Syncing And Updating Robot Skills

Learn how ARC synchronizes robot skills and updates.

What is a Robot Skill?

A Robot Skill is a pre-programmed functionality that you can add to your robot through Synthiam ARC. Skills allow your robot to perform specific tasks such as controlling servos, reading sensors, recognizing objects, playing sounds, or interacting with users.

Robot Skills are modular, meaning you can mix and match them to build complex robot behaviors without writing code. For a full overview, visit the Robot Skills Overview.

How Does ARC Sync Robot Skills?

Each time ARC starts, it checks whether your computer has an active internet connection. If a connection is available, ARC securely communicates with Synthiam’s servers to:

  • Retrieve a complete list of all available robot skills.
  • Check for updates to any robot skills already installed.
  • Download and apply updates so you always have the latest features and fixes.

This automatic synchronization ensures your robot skills stay current without requiring manual downloads.

Steps to Ensure ARC Syncs Properly

  1. Confirm your computer is connected to the internet.
  2. Launch ARC.
  3. Allow a few seconds for the synchronization process to complete.
  4. Open the Robot Skills Manager in ARC to verify the available skills and updates.

Forcing the Robot Skill List to Update

In rare cases, you may want to manually force ARC to refresh its list of available robot skills. This can be done by removing the cached skill list file.

  1. Ensure ARC is not running. Close ARC completely if it is open.
  2. Verify you have an active internet connection by opening a web page (for example, synthiam.com) in your web browser.
  3. Open File Explorer and navigate to C:\ProgramData\ARC.
  4. Delete the file named AvailablePluginsList.txt.
  5. Restart ARC.

What this does: The AvailablePluginsList.txt file stores a cached list of robot skills downloaded from Synthiam’s servers. When this file is missing and ARC starts with an internet connection, ARC automatically downloads a fresh, up-to-date list.

Can’t Find the ProgramData Folder?

By default, Windows hides the ProgramData folder. If you do not see it, you will need to enable the option to show hidden files and folders.

  1. Open File Explorer.
  2. Click the View tab at the top.
  3. Check the box labeled Hidden items.
  4. Once enabled, the ProgramData folder will become visible, and you can navigate to C:\ProgramData\ARC.

Tip: You can also paste C:\ProgramData\ARC directly into the File Explorer address bar and press Enter.