Playdate Simulator crashes when physical device is plugged in via any type of USB connection

SDK Bug Reports
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1

Platform: Windows 11

When I plug my Playdate into my laptop with the Simulator running, the Simulator instantly crashes. If I start the Simulator while the Playdate is already plugged in, it crashes on boot. Nothing is written to Console or to the Windows Event Log. It just straight up dies. Like this:

playdatecrash

I temporarily got it to stop crashing by uninstalling and reinstalling the Simulator. Because this made it work normally for a while, I assumed it was some kind of corruption started by an update or whatever. Unfortunately, the bug started up again for no apparent reason. The only change I can think that happened between then and the crash issue happening again is that I’d closed the laptop lid and left it for a while with the Simulator running. As far as I’m aware, there were no Windows updates or anything like that.

Please help me fix this, because this is extremely annoying and disruptive to my workflow! I’m having a hard enough time trying to learn Lua from a standing start, I don’t have time to figure out baffling Windows bugs too.

In case it helps, I can use the physical Playdate as a data disc no problem, and it gets power from my laptop fine as well.

2

Have you tried rebooting your laptop and/or using a different USB cable?

3

Yes. I have restarted my laptop, as well as turned it off and on again. I have used a USBA-USBC cable, and a USBC-USBC cable in different slots. The cables I have used have both worked in the past.

4

Here is some more info about what I tried:

  • Nothing is getting written to the crash log. It’s just hanging, not crashing.
  • I tried reinstalling again and this time it never started working in the mean time.
  • I updated all USB drivers and such in Windows. This did nothing.
  • I looked at what handles were open in Resource Monitor with a crashed version of the Simulator versus an uncrashed version. Both had the same handles but in a slightly different order - there was no difference.
  • I tried plugging in a USB dock and it still crashes.