Coral Dev Board "mdt devices" can't find any devices

Question

I was following the Coral Dev Board get started guide - Get started with the Dev Board (https://coral.withgoogle.com/docs/dev-board/get-started/). Everything worked fine until to the step - Connect to the board's shell via MDT. I've waited about 5 minutes until the flashing to complete, and the terminal prompt returned to me, then I tried the command:

mdt devices

The terminal returns nothing. Unlike the guide says it supposes to return my board hostname and IP address. I've checked the USB-C OTG and USB-C power cable, they are all connected well.

I've also tried this solution: https://superuser.com/questions/1452786/coral-dev-board-not-recongized-on-mdt-shell. I went to Network under System Preferences, and clicked "+" icon, but I couldn't find the mendel device.

I'm using Macbook Pro running on macOS Catalina. The fastboot and mdt commands are both working.

Answer 1

I just found a solution:

Just plug micro-B USB cable, then run:

screen /dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART 115200

If it shows blank, wait a couple seconds, then plug usb-c power cable, the system of the dev board will start loading, the login prompt will come out. After I logged in, I plugged the usb-c cable into data port(keep the micro-B USB cable in at the same time), then run:

mdt devices or mdt shell

This solution works for me only when I have turned on the wifi of the dev board and connect it to the same wifi network. If you want to turn on the wifi network of coral dev board, run the command on screen terminal:

nmtui

The Network Manager TUI prompt will come out then you can connect to your wifi network.

Answer 2

It's a problem on macOS Catalina. It doesn't "see" USB connection as a network connection and as such it is impossible to connect to Coral Dev Board. I have the same issue, but I tried with another MAC with older macOS and it worked just fine. Now, I don't have yet the solution, but at least we all know the problem ;-) Regards, Rui