Boron LTE blinks magenta few times followed by red SOS

Firmware Device OS
1

I had a Boron LTE device running in the field for a few months just fine. Few days I go released a OTA firmware update to the device. The firmware upgrade was unsuccessful, I had the device shipped back to me and when I power up the device blinks a few times magenta followed by 10 red SOS blinks. Also, the charging LED blinks rapidly every time I power it up. I tried these steps Device Blinking Red, Yellow, or Frozen/No LED – Particle Support to recover it.

When I run particle update I get this

> Your device is ready for a system update.
> This process should take about 30 seconds. Here it goes!

▀ Updating system firmware on the device...dfu-util 0.8

Copyright 2005-2009 Weston Schmidt, Harald Welte and OpenMoko Inc.
Copyright 2010-2014 Tormod Volden and Stefan Schmidt
This program is Free Software and has ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
Please report bugs to dfu-util@lists.gnumonks.org

▐ Updating system firmware on the device...Opening DFU capable USB device...
ID 2b04:d00d
Run-time device DFU version 011a
Claiming USB DFU Interface...
Setting Alternate Setting #0 ...
Determining device status: state = dfuIDLE, status = 0
dfuIDLE, continuing
DFU mode device DFU version 011a
Device returned transfer size 4096
DfuSe interface name: "Internal Flash   "
Downloading to address = 0x00030000, size = 494444
Downloadng syste[=========================] 100%       494444 bytes
Download done.
File downloaded successfully
Invalid DFU suffix signature
A valid DFU suffix will be required in a future dfu-util release!!!
▌ Updating system firmware on the device...dfu-util 0.8

Copyright 2005-2009 Weston Schmidt, Harald Welte and OpenMoko Inc.
Copyright 2010-2014 Tormod Volden and Stefan Schmidt
This program is Free Software and has ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
Please report bugs to dfu-util@lists.gnumonks.org

▀ Updating system firmware on the device...Opening DFU capable USB device...
ID 2b04:d00d
Run-time device DFU version 011a
Claiming USB DFU Interface...
Setting Alternate Setting #0 ...
Determining device status: state = dfuIDLE, status = 0
dfuIDLE, continuing
DFU mode device DFU version 011a
Device returned transfer size 4096
DfuSe interface name: "Internal Flash   "
Downloading to address = 0x00001000, size = 153024
Downloadng syste[=========================] 100%       153024 bytes
Download done.
File downloaded successfully
Invalid DFU suffix signature
A valid DFU suffix will be required in a future dfu-util release!!!
▀ Updating system firmware on the device...dfu-util 0.8

Copyright 2005-2009 Weston Schmidt, Harald Welte and OpenMoko Inc.
Copyright 2010-2014 Tormod Volden and Stefan Schmidt
This program is Free Software and has ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
Please report bugs to dfu-util@lists.gnumonks.org

▐ Updating system firmware on the device...Opening DFU capable USB device...
ID 2b04:d00d
Run-time device DFU version 011a
Claiming USB DFU Interface...
Setting Alternate Setting #2 ...
Determining device status: state = dfuIDLE, status = 0
dfuIDLE, continuing
DFU mode device DFU version 011a
Device returned transfer size 4096
DfuSe interface name: "External Flash   "
Downloading to address = 0x80289000, size = 46580
Downloadng syste[=========================] 100%        46580 bytes
Download done.
File downloaded successfully
Invalid DFU suffix signature
A valid DFU suffix will be required in a future dfu-util release!!!
▐ Updating system firmware on the device...dfu-util 0.8

Copyright 2005-2009 Weston Schmidt, Harald Welte and OpenMoko Inc.
Copyright 2010-2014 Tormod Volden and Stefan Schmidt
This program is Free Software and has ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
Please report bugs to dfu-util@lists.gnumonks.org

Opening DFU capable USB device...
ID 2b04:d00d
Run-time device DFU version 011a
Claiming USB DFU Interface...
Setting Alternate Setting #1 ...
Determining device status: state = dfuIDLE, status = 0
dfuIDLE, continuing
DFU mode device DFU version 011a
Device returned transfer size 4096
DfuSe interface name: "DCD Flash   "
Downloading to address = 0x000006d9, size = 1
▐ Updating system firmware on the device...File too short for DFU suffix
A valid DFU suffix will be required in a future dfu-util release!!!
Error during download get_status

! An error occurred while attempting to update the system firmware of your device:

File too short for DFU suffix
A valid DFU suffix will be required in a future dfu-util release!!!
Error during download get_status

Prior to releasing the firmware I had two other devices upgraded and running the same code just fine. Any thoughts?

2

I guess your new firmware targets a newer device OS and hence previously “acceptable” code may now cause problems as the security enforcement got more strict.

Without seeing your code it’s hard to tell tho’

3

I’m not able to take the device out of the SOS state. I can put it in to DFU mode but when I run particle update it fails.

4

here is a video PXL_20210306_035249126

Also, I’m unable to put the device in listening mode. Based on what I have been reading on this forum it appears to be a corrupt bootloader. If that is the case how could that have happened when the was a OTA update. Before releasing the firmware update, the device was already on 2.0.1.

5

You could download the apropriate bootloader binary from here

And then try to flash it via DFU Mode - this should be possible for a while now.

particle flash --usb <yourBinary> -v

While at it you can also download the System, SoftDevice and Tinker binaries and flash them too.

6

I was able to flash everything but the bootloader. Here is what I get when i try to do that
Error writing firmware: unknown module function 2, use --force to override

VError: Error writing firmware: unknown module function 2, use --force to override
    at C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\particle\node_modules\particle-cli\dist\cmd\flash.js:208:13
    at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:97:5)
    at async CLI.runCommand (C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\particle\node_modules\particle-cli\dist\app\cli.js:160:7)
    at async CLI.run (C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\particle\node_modules\particle-cli\dist\app\cli.js:190:14)
caused by: Error: unknown module function 2, use --force to override
    at C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\particle\node_modules\particle-cli\dist\cmd\flash.js:176:21
    at tryCatchReject (C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\particle\node_modules\particle-cli\node_modules\when\lib\makePromise.js:845:30)
    at runContinuation1 (C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\particle\node_modules\particle-cli\node_modules\when\lib\makePromise.js:804:4)
    at Fulfilled.when (C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\particle\node_modules\particle-cli\node_modules\when\lib\makePromise.js:592:4)
    at Pending.run (C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\particle\node_modules\particle-cli\node_modules\when\lib\makePromise.js:483:13)
    at Scheduler._drain (C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\particle\node_modules\particle-cli\node_modules\when\lib\Scheduler.js:62:19)
    at Scheduler.drain (C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\particle\node_modules\particle-cli\node_modules\when\lib\Scheduler.js:27:9)
    at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:79:11)
7

You may need to file a support ticket at support.particle.io