CodeBot or CodeX Blacklisted by Windows?

When you're powering motors or servos from your PC's USB port, sometimes the OS will flag the device and block future connections. That's not nice! We do recommend running from batteries when you're enabling motors, but just in case this happens to you here's a solution.

The Windows OS is keeping records about USB devices, or else it wouldn't be able to discriminate against certain CodeBots. So we need to find where Windows stores that cache of USB device IDs, and delete the CodeBots from it!

There are a few free utilities out there that can do this. The most well-regarded one seems to be USBDeview.

https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html (opens in a new tab)

We've tested the 64-bit version from the NirSoft link at the URL above (scroll way down the page). Also below is a google drive link to that version if you prefer:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cvfpkJ22ylCP9j3_xlggmR_A0EId8XRb/view (opens in a new tab)

Here's the process:

  1. Extract the USBDeview folder somewhere on your computer. No installation necessary.
  2. Right-click USBDeview.exe and select "Run as Administrator"
  3. You should see a large table view, with many (too many) columns of USB information.
  4. Click the column heading "Vendor ID" to sort by this field.
  5. Select all CodeBot devices: Vendor_ID=0483, Product_ID=5740
  6. Right click and select "Uninstall Selected Devices", and confirm.
  7. Exit USBDeview program

You can re-run USBDeview to confirm those devices remain forgotten. If you connect a working CodeBot while it's running you can see 3 new rows in the table which represents Mass Storage, WebUSB, and Composite devices it presents.

Once this is done you should be able to connect those denigrated devices without a problem. A fresh start!