user86936: Dear Stack Exchangers,
I have been working with Arduinos for probably 10 years, and as a habit the first thing I do when I connect a device to the USB port is run the "Tools > Get Board Info" in the Arduino IDE just to make sure I've got the correct port selected, USB cable is good, etc.
Well tonight when I connected a Nano, the "Get Board Info" didn't work at all. So after spending hours rebooting, trying different cables, etc. I eventually just tried uploading a sketch, and that worked fine! But the "Get Board Info" still does not work.
Anybody have any ideas what is going on? Thanks!
Sincerely,
Ramblin' Wreck

user37622: The classic Arduino Nano uses an FTDI chip as USB to TTL Serial adapter. Many Nano (and Uno and Mega) clones use the CH340 as USB adapter. These USB chips present themselves with id set by the USB chip manufacturer. This doesn't provide a way to identify the specific board.
Original Uno and Mega Rev 3 and some clones use ATmega16u2 as USB adapter with a firmware by Arduino. Arduino sets the USB id in the firmware so it can identify as specific board type. (People reported Mega clones which presented itself as Uno).
The boards with MCU with native USB like Leonardo, Micro and ARM boards (Zero, MKR, Nano IoT, Nano BLE) provide the USB id set in boards.txt so they can be identified too.

86936: <p>Dear Stack Exchangers,</p>
<p>I have been working with Arduinos for probably 10 years, and as a habit the first thing I do when I connect a device to the USB port is run the &quot;Tools &gt; Get Board Info&quot; in the Arduino IDE just to make sure I've got the correct port selected, USB cable is good, etc.</p>
<p>Well tonight when I connected a Nano, the &quot;Get Board Info&quot; didn't work at all. So after spending hours rebooting, trying different cables, etc. I eventually just tried uploading a sketch, and that worked fine! But the &quot;Get Board Info&quot; still does not work.</p>
<p>Anybody have any ideas what is going on? Thanks!</p>
<p>Sincerely,
Ramblin' Wreck</p>
 37622: <p>The classic Arduino Nano uses an FTDI chip as USB to TTL Serial adapter. Many Nano (and Uno and Mega) clones use the CH340 as USB adapter. These USB chips present themselves with id set by the USB chip manufacturer. This doesn't provide a way to identify the specific board.</p>
<p>Original Uno and Mega Rev 3 and some clones use ATmega16u2 as USB adapter with a firmware by Arduino. Arduino sets the USB id in the firmware so it can identify as specific board type. (People reported Mega clones which presented itself as Uno).</p>
<p>The boards with MCU with native USB like Leonardo, Micro and ARM boards (Zero, MKR, Nano IoT, Nano BLE) provide the USB id set in boards.txt so they can be identified too.</p>
