Core has gone into blinking green after working fine for a year

I have one of my Cores that had been working without any issues for the past year and now it’s just stuck on blinking green.

I put it into listen mode by holding mode until it blinks blue and then I enter the wireless settings via the serial com port, the core accepts them and then reboots again into blinking green (other cores and photons connect to the wireless fine).

I already did a factory reset and even went as far as reflashing via DFU to end up with the same result.

Anyone have any ideas what may be happening here?

If it is a Core (not a Photon) I would try re-doing the deep update on the TI CC3000. They seem to lose their minds once it a while.

See the doc here:

https://docs.particle.io/support/troubleshooting/connection-help/core/#deep-update-for-the-core

So i did the deep update and even did the CC3000 patch but still the same result.

C:\Windows\System32>particle flash --usb deep_update_2014_06
Found DFU device 1d50:607f
checking file  C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\particle-cli\binaries\deep_update_2014_06.bin
spawning dfu-util -d 1d50:607f -a 0 -i 0 -s 0x08005000:leave -D C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\particle-cli\binaries\deep_update_2014_06.bin
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 1d50:607f
Run-time device DFU version 011a
Claiming USB DFU Interface...
Setting Alternate Setting #0 ...
Determining device status: state = dfuERROR, status = 10
dfuERROR, clearing status
Determining device status: state = dfuIDLE, status = 0
dfuIDLE, continuing
DFU mode device DFU version 011a
Device returned transfer size 1024
DfuSe interface name: "Internal Flash  "
Downloading to address = 0x08005000, size = 93636

Download        [                         ]   0%            0 bytes
Download        [=                        ]   4%         4096 bytes
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Download        [=========================] 100%        93636 bytes
Download done.
File downloaded successfully
Transitioning to dfuMANIFEST state
Invalid DFU suffix signature
A valid DFU suffix will be required in a future dfu-util release!!!

Flash success!

C:\Windows\System32>particle flash --usb cc3000
Found DFU device 1d50:607f
checking file  C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\particle-cli\binaries\cc3000-patch-programmer.bin
spawning dfu-util -d 1d50:607f -a 0 -i 0 -s 0x08005000:leave -D C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\particle-cli\binaries\cc3000-patch-programmer.bin
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 1d50:607f
Run-time device DFU version 011a
Claiming USB DFU Interface...
Setting Alternate Setting #0 ...
Determining device status: state = dfuERROR, status = 10
dfuERROR, clearing status
Determining device status: state = dfuIDLE, status = 0
dfuIDLE, continuing
DFU mode device DFU version 011a
Device returned transfer size 1024
DfuSe interface name: "Internal Flash  "
Downloading to address = 0x08005000, size = 25068

Download        [                         ]   0%            0 bytes
Download        [=                        ]   4%         1024 bytes
Download        [==                       ]   8%         2048 bytes
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Download        [=========================] 100%        25068 bytes
Download done.
File downloaded successfully
Transitioning to dfuMANIFEST state
Invalid DFU suffix signature
A valid DFU suffix will be required in a future dfu-util release!!!

Flash success!

C:\Windows\System32>particle flash --usb tinker
Found DFU device 1d50:607f
checking file  C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\particle-cli\binaries\core_tinker.bin
spawning dfu-util -d 1d50:607f -a 0 -i 0 -s 0x08005000:leave -D C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\particle-cli\binaries\core_tinker.bin
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 1d50:607f
Run-time device DFU version 011a
Claiming USB DFU Interface...
Setting Alternate Setting #0 ...
Determining device status: state = dfuERROR, status = 10
dfuERROR, clearing status
Determining device status: state = dfuIDLE, status = 0
dfuIDLE, continuing
DFU mode device DFU version 011a
Device returned transfer size 1024
DfuSe interface name: "Internal Flash  "
Downloading to address = 0x08005000, size = 79996

