Fatal Error: Could not find device.

The error indicates that the failure is with communicating to the target device. Your FET seems to be OK. Ensure that the LEDs light up as they should.

As for the issue, is your MSP430 powered up? EIther that or the JTAG port pins aren't properly connected.

Gustavo

Thanks Gustavo.  The LEDs on the FET are indicating that it's operating properly....  I checked and rechecked the connections to the PCB.  I had to make my own ribbon cable and I have continuity to all pins.  I'll go back and check them again.  I could have wired the board incorrectly.... but I don't think so.  I'm powering the PCB from the FET and there is no local power applied.

Thanks again.

Scott.

I would recommend using an external power that's not from the FET, at least to start. The FET has limits(If I remember correctly) on the current it can provide and that could cause trouble if your board needs a lot.

Gustavo

Well, my little circuit doesn't draw much.  At least I didn't think so.... I did find out that the voltage on Pin 2 (Target Connector of the FET) which is Vcc starts at 3V.   After the device fails to load, the voltage on that pin is at GND and stays that way until I unplug the FET.  Maybe that means that my circuit is drawing more current than the FET can provide and is shutting down to self protect??  The only thing I have on the PCB are a couple of LEDs, and a Voltage Regulator.  Maybe the voltage regulator is causing the problem...

Thanks Gustavo.  I will try to power the circuit with external power.  which means that I'll have to change my cable.  I believe that pin 2 supplies Vcc and pin 4 senses for external power.  I might could get by with just unplugging the power connection from the FET.

-Scott

Hi Scott,

I'm experiencing fairly similar issues.  I have yet to find any solution and was curious if you had resolved any of your issues?

Thanks,

Dustin

Hi Dustin, 

I did finally find the problem.  I had a wiring problem with the cable I made.  I made a ribbon cable to go from the FET to my PCB.  The wiring diagram I used came from a ti  publication (SLAU138H) page 26.  It turns out that I should have read it a little closer.  Especially the Note C part.  I don't care about the fuse blow functionality, so I shouldn't have connected pin 8 from the FET to the PCB.  I should have connected to pin 7 directly.  After swiching the cable pin, it worked fine.

I hope this helps.

-Scott

Hi Scott,

I encountered a similar problem.You say you shouldn't have connected pin 8 from the FET to the PCB.  you should have connected to pin 7 directly ,But the  chip on my test board is msp430f5438a,,and there are also ten LEDs,The pins on my board to connect the FET is as follows:

And the 2 VCCIN and 4 VCCOUT are connected together.this can not work,So I let 2VCCIN connect to the board power(is about 3.2v),and the 4pin(VCCOUT)connect to  nothing.but still can not work,download program.could you help me.

Thank you

Zhiwen

Hi Scott,

Because the Chip is my own welding,and maybe the chip is burned out,how could I inspect it.

Thanks again

Zhiwen

Hi,

 I am also facing the similar kind of issue, while trying to program the microcontroller. i have already check the power supply(providing external power supply.) I am using TI's MSP-FET430UIF to program the device when connecing the device  its not detecing as port in device manager(hardware settings) and driver is also not installing fine.

we have four JTAG device, facing trouble with all of them.

can you  plz suggest some solutions.

thanks

Richa

Hello everyone,

I have a similar problem.

I want to program a board with an MSP430F5437, using 2-wire communication with the MSP430-FET430UIF. I saw the page 26 of the slau278.h -- connected the GND to pin 9, RST to pin 1 TEST to pin 7 and VCC to pin 4 (I'm powering the board from outside). Unfortunately it doesn't work. I get the message:

Fatal error: Could not find device (or device not supported)   Session aborted!

I tried to connect the RST to pin 11 but that didn't help either.

I appreciate any help!

Thanks,

v.

If anyone is still having this issue, I solved it by uninstalling the driver in device manager. Then disconnecting and reconnecting, allowing it to re-install it's driver.

I had the same problem. I downgraded my firmware to v2, downgraded my driver to v2, still no luck. I upgraded my firmware to v3, upgraded my driver to v3, still no luck. I swapped the orientation of my JTAG connector on the board by 180 degrees, problem solved :)

Samuel Hishmeh1 said:

I swapped the orientation of my JTAG connector on the board by 180 degrees, problem solved :)

lol!

Picking up this thread again :-(

I have been developing with a F6638 for the last few weeks, our own target board, USB-FET with 4 wire JTAG, custom lead, target powered; everything been totally fine until this morning whereby I am getting the ever reported:

Thu Jul 25, 2013 11:47:01: Fatal error: Could not find device (or device not supported)   Session aborted!

