[FTC]: Communication help needed

We are beginning to get very worried. We were having communication problems when trying to test our robot. We would be able to connect to the robot drive it for a few seconds then connection with the nxt was lost. So we tried to plug the nxt directly to the computer and the same thing happened (ruling out samantha problems). Then a student said that there was a reset button the the nxt… well it wiped it clean and wouldnt stop clicking. We diagnosed that and redownloaded the firmware. Which put the nxt back to what we think is orginal software. However we have the same problem as before we cannot connect to practice driving and there is no samostat on the nxt. I am becoming very concerned that we have really messed up. We are in dire need of any advice

From your description, it sounds like you are trying to connect via Bluetooth?

We have seen a lot of difference in BT connectivity. Some laptops will connect correctly, some won’t. We tend to use external blue tooth dongles that we know work.

However, if you are connecting directly to the NXT with a cable, and are still losing connection, double-check the connector on the NXT. If you plug in via blue-tooth, it is subject to lateral stresses and can snap off. You can still talk to the NXT sometimes, either with a cable or via Samantha, but it will disconnect when teh NXT is jostled. If that was the scenario, BT connectivity would be unaffected.

Can you try a different NXT?