Download        [                         ]   0%            0 bytes
Download        [                         ]   2%         2048 bytes
Download        [=                        ]   5%         4096 bytes
Download        [==                       ]   8%         7168 bytes
Download        [==                       ]  10%         8192 bytes
Download        [===                      ]  12%        10240 bytes
Download        [====                     ]  16%        13312 bytes
Download        [====                     ]  19%        15360 bytes
Download        [=====                    ]  20%        16384 bytes
Download        [======                   ]  24%        19456 bytes
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Download        [=======                  ]  28%        22528 bytes
Download        [========                 ]  32%        25600 bytes
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Download        [=========================] 100%        79996 bytes
Download done.
File downloaded successfully
Transitioning to dfuMANIFEST state
Invalid DFU suffix signature
A valid DFU suffix will be required in a future dfu-util release!!!

Flash success!
  
C:\Windows\System32>particle setup wifi
? Should I scan for nearby Wi-Fi networks? (Y/n) n
? Should I scan for nearby Wi-Fi networks? No
? SSID: ********
? SSID: ********
? Security Type: WPA2
? Wi-Fi Password: ***********************
Done! Your device should now restart.

Weird. Can you try particle flash --usb cc3000_1_14

1 Like

I flashed cc3000_1_14 and now the light is flashing purple, pushing or holding the mode doesn’t do anything. Pushing reset shuts of the light until the button is released and then it immediately starts blinking purple, it almost seems like its not booting and going straight to blinking purple.

I can still get to DFU mode though.

Hmm… seems like the CC3000 is acting up…

A very similar thing happened about a week ago with a core I’ve had for about a year. Was working great but then just went to blinking green. Resetting the wifi credentials didn’t have any effect. Here is how I fixed it:

Put core in DFU mode

To get it back to factory:
particle flash --factory tinker

Reflash the wifi controller
particle flash --usb cc3000
(will blink magenta and eventually revert to yellow)

Reflash tinker
particle flash --usb tinker

setup wifi credentials
particle serial wifi

I then used the web IDE to flash the application and all is well. Hope this is useful.

Muskie, Ifollowed your steps and now it’s breathing cyan, however pressing and holding mode doesn’t do anything, it goes directly to breathing cyan it doesn’t seem to be booting. I shut off my wireless and it continued breathing cyan so i’m guessing something is still messed up on it.

FWIW, the same core failed again this morning. Flashing CC3000 fixed it, but 3 hours later is failed again. I think my core needs to be replaced by a Photon. Oh well.

Looks like this is a rather common issue with the Core. I had the same problem today also after a power up of the device (which I had used for a year). This seems to be a random problem during the power cycle issue causing the WiFi info corrupted.
Just the Factory Reset will not work. It requires a complete re-flash using DFU

particle flash --usb cc3000
particle flash --usb deep_update_2014_06

I recall this is the 10th times in the past year it happen :frowning:

that sucks. but the bright side is that the code should transport easily, and the photon is only 19!

Update: my core seems to be reliable if powered by a USB wall wort, but not by battery. Battery power worked very well for almost a year, but now I need to reflash after a few hours. So I guess I get to keep the core but ditch the batteries.

This worked for me. Thank you so much! I tried many, many different things and none worked. I have a Core as well that was working for months and when I tried to take it to another WiFi network things went south very quickly. I guess it doesn’t like to let go of the current network config? I have 3 Photons arriving this week and hopefully they will behave better when taken to a new network.

I wish I had read this post the first time my Core was blinking green, I would have ordered a Photon straight away.

As things stand, I thought I had permanently fixed my Core with the cc3000 flash but after 4 or 5 months consistently working it reverted to flashing green again. Entering DFU mode and flashing the cc3000 only resulted in the Core blinking purple for ever, except once in over two hours of trying, a eureka moment if ever there was one, but finishing the process by flashing tinker and setting up wifi over USB just got me back to square one (blinking green).

Further flashing attempts has bricked the Core in my opinion. It’s breathing white now, which looks promising until you realise that it means the wifi is off. I’m going to try the deep update tonight, this is the first I’ve heard of it, but lesson learnt…

Sunset your Core devices !