This one does not play well when the OS firmware is not the same 'vintage' as the target specific firmware. 3 - Target specific programming firmware. The version loaded by MPLABX v3.20 does not play well with some of the previous MPLABX versions or MPLAB v8.92, but none of the IDE show a warning that the 'new' OS firmware is not reliable. Seems solid, Works with all the GUIs I've needed. The PICkit3 has three kinds of firmware in it. In my experience MPLABX v3.20 does not play well with previous version of PICkit3 firmware. EDIT: MPLABX installers for Mac are not as big as for Windows, but still, 250-350MB took only 2-3 minutes to download from Microchip's website. I have no PIC processor to connect to, so I can't test communication with the device, but firmware uploads fine, and IPE connects to the programmer without problems. Unfortunately I did not check with smaller devices before downgrading to v1.95, but I have a strong feeling that it was mostly PEBKAC error. At this point I installed MPLAPX 3.15 again, and it worked with dsPIC32 (PIC32 requires connection to target device).
Uploaded firmware to the programmer, and worked fine. Eventually MPLABX v1.95 recognized my PICKit3, but only after I switched target device to smaller device (dsPIC32). I downloaded Mac version of MPLABX v3.15, set target to pic32, and. Most of the problems must be some kind of Windows fuckery.
EEVblog #841 - Microchip MPLAB X PICkit 3 Woes
