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Most SDK problems show up in one of two places: the Device in the Room’s Devices page, or the board’s USB serial output. To read USB serial, open Arduino IDE’s Serial Monitor at 115200 baud. Close it again before you pair or update the connection, because Room Connector needs the USB port. For messages Escape Director shows on the Device, such as Offline or Controller description changed, see Troubleshooting in Build your own controller.

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If the board never appears

  1. Open the Serial Monitor at 115200 baud and restart the board.
  2. If room.begin() rejected a declaration, the reason is printed there. Fix it in the sketch and upload again.
  3. Check that the sketch has no Serial.begin() at another speed and never prints a line that starts with {.
  4. Close the Serial Monitor and pair again.
Common messages from room.begin():

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If the controller runs out of memory

Restart the board and try again. If it keeps happening, reduce your sketch’s memory use: large buffers, String building in loop(), and large JsonDocuments. On a Room with few props, a smaller ed::BasicRoom saves RAM.

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If presses are missed

  • Check that loop() asks for each input on every pass, with pressed() or room.nextPress(). A press that no code asks for is dropped.
  • For a sequence, call room.nextPress() and not pressed() for the same inputs. When room.lostPresses() is non-zero, start the sequence over: presses were dropped, so its order is incomplete.
  • Look for delay() or loops that wait. Replace them as in Replace delay().

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If a signal doesn’t reach Escape Director

  • Signals are sent only during a live game, never in Test mode.
  • Pass the input that caused the signal: prop.trigger("solved", lever).
  • A signal more than 2 seconds old, or from an earlier game, is dropped. This can happen when a press waited through a reconnect.

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If an output stays on or turns off late

  • Use room.pulse(), not room.after(), for an output that must end on time.
  • Don’t turn a pin on yourself while it pulses. Setting it back to its idle level early is fine; the pulse still ends on time.
  • Up to 8 pins can pulse at once. room.pulse() returns false when none is free.

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If a command works once and then undoes itself

The command probably writes a pin that your loop() writes back from unchanged puzzle state. Make the command call the same function your local input calls, so the puzzle state changes too.

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ed::Room reference