Dash disappears from COM4

I have the Arduino IDE all set up. When I connect the Dash, everything looks fine and my Dash is on COM4. On windows device manager, there it is. Then I push the prog button and the Dash disappears and there is no more COM4 device. Any ideas?

That’s normal. Program mode works a different way and doesn’t show up as a com port. You should still be able to program it

I get a null pointer exception every time. windows laptop and ubuntu desktop

I was able to update firmware via standalone utility. I uploaded general program that way too. But cannot upload a sketch from Arduino IDE.

Try closing the serial monitor before uploading and make sure that you have the dash USB programmer selected in the programmer menu in the IDE.
The IDE actually uses the same utility to upload behind the scenes so if it’s working standalone then it’s probably something set wrong in the IDE

I rebooted the laptop and then checked and I did need to change the programmer. Then it all worked.

Thanks