Arduino error - port not showing up? Fix it

Basic Arduino Error:-

Program/sketch not uploading solutions:

These are the possible explanations why you are not able to upload sketches to Arduino and their solutions.

Incorrect COM port selected:

Most beginners make this mistake, they select wrong COM port. Each computer has different COM port numbers and you have to select the right one for your PC. If your Arduino board sport ATmega16U2 chip it will show you to which COM port number your board is connected to and select that one.

If your Arduino board sport a CH340G chip, it won’t show you the connect COM port number and you have try each of them that is displayed.

Selected wrong board at tools menu:

You have to select the correct board name. If you choose Arduino Nano for Arduino Uno, you code will not get uploaded.

Tx and Rx pins are connected to your circuit:

Whenever you are uploading a code to your Arduino board, make sure that Tx and Rx pins are not connected anywhere else in the circuit. Once you finish uploading the code, you may reconnect the Tx and Rx pins to your circuit. The Tx and Rx (pin number 0 and 1) are the pins where the code gets uploaded to the microcontroller.

Selected wrong processor:

You should select the right microcontroller IC number at tools menu, otherwise the code will not get uploaded.

Why your Arduino is not detected by your computer?

This is a very common issue faced by most Arduino beginners and sometimes even who has intermediate experience with Arduino. Your IDE will not show the connected Arduino board and you device manager will say “unknown USB device”, when you try to fix with windows tools you will still end up not fixing the issue.

To find out why the Arduino boards are not detected, let’s inspect the Arduino board’s USB to serial converter chip.

A USB to serial converter module is utilised on all Arduino boards to uploading sketches to the microcontroller and also for serial communication between the computer and the main microcontroller.

The above Arduino board is SMD type; this board has exactly same specification as genuine Arduino UNO. As you can see there is a difference in the USB to serial converter chip. This is called CH340G USB to serial converter chip.

Download CH340G Driver:

You can download the CH340G driver for these kinds of Arduino boards: Click Here

First, download the CH340 driver from the this link.
After downloading the driver, open it and click Install.

After successful installation you should see this message.

Restart your computer after installation (Important).

Checking Correct Driver Installation in Device Manager:-

If your driver has been installed correctly, and if you connect your board to a computer, then you can see its name and port number in the Port section. For example, my Arduino board is connected to COM7.