Good to know. As always, appreciate the time y’all spend on the forums!
Side-note, I don’t think there was a single tournament of the 12 tournaments my kid’s team went to that didn’t have at least one white screen. One tournament had 3 matches in a row between two fields, and all different teams. Maybe it’s an Indiana hex. 
12 in-person tournaments in one year ? That must be a record.
The team I (used to at this point) mentor had two or three white screens in the first matches at a tournament, I had them change the battery cable and they were ok for the rest of the day. Any piece of electronics that gets a momentary loss of power can have these types of issues, but as I said, it’s complete conjecture on my part that’s the root cause.
Yeah, 12 tournaments, and a league on top of that. 
I was glad for the last tournament of the season, as was my wife! 
http://vrc-data-analysis.com/team/38141B
PiBotics looks to have attended 16 in-person tournaments. Same with Xcalibur:
http://vrc-data-analysis.com/team/7316X
Several more are above 12 as well
I know you just said no changes will be made although I strongly suggest usb-c as micro usb is not ideal (using anything but a magnetic adapter means it’ll break within a month of good use). However adding esd protection now might be a good way to test it’s effectiveness and save EPs lots of money on v5s that now get shorted during comps. 21 ports will last awhile but realistically not that long with teams constantly using the cables.
ESD is not really going to be a factor in this case. All that is connected to the field controller are the teams V5 joystick controllers. Pretty sure that this sort of connection is not going to burn out ports. We ran all our skills this season with a V5 Brain and had no issues.
What should be an option is a plug to prevent teams from plugging the smart cable into the match control port (RJ45) there are have been many instances of bent pins causing the joystick controllers to malfunction.
I believe at worlds they are handing out such a plug
However if we could get a CAD model of one that would be handy.
Or someone will probably go whip it up in about half an hour
missed that part - would love to have bags full for next season to hand out to teams first season with new field control system phasing in.
I see. Thank you for helping! Our port broke after VEXos 1.1.1 was released so we have the latest update.
guess I am going to order a couple of bags for the new season…
Great Idea! All of our field electronics are enclosed in a custom-made field timer enclosure.
Thankfully we don’t have the “Helpful” volunteer messing with the Technology aspect of the event. So we are pretty lucky in that respect. But I like the idea of the USB dongle. I’ll be interested in how the new field control system works at Worlds. As long as there are minor “bugs” like this, it should pan out ok. But, if there are major issues, we will probably stick with the legacy controller next season. We shall find out next month! But, I do like that they are always trying to improve the experience and the technology.
We have our stuff wide open for a “high-tech” look…with enough zip-ties to mostly keep helpers from unplugging stuff. If/when we update our Pi’s, I’ll get clear plastic cases for them, too.
I am using a Mac Pro. I have updated the firmware on the V5 brain to 1.1.1. I go to the link. The pop up window comes up, I click on the connect button and every-time it says “error” where the button was and then back to Download Match or Download Skills. The cable is the same one used to update the firmware on the V5 brain.
Make sure VEXcode and the V5 utility are not running.
Or you could just get a roll of masking tape and have the kids cover the old port with tape.
As an EP that hosts a number of events in the region, $30 to set up teams for success for the season is not a bad investment. It is a small expense, which great returns for teams in the long run. Beats kids pushing cable through the tape and bricking their controllers.
I’m getting the same issue as toastmaster. On an M1 and an Intel processor. Nothing else is running or using the USB.
Got it to work from a PC. On the PC a dialog appeared asking to select a port. I didn’t get that dialog on the Macs. Probably related to permissions.
