Troubleshooting#

Nothing appears when I plug it in#

Try a different USB cable. Charge-only cables are common and carry no data.
Check the power LED on the main module. Dark means it is not getting power.
Hold the CFG button while plugging in. That forces a known-good USB configuration whatever is stored; use it when a saved configuration has made the board unreachable.
If it still does nothing, hold BOOTSEL while plugging in. An RPI-RP2 drive appearing means the hardware is alive and the firmware is the problem — see Updating the firmware.

The config app cannot see the board#

Are you in Chrome or Edge? The app does not work in Firefox or Safari.
Is something else holding the port? A serial terminal, another browser tab, or a running Python script will each keep the port to itself. Close it.
You must pick the port from the browser’s dialog. The page cannot open one on its own.

A tile is missing from the chain#

Check these, most likely first:

A cable not fully clicked home.
A damaged cable. Swap it with a known-good one.

Check Diagnose → Counters. A tile accumulating checksum errors or missed replies is a wiring problem. A tile that never appears at all is more likely a cable or a dead board.

A key does nothing#

Is it bound? An unbound key registers nowhere. Check Configure.
Does the tile see it at all? Diagnose shows presses straight off the bus, before binding. If it shows there and not in the Driver Station, the problem is the binding or the Driver Station. If it does not show there, it is the switch.
Hot-swap sockets: pull the switch and look at the pins. A bent pin folds under the switch instead of entering the socket.

Buttons stick on, or fire on their own#

A worn microswitch chattering — raise that tile’s debounce.
If every button on a tile misbehaves at once, suspect the bus rather than the switches: check the counters and the cable.

Is the board sending my presses at all?#

The main module’s small RGB light flashes white each time the board sends a button press over USB, in every personality including xinput.

Flashes, but the Driver Station sees nothing: the board is fine. Check the personality and the Driver Station’s own settings.
No flash: the key is not bound, the tile is lost, or the board is in bind mode. Check Configure.
Never flashes at all: it may be turned off. It is the Status light checkbox on the Connect screen.

The Driver Station sees the wrong thing#

FRC expects frc; FTC expects xinput. Check on the Connect screen.
A personality change only takes effect at a USB reset. Unplug and plug back in.
Under FTC, bind the pad with Start+A or Start+B as usual. A key bound as a Start+A or Start+B combo does it in one press (see Binding buttons).

Use Diagnose → Test to settle where the problem is: it makes the board report presses with no tile involved. If the Driver Station sees those, everything from the board to the laptop is fine and the problem is on the bus or in the bindings.

LEDs are dimmer than I set them#

The power budget is limiting them. The board lowers global brightness until the panel fits the current it can draw from USB. Diagnose → Power shows the budget, the worst case and the brightness in use. Raise the budget if the port genuinely supplies more.

If the panel cannot fit even at minimum brightness, the LEDs are held off and a fault is raised — the same view says so.

My configuration disappeared#

It was probably never saved. Changes work immediately but live in RAM until Save is pressed. Unplugging before that discards them.

Everything worked yesterday#

Check firmware versions on Connect and Diagnose. A tile updated to firmware the main module does not understand is reported as incompatible and is not used.