Boron in a loop: blinking green followed by white

Firmware
1

What can cause a Boron to go into a loop blinking green followed up white?

The only way top get it out of the loop is to power it down for a few seconds and power it back up.

2

@oraclerouter ,

I can think of a few things as the “white” means, I am operating disconnected from Cellular / Particle.

  1. Brownout - could the battery be low enough that the modem’s power demands cause a brown-out?
  2. Is there a Particle.disconnect() in your code that is executing after the device connects?
  3. Could it be stuck in an update loop (connects, starts update, fails, repeats). Device Restore?
  4. Something in firmware, does it do the same thing if you flash “Tinker”?

Good luck and let us know what you find, I am sure this has happened to others as well.

Thanks, Chip

1 Like
3

Thanks @chipmc. Here is what I have.

  1. It is powered via VUSB and no battery.
  2. No Particle.disconnect() in the code.
  3. It happened a few times on me when I was testing and calling a function or variable frequently back to back but I can’t consistently reproduce it too.
  4. Haven’t tried Tinker as it is not happening consistently.

To me it appears as if the Boron got blocked from connecting to the cloud or to the cell network.

The only other thing that comes to my mind is that I’m running this code every 10 minutes.

void system_display_rssi()
{
  CellularSignal sig = Cellular.RSSI();
  strength = sig.getStrength();
  quality = sig.getQuality();
}

so not sure if I called a function/variable while this was calculating and it caused it.

Also, I have SYSTEM_MODE(AUTOMATIC); SYSTEM_THREAD(ENABLED);

4

@oraclerouter ,

Interesting. I have a couple other thoughts, if I may. You have probably look at both but, just to be sure:

  1. When powering the Boron using USB and without battery, it is possible to draw more current than your USB source allows or which causes the USB voltage to drop. Have you monitored VUSB while this happens?
  2. In the API documentation, it notes that Cellular.RSSI() is usually quick but can block if the modem is reconnecting. Could you put some sort of log.info “tick” in the main loop to see if something is blocking when this happens?

Intermittent issues are the most frustrating. I hope you figure it out soon and I would love to hear what you find when you do.

Thanks, Chip

5

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