Trouble connecting to web IDE

Hello,

I got a puck 2 last week and getting a connection has been rather finicky.

I was able to connect to Web IDE with an OSX computer fine and then kept getting messages for a firmware update, decided to update.

The IDE flasher didn't work for me but I am able to put it in bootloader mode and flash it using both nRF Connect and nRF Toolbox on iOS. Using 2.06 binary. As a zip dowloaded to my iphone selected in the nRF app.

All seems to work fine (the firmware update), according to the nRF apps. Today I am working on a windows 10 machine. Chrome is version Version 84.0.4147.105 (Official Build) (64-bit)

But no matter what I do - reset, hard reset, reinstall, revert to 2.05, I always get "Connection Failed" in web IDE, although it does (usually) appear in the Web Bluetooth scan.

Most of the time it appears as puck.js 96d4, but then sometimes it appears as puck.js !BTN. Sometimes it won't appear at all. Sometimes it says - Paired after the name. It rarely has any signal in the little triangle. But it has high signal when in bootloader mode.

Any advice on other steps I could take? At my wits end. My ultimate goal is to connect to a virtual COM port and I'm not even sure if this is the right track but I do want to just mess around in the Web IDE.

Thanks in advance.

I have the same issues with Windows, even with a BT dongle I purchased (thinking it was because my built-in BT was too weak). On the exact same machine, if I boot into Ubuntu, the webide works flawlessly. If I forward the BT dongle to a VM in virtualbox, the VM webide works as well (but a bit slower than native Ubuntu).

I think it's just Windows being difficult. If you have a way to use a different OS, you should try it. A raspberry pi works as well (you can use the https://github.com/espruino/EspruinoHub project which also includes a hosted webide).

Thanks for your reply. Yeah I had a similar weak range hunch because it did finally connect if I put it RIGHT next to the case and in fact only right next to the motherboard side of the case haha. I will try on a Mac or Linux laptop next.

EspruinoHub may well be interesting for my use case as well, thanks for that link!

Did you pair in the Windows OS menu first? I've seen that cause some issues.

Puck.js !BTN happens when you power the Puck.js on holding the button to put it into self-test mode, but then you keep the button held so it thinks the button is shorted. It changes its advertising name so that it's easy for us to detect what's broken if a self-test fails.

Another quick way to do development is to use the Web IDE Relay to allow you to connect with your phone and develop on your PC - see http://forum.espruino.com/conversations/300770/

I'll be making some big improvements to that soon to make it much more usable though