I have five spark cores. When I first received them I was able to flash in a blinking sketch to each one. I have since been unable to re-flash the cores with anything.
Hello!
Are the Cores able to connect to the cloud? (breathing cyan pattern on the main LED)
A simple factory reset solves such issues most of the time.
Here is how you would do it: http://docs.spark.io/#/connect/appendix-factory-reset
Hope this helps!
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Yes they all connect to the cloud just fine. In the IDE I select the corresponding core to the ID number, verify the sketch, place the core in listening mode, flash, and wait forever. I have a new relay shield that I would like to use but can’t. I can’t even re-flash tinker.
Hi @smithh3, you don’t need the core in listening mode unless you are uploading a .bin file via usb.
Try flashing when the core is breathing cyan and it should be blinking magenta during the process.
Let us know how it goes!
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Okay. It’s breathing and blinking the original sketch. I select the core, verify the relay sketch, flash, and nothing happens. It does not flash magenta or anything else.
@smithh3, let’s try something else 1st.
Did you use the tinker app previously to send wifi credentials?
Yes and that worked fine. I was able to change the onboard LED.
Hi @smithh3 , Is it possible that the star’s next to the core name is not highlighted? This star determines which cores will get flashed when you hit the flash button.
So, for example, in the image below, when I hit the flash button the “asdf” core will get flashed whereas the “cranky_easter” core will not.
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No. I assigned names spark1 through spark5 to the cores and initially flash them with a blinking sketch corresponding to their number i.e. core 4 flash four times, etc. when I select the core to program I make sure the corresponding star is yellow.
@jgoggins i was thinking of that. nice 
Just to make sure things are working using the thinker app:
Select your core & do a reflash tinker
Okay did that. Still same nonresponse.
What does the error message says if any?
Let’s try to power down all the cores and leave 1 running.
Using http://jflasher.github.io/spark-helper/, check if the core is shown as online
EDIT: Hmm not a good way. give me a second
No error messages were displayed.
I tried to re-flash Tinker again and this time I got an error '" we have encountered an error please check that your core is online".
Can you try to power down the 1 core and back on again?
Once it’s up, turn on the thinker app and set D7 to digitalWrite and toggle it.
The onboard LED should blink
Hey @smithh3,
I know you’re probably feeling drowned in suggestions right now, so sorry for throwing one more on top of the pile! I want to echo what @mohit mentioned at the top of the thread–a factory reset is a great way to get your Core back to square one, regardless of its current state.
Keep us posted on your progress! If you want to give us an email at hello [at] spark [dot] io, we’d be happy to help you out there as well!
Hey @smithh3,
I know you’re probably feeling drowned in suggestions right now, so sorry for throwing one more on top of the pile! I want to echo what @mohit mentioned at the top of the thread–a factory reset is a great way to get your Core back to square one, regardless of its current state.
Keep us posted on your progress! If you want to give us an email at hello [at] spark [dot] io, we’d be happy to help you out there as well!
Okay finally got it to work. I’m still using the initial factory firmware. I’ve seen posts talking about a new set of firmware. Could the old firmware be causing this problem? Should I upgrade to the new firmware? If I upgrade to the new firmware and then do a factory reset am I going to wipe it out with the old one that is already in the core?
When you flash your app through the web IDE, you get the latest stable firmware with it.
Doing a factory reset will simply put the Core in a stable mode so that you can recover from a bad firmware or a failed OTA update. This will indeed wipe out the old one but as soon as you do OTA, you are back to the latest and greatest!
Thanks for the reply.