When you put the pic in debug mode after compiling it you need to program f= irst before it is ready to use it. just click program. you can put check mark on debugger/settings/ you will see very bottom 2 pla= ces to put check mark. after putting check mark when you compile it will program then it will be ready t= o debug.=A0 Opening a support ticket I do not like it either but working with microchip for ever 20 year they are the best in the world. specially when you open a = ticket saying you damaged the tool and here is my serial number etc. they will ship it to you next day air. I = never seen support like that. specially free c compiler that does nice job. I use it over 6 months now on= ly no optimization witch I do not care.=A0 I know Atmel is good too but you can't say atmel is better or microchip is = better. all this is how you learned to use software and hardware.=A0=A0I personally= like pic24 and pic32 the most. pic32 is really easy to use it. Andre =A0 =A0 ________________________________ From: "jana1972@centrum.cz" To: piclist@mit.edu Sent: Saturday, November 12, 2011 2:48 AM Subject: Switching from Microchip to ATMEL Hi, I started with PICs( made by Microchip) only recently. I bought PICkit3 and= ICD 3 to be able=20 to program PICs and make in-circuit debugging. But in-circuit debugging doe= s not work for=20 me as it should and Microchip was not still able to help. I even open a ticket but they were not able/willing to answer=A0 it - the t= icket remains "pending"=20 and I doubt it will be ever answered . Shortly ,It does not seem to me that Microchip care about customers , parti= cularly the new=20 customers as it should. So I am thinking about moving to ATMEL.=20 Or=A0 is here anyone=A0 who switched to PIC from Atmel? :-) My story is here with few details: I bought adaptor with PIC16F648A-ICD to use it for the debugging code of PI= C16F628A.=20 Unfortunatelly, I can NOT still use PIC16F648A - ICD for the debugging . When I try to debug the code, using PIC16F648A-ICD and ICD3 or PICkit3 I re= ceive ICD3Err0040: The target device is not ready for debugging. Please check your configuration bit settings and program the device before = proceeding. Stepping target failed. My Config is __CONFIG _CP_OFF & _LVP_OFF & _BOREN_OFF & _MCLRE_ON &=20 _WDT_OFF &_PWRTE_OFF & _INTOSC_OSC_NOCLKOUT I bought ICD3 and PIC16F648A-ICD from http://www.farnell.com/. An engineer = from the=20 Farnell confirmed the problem with ICD3 reporting: " Hi I have been trying to get a similar version of a Microchip header workin= g. But not had any=20 success with the ICD3 yet. All my attempts have failed. This may be an issu= e that Microchip=20 need to know about.=20 " I think can spend my time on learning AVR instead=20 Your comment is welcome. Thanks L --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .