How to Connect to Betaflight: Troubleshooting and Driver Guide

Being able to successfully connect to Betaflight is essential for all FPV pilots. Betaflight is the most popular software by far that 99% of FPV drones use, so you’re going to need to use it to change some settings eventually.

If you followed the steps in our first article you should already have Betaflight installed on your computer.

Here’s how you can connect your drone to Betaflight and get through some common problems most new users may face.

How to Connect your Drone to your Computer

On your flight controller, you will see that it has either a Micro USB or USB-C connector. This is how your drone communicates with Betaflight.

Find a USB cable and plug it into your drone, plug the other end into a free USB port on your computer. You should hear your PC recognize the Flight Controller (FC).

If your FC is connected correctly you will see an option for a ComPort to connect.
You will see ComPort 3 or 4 or 6 for example. If you only see ComPort 1 and Manual you are not connected.

With the ComPort selected, Click on Connect.

If nothing went wrong Betaflight should be showing you this screen. You are now successfully connected to Betaflight and ready to set up your drone.

What to Do if Betaflight Doesn’t Connect

If you are still on the ComPort screen and Betaflight did not connect, you can run through this list of troubleshooting steps below.

We’ve listed them from easiest to hardest, so do your best to work your way through the list one by one.

Check the USB Cable

Some USB cables will be power only, which means that they are fine for charging your devices, but they can’t be used to transmit data.

It’s hard to tell if a cable is a power-only cable, but you can check the product page if you know where you bought the cable from.

Often just trying a different cable will work, but you may need to purchase a Micro USB or USB-C cable if you’ve tried all the ones you have and still can’t connect.

The easiest way to tell if the cable worked is that your computer should make a noise or bring up a prompt on the screen when you plug in your drone.

Try a Different Port

On windows especially, there can be some issues with using USB 3 or USB 2. If your computer doesn’t recognize your drone, try a different USB port.

Restart Your Computer

Restarting your computer is a pretty easy step, and is definitely worth doing if you’ve already tried a different cable and USB port already.

Restarting your PC can sometimes fix issues with USB connectivity.

Unplug other USB based devices

It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes other USB devices will interfere with your computer recognizing your flight controller.

To rule them out, disconnect them one by one and see if this allows Betaflight to connect to your drone.

Update/Change Your Computer Drivers

Your Flight Controller will be using an STM32 controller, so you may need to update your STM32 drivers in order to connect to Betaflight. Check out all the steps on how to do this below.

How to Download STM32 Drivers for PC

When you open Betaflight you will see the main Betaflight screen. This front page has lots of useful links and information.

On the left-hand side of the main page look under Hardware. Here you will find a link to the STM USB VCP drivers you need Left click on the blue ‘here’ to be taken to the download page.

After clicking the link for the STM 32 VCP drivers you will see this page

Scroll down to ‘Get Software’ and click on Get Latest

You’ll be asked to make an account with a valid email address to get permission to download the drivers. Fill in your name and email address and then click on ‘Download now’ in the email they send you.

You will be taken to the STM32 website and a .zip file should start downloading.
Find the .zip file in your downloads folder and extract it.

Look in the folder you extracted for the right drivers for your system. For 64 bit Windows users, choose the .exe highlighted below. Double click and follow the installation instructions.