My team is experiencing a difficult and annoying pop up
I know it is telling me to connect the programming cable
Nothing else can help me so this is my last resort
I once had a dell mouse that would somehow prevent easy c from detecting the programing cable but I doubt that’s the problem 
When you use the usb A to A cable, what do the lights on the robot do?
Sometimes this happens to me when I am using Robotc. It could be your usb drivers acting up. Try closing out the program then open it back up and try again. Hope that helps!! 
There is a “Select COM communications port” menu that you can use to refresh and choose the appropriate port. I think it is located in the view menu? Sometimes it helps when RobotC isn’t recognizing the cable. Also the closing the program and restarting it helps a lot too.
Jesse