Programs burned into the motherboard do not run automatically after a while

[xixicarry]

Hello John, I would like to ask you a question, after I burned the programme into Cutebot, I have been using the programme for some time before I powered it on directly and it had no problems, yesterday when I used it, I noticed that the programme did not run automatically after I powered it on, after I re-flashed the firmware and the programme, it worked again. I'm trying to figure out what caused this imagery to occur? And I can't reproduce it at the moment, I'll just have to wait for it to appear again.

[John Maloney]

I have not seen that problem.

The micro:bit V2 now supports connecting from BLE. So, a possibility is that someone connected to the board via BLE. That would replace the program on the board. If it happens again, you might try using the "open from board" command to see what program is stored.

There is way to disable BLE on ESP32 boards but it does not yet work on micro:bit v2 boards.

[xixicarry]

I'm using an older version of firmware, there shouldn't be any possibility of modifying the programme after wireless connection, does the programme save to the motherboard and run for a while and then cause problems?

[John Maloney]

If you do not connect to the IDE the MicroBlocks program should remain in Flash memory so I'm not sure what might be happening. Let me know if you figure out how to reproduce the problem or see and pattern to the failure.

[Bernat Romagosa]

Just a wild guess here, but the only scripts that will self-start on power-up are the ones beginning with “when started” and “when <>” hat blocks. Other scripts that were “manually” started will keep running after you close the IDE, but they will not automatically restart when powering the board off and on again.

[John Maloney]

Weak batteries could cause erratic behavior (e.g. wheels not turning). However, in that case, re-flashing the firmware and program would not fix the problem.

If you are using a very old micro:bit, it is possible that the Flash memory has worn out. They rated for 10 000 erase/write cycles. That said, I have only had one micro:bit fail due to worn-out Flash memory, and that was after years of heavy use.

[xixicarry]

Thank you for your reply, I will keep watching to see if I can reproduce the problem

[John Maloney]

I'm going to mark this resolved for now, but feel free to re-open and/or add additional comments if you figure out how to reproduce the problem.