Argon SOS+1 - wifi credentials seem to kill it

Troubleshooting
1

Help please people.

I develop on an Argon. It’s been working fine.

Tweaked my code a few days ago - I just changed the initialisation of a bool variable from FALSE to TRUE, flashed, and the board began going into SOS +1.

…then the fun began.

It wouldn’t go into safe mode - it would go straight to SOS +1.

So I went the factory reset, then ran particle update - then flashed tinker.

Now the Argon is back in listening mode - so I ran android setup - it pairs etc. as soon as it gets wifi credentials it crashes and we’re back to SOS +1.

Repeated several times - same result.

Tried a reset, update then fed the board wifi credentials and we’re back to SOS +1.

particle serial identify
Your device id is xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Your system firmware version is 1.3.1

particle serial inspect
Platform: 12 - Argon
Modules
Bootloader module #0 - version 401, main location, 49152 bytes max size
Integrity: PASS
Address Range: PASS
Platform: PASS
Dependencies: PASS
System module #1 - version 1321, main location, 671744 bytes max size
Integrity: PASS
Address Range: PASS
Platform: PASS
Dependencies: PASS
Bootloader module #0 - version 401
User module #1 - version 6, main location, 131072 bytes max size
UUID: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Integrity: PASS
Address Range: PASS
Platform: PASS
Dependencies: PASS
System module #1 - version 1321
NCP module #0 - version 5, main location, 1536000 bytes max size
Integrity: PASS
Address Range: PASS
Platform: PASS
Dependencies: PASS
Radio stack module #0 - version 169, main location, 192512 bytes max size
Integrity: PASS
Address Range: PASS
Platform: PASS
Dependencies: PASS

Now what?

2

Clear your credentials, reflash Tinker and reapply the WiFi credentials via CLI.

3

How do I clear the credentials?

4

Press/hold the SETUP/MODE button for 10+ seconds till the RGB LED starts rapid blue blinking.

5

Tried that before… but sure here goes:

Nope, same result.

6

Same result?

  • Starting in Listening Mode?
  • SOS+1? or
  • both?

Try flashing this firmware via DFU Mode

#include "Particle.h"
#include "dct.h"

SYSTEM_MODE(SEMI_AUTOMATIC);
void setup() {
    const uint8_t val = 0x01;
    dct_write_app_data(&val, DCT_SETUP_DONE_OFFSET, 1);
    pinMode(D7, OUTPUT);
    digitalWrite(D7, HIGH);
    Particle.connect();
}
7

And it does this:

video

Not sure if its related but I move between 4 WiFi neworks with this device - I’ve seen it SOS before, but then settle down and connect to the network after a while.

8

Try taking the device out the breadboard.
What happens with the device only powered via USB or LiPo respectively?

9

Yup - did all that.

The board usually sits in a feather-wing tripler with a relay board and an INA219.

Where is the “resetting your board back to fresh-out-of-the-box instructions?”.

Searching for recover/restore/firmware/blah blah blah… gives me so many different possible solutions.

…the only other thing I can add is that I feel like the board has been doing this for some time. As mentioned above, this board moves between wifi networks. I think I noticed that when I powered up the board it would go through this routine a few times then start normally. I just assumed it was working its way through the list of networks/credentials.

Any clues? Seems like it might be a hardware issue?

10

If you haven’t populated the factory reset location with some valid firmware for your use-case, the location will be void and the “normal” factory reset procedure won’t fully work.
You also don’t want your device to get back into the fresh-out-of-the-box state as this will probably put it back to a rather old device OS version which is generally more buggy than newer releases.

However, you can follow the instructions given in the firmware update announcements to install the a healthy firmware, device OS and potentially also bootloder, NCP firmware and nRF SoftDevice.

I’d start with (using the lates official release - currently 1.3.1)

  • press/hold MODE for 10+ seconds to clear credentials and some “one time settings”
  • in DFU Mode run particle flash --usb tinker -v
  • in DFU Mode run particle flash --usb argon-system-part1@1.3.1.bin -v from here
  • in Listening Mode run particle flash --serial argon-bootloader@1.3.1.bin -v from here
  • in DFU Mode run particle flash --usb argon-softdevice@1.3.1.bin -v from here
  • start the normal setup again

If this does not help it might be that your device has got some hardware issue and a support ticked would be warranted.

11

For the record, it was indeed a hardware fault and our friendly team at Particle have sent me a replacement. :blush:

12

hello,
I met with the above issue, after following all the steps mentioned above it solved but only for few minutes again it trying to connect with the network. in between it blinks two red notation and two blinks of safe mode notation.