I ran across a new and discouraging behavior while attempting to use Blynk with a Particle Photon on a project I was developing at home. I’ve used Blynk with Particle devices many times in the past without issue - including for a couple of days last week when I was first playing with this new idea. But then over the last weekend, everything stopped working, and I started to get this “crashing” behavior.
After spending some time trying to isolate the issue and boing back and forth with different versions of Device OS on the Photon, I have a very repeatable process to make it fail. The failing/crashing symptoms are:
- Photon disconnects from WiFi
- Cyan status LED switches to slow dark blue Listening Mode blinking
- Then status LED transitions to rapid dark blue blinking pattern
- WiFi credentials are erased, and I need to go through the WiFi setup process again AND re-flash the program with a safe program (Tinker) that does not start Blynk. Otherwise, the process will just repeat itself.
Here’s a video of the setup and steps that cause the crash: https://youtu.be/flr_34Bg4Fk
Some additional info:
- Hardware: Particle Photon
- Photon Device OS Version: 0.7.0
- Blynk Library: 0.5.4
- Blynk Server (Not local)
The code is from the Getting Started code builder on Blynk.cc:
/* Comment this out to disable prints and save space */
#define BLYNK_DEBUG
#define BLYNK_PRINT Serial
#include <blynk.h>
// You should get Auth Token in the Blynk App.
// Go to the Project Settings (nut icon).
char auth[] = "[REMOVED FOR POST]";
void setup()
{
// Debug console
Serial.begin(9600);
delay(5000); // Allow board to settle
Blynk.begin(auth);
}
void loop()
{
Blynk.run();
// You can inject your own code or combine it with other sketches.
// Check other examples on how to communicate with Blynk. Remember
// to avoid delay() function!
}
Any thoughts or ideas are welcome!
Thanks!
Jason