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error: Unable to connect to device.

Pixy Hardware
#1

Have a brand-new out-of-the-box Pixy and am unable to make it work.

Drivers and software both installed with no issues (Windows 8.1)
The device is detected in Device Manager with no problems reported.

Pixymon is able to detect it sometimes, but is unable to communicate with it in any useful way.

Have tried 4 different USB cables and 3 different USB ports (2.0 & 3.0)
There are no other connections to the device.
The LEDs flash on power-up as advertised, but that’s about all it wants to do.

A typical exchange is as below:

error: No Pixy devices have been detected.
Pixy detected.
Pixy firmware version 0.1.44

CCB1 frame data
error: Pixy has stopped working.

Pixy detected.
error: Unable to connect to device.
Pixy detected.
error: Unable to connect to device.
Pixy detected.
error: Unable to connect to device.
Pixy detected.
error: Unable to connect to device.
Pixy detected.
error: Unable to connect to device.

#2

Hi Bill,

How long are the cables? Have you tried connecting it to an external power source to see if the behavior improves?

Thanks.

Scott

#3

The longest cable tested is 1 meter. It is used daily as a DSLR tether.
The shortest is 0.5 meter. It is used pretty much full-time for a disk drive.
All are known good cables. Have not tried an external source yet. I can solder up a connector from my bench supply tomorrow.
The measured voltage at the camera with the shortest cable is 5.04v, and with the longest is 5.03v, so voltage drop is not likely to be the issue.

#4

Further results:
I connected to a bench supply via the unregulated power input. Power supply was set for 7v.
The camera powered up and flashed the LEDs as usual. Pixymon detected the device, but was still unable to connect.
Test repeated with 2 different cables and 2 different ports - no change.

Pixy detected.
error: Unable to connect to device.
Pixy detected.
error: Unable to connect to device.
Pixy detected.
error: Unable to connect to device.
Pixy detected.
error: Unable to connect to device.
Pixy detected.
error: Unable to connect to device.

#5

Tried uploading the firmware. After numerous tries it finally uploaded. But it still won’t talk to pixymon.

Tried connecting to an Arduino via the ribbon cable. It never gets past pixy.init().

Unless someone has any other suggestions, I’m going to assume that this is a dead Pixy :frowning:

#6

Sorry for your troubles, Bill. Sounds like you’ve been pretty thorough.

Are you able to try connecting Pixy to a different computer? It’s probably not a driver issue, but I’d like to verify. Unless this gives us any leads, we may need to discuss RMA.

Scott

#7

I do have a Win-7 machine I can try it on later today. I’ll post results this afternoon.

#8

Same results with Win-7. Pixy detected. Unable to connect to device.

#9

Hi Bill,

Thanks for the update. We’ll contact you via email soon.

Scott

#10

Hi I also recently purchased a Pixy camera and I am having the exact same issues

#11

Hi Joshua,

Sorry to hear about your troubles. Have you gone through all of the suggestions we made to Bill?

Scott

#12

Replacement received. Works great. Thanks for the support!

#13

I am having the same issues. Tried everything mentioned above and sent it back to Amazon. I hope the next one i get works…

#14

Hi Rajiv,

So you already returned your first Pixy? Please let me know how the next one works out. We’d love to help out with any issues you might have.

Scott

#15

Hello All,

We just bought a CMUcam5 from Amazon and are having the exact same symptoms. We have tried all of the exact troubleshooting steps in this post, to the same end. We will be returning this to get a new unit. My question is what is the preferred method of returning these, through Amazon, or RMA with you guys. Please let me know, so I can get this resolved, and get my project back on schedule.

Kelvin

#16

Hi Kelvin,
Sorry for the problems, and sorry for not answering sooner. The best bet is to send an email to [email protected] to get the RMA process started.

thanks!

#17

hello ,
im saurabh ,
even i am facing the same problems , i had bought 4 pixy’s of which 2 are showing the same problem /error :Unable to connect to device. … the other 2 are working fine , and about your suggestions of the wire length i used a minimum length direct USB to mini USB connector ,tried uplaoding the firmware , tried different ports , still the pixymon wont detect …it says

Pixy detected.
error: Unable to connect to device.
Pixy detected.
error: Unable to connect to device.
Pixy detected.
error: Unable to connect to device.
Pixy detected.

can someone help me with this really trying to work something out…

#18

Hello Saurabh,
Hmm, you are using the same computer and USB cable and 2 Pixys work and 2 do not work?

Make sure you are using the latest PixyMon and firmware – go here:

http://cmucam.org/projects/cmucam5/wiki/Latest_release

There is also a troubleshooting guide here:

http://cmucam.org/projects/cmucam5/wiki/I_get_the_message_"No_Pixy_devices_have_been_detected"_in_PixyMon

But I think the things you should definitely try are steps 4 and 5. Let me know what you find.

Edward

#19

I have completed all of the steps here but still I have the same problem.

We have got your Pixy CmuCam 5 device for image detection objects. We have successfully connected to the device and got data/images in different PCs which have Windows and Ubuntu Linux.
However we need to connect and work on a Virtual Machine which has Debian 9.0 Linux. The version information of the device operating system is as follows:
$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Debian
Description: Debian GNU/Linux 9.0 (stretch)
Release: 9.0
Codename: stretch
We have successfully installed PixyMon on this device as told here : http://www.cmucam.org/projects/cmucam5/wiki/Installing_PixyMon_on_Linux

Although we did the same steps with Ubuntu Linux (which is successfully working); whenever we try to reach PixyMon from this virtual machine; it cannot connect to PixyCam. The generated message and shapshot of this screen is shown in attachment 1 : 1_PixyMon_GUI_message.png. (PixyMon here called using sudo ./PixyMon command from terminal.)

I have checked the suggestions on the wikipage and followed the steps given here: http://cmucam.org/projects/cmucam5/wiki/I_get_the_message_"No_Pixy_devices_have_been_detected"_in_PixyMon

As you can see in the attachment 2 : 2_usb_device_list.png, the Pixy Cmucam 5 is in the list of detected device list on this virtual machine. We can also reach the detailed information and We can satisfactorily confirm that this Linux machine can detect and see the PixyCmuCam 5. However, we are NOT able to see the image and data that comes from Pixy Cmucam.

I have also updated the firmware of the device using a Windows computer. Now we are sure that we have the latest version the firmware in the PixyCam, via following the steps given here: http://cmucam.org/projects/cmucam5/wiki/Uploading_New_Firmware

Whenever I search on your wikipage, I have noticed that you are also using a virtual machine in your Linux examples. However, we could not connect the camera using the virtual machine as I explained here in detail.
Now, We need to connect the Pixy Cam using this Virtual Machine.

Can you help us for this case? How can we solve this problem?

Thanks in advance for your help and support.

Regards.

#20

I have never been able to get Pixy to work on a virtual machine. No one here has either. Maybe someone else can help. (sorry)

Edward