I have scoped signals to target and these look fine and tried uninstalling and reinstalling device driver for FET but still no joy.

Prior to this problem we were amidst developing LPM3.5 with RTC wakeup - my gut feeling is that for whatever reason when the JTAG asserts and releases RST, the 430 is running and basically getting itself into the LPM (mode) without recovery.

Any thoughts/suggestions please.

Ok, I can now add that I have this morning put together the bare bones of a new board and have successfully established connection to a new device on a new board - downloaded code and watch it running fine.

So, why has the MSP430F6638 on the previous board stopped responding..??

This leaves me with real concerns as it simply stopped communicating when trying to build LPM3.5 + RTC code as stated above.

Silicon revision is D.

Ok problem found but not yet fixed - should read the errata more often :-)

Can you please share your findings? which Errata?

I'm having the same issue ant havn't found any solution yet . ill explain a little :

I'm using MSP430F5131 and trying to program it by IAR Embedded Workbench while using the MSP-FET debugger.

A short background of the PCB:

After i compiled the code in IAR with not errors found , i connected the MSP-FET to the MSP430 in a Spi-Bi-Wire connection according to the datasheet.

The MSP430 is placed in a PCB which includes 12V input voltage and 2 regulators of 5V and 3.3V . The MSP430 I/O's are connected according to the datasheet (including external pullup resistors and capacitors) along with the Spi-Bi-Wire connections.

I energized the PCB with a 12V supply voltage , connected the MSP-FET's connector to a Header connector on the PCB and the other side connected to the PC by USB.

My problem is :

In the IAR , once i try to download the code into the MSP430 (by clicking the 'Download and Debug' button) it says that it needs a firmware update , so i clicked ok and download the new update , but when it tries to initialize hardware i encounter the error :

"Fatal error: Could not find device (or device not supported)

Session aborted!"

I have tried multiple things in order to find the solution - with no success .

Does the AVcc and AVss needs to be connected even if i dont use any analog options? coz its not connected to anything.

I also tried to download the program to the MSP430 with code composer studio but encounter the same error.

 I connected the MSP-FET to the MCU that way : 

- RST/NMI/SBWTDIO of the MCU to TDO/TDI pin 1 of the MSP-FET.

- TEST/SBWTCK of the MCU to TCK pin 7 of the MSP-FET.

- a 3.3V that is supplied from a regulator in the PCB to VCC_TOOL pin 2 of the MSP-FET.

- GND of the PCB to GND pin 9 of the MSP-FET.

Here's the picture of the error i get:

thanks.

The problem actually occur when i try to program the MSP , but i guess it's coz the MSP doesn't get the amount of voltage it needs (at least 1.8V) the regulator somehow supplies only 0.7V instead of 3.3V...I guess that's the problem when i try to program it.

thank you i'll connect them anyway.

Double-check the required programming voltage.
1x family, for example, works from 1.8V to 3.6V, but for programming, at least 2.7V are required.
And 0.7V is of course way too low in any case.

In Addition, the FET-UIF JTAG connector has two signal pins. One provides the (configuratble) output voltage of the FET, which can be used to power the device during programming/debugging. The other one senses the existing supply voltage of the target and adjusts the JTAG signals accordingly. Exactly one of them must be connected to VCC, the other one must be left unconnected.

If you do not connect the sensing pin (so 0V are sensed), the FET assumes that the target is powered by the FET and the JTAG signals have the same level. If you also did not connect the supply pin, then this assumption is most likely false.
So if the FET is providing 3V and the sense pin is not connected, then the FET will expect 3V signals form teh MSP (and will send 3V signals). If the MSP runs on 1.8V, the JTAG signals from the MSP won't be recognized by the FET. While the FET's JTAG signals will apply a much too high voltage to the MSP pins. It is possible that the 0.7V you see are injected by the FET into the unpowered MSP's JTAG pins. (IIRC, there's a series resistor of 1K on the signals for current limiting, so this won't fry your JTAG pins)

If you connect both, you'll get a back coupling and the resulting signal voltage is unknown (including oscillation).

Thank you for the reply ,

I think the 0.7V i get is coz of the regulator (maybe bad soldering of the regulator) because i double checked the output of the regulator without connecting the MSP-FET at all and the output was still 0.7V.

i think thats the problem , ill try to solder another regulator that supplies 3.3V to the MSP . Besides , i have tried both ideas (connect the supply 3.3v to the sense pin of the MSP-FET or connecting the supply voltage pin from the MSP-FET to the MSP430) . none of these worked and its understandable according to the 0.7V supply voltage...