem with my old melabs programmer. I hate this pickit3.
I need something reliable. ??

[mpgmike]

Process of elimination:

- Try a different hub, or better yet, plug directly into your PC
- Hold the button on the front of the PICKit 3 when you power it up until the lights blink. This forces a RESET. You may have to program it with MPLABX IPE at least once to get a fresh PICKit3 firmware reload.
- Try programming a different PIC to see if it's the chip and not the Programmer

[towlerg]

IIRC the PicKit3 stand alone GUI program and the command line app PK3CMD.EXE are limited to older devices. If you want to program the latest devices you need to soil your self with IPE or look at PicKitPlus (which breaths new life into Pk2 and Pk3 and well worth the price).

Note that for some reason known only to Microchip, IPE writes different firmware thus screwing the GUI version.

Ditto mpgmike's comments. Definitely try different USB ports and Pic devices, even better try a different PC.

What Pic device are you trying to program?

BTW many current Pic devices will program with very low voltages. For instance I regularly program 18F25K50 locally powered with 3.3v.

Edit. I forgot you can tell the Pk3 not to provide Vcc.

[mpgmike]

For $15 US you can replace it (or have a back-up) with the new Snap from Microchip. It has pretty much all the functionality of other Programmers, except you cannot power the device from it. Microchip seems to have finally worked the bugs out of the PicKit4. I have one I use regularly and it works as advertised. In fact, I have an old PICKit2 clone, PICKit 3, PICKit4, IDC4, Snap, and ME Labs U2 Programmer. I haven't touched the ancient PICKit2 in years. If I have issues where I suspect the Programmer, I can grab a different one to verify. The Snap makes for an inexpensive back-up.

[Michael]

well, went to a new pc with a fresh install of mplab and the ipe, just using the pickit3, no other usb ports being used.

and this after trying to simply connect --

Now Downloading new Firmware for target device: PIC16F88
Downloading bootloader
Bootloader download complete
Programming download...

and it hangs here. been a half hour.

anyway, probably my own fault for buying a pickit3 clone unless someone knows of one that really performs. don't know how much the oem one is but can't do big dollars now. (where do you buy it anyway?!) searched.

bottom line the programmer is flaky. hit and miss, lot's of weird error messages etc.

I may end up buying another cheapo and consider it disposable after 20 or so uses which is about how long mine lasted.

really sucks -- I'm an "occasional" pic hobbyist and don't know why they can't make a damn standalone programmer that just burns the hex file and keeps it simple.

[Michael]

by the way you said push the button and then connect usb for reset -- wait till leds blink.
no such thing happening with mine -- held the button forever and nothing.