My Electron is driving me nuts! I get it that's it's no longer supported, but it worked reliably for me in the past and I was hoping to reuse it for a simple alarm notification on my truck bed.
Most of the time it's searching for a connection (flashing green) but occasionally it breaths cyan. When it's breathing cyan, I rush to my Particle Console and it shows it's online, but when I try to signal it I get nothing. I then go to the Particle Web IDE and try to upload code, for now just Tinker so I don't have to worry about there being an issue with my own code. It says the upload is successful but I never see the LED change as if it's updating. Another oddball thing is no SIM cards are showing on the Console.
I have no idea where the code is presumably uploading to and I'm not sure what to do at this point. Any suggestions on a path I might take? Thanks in advance.
Are you using the Particle SIM card, or a 3rd-party SIM card?
If you are using a 3rd-party SIM card, you probably will need to adjust the Particle.keepAlive() because the default of 23 minutes will be too long. It's typically needs to be between 30 seconds and a few minutes for 3rd-party SIM cards. The symptom of too long of a keep-alive is that the device is breathing cyan, but can't be communicated to from the cloud (signal, function, variable, or OTA). A 3rd-party SIM card will not show up in the console.
I have the same SIM card that came with the device when I purchased it from Particle. One thing that concerns me is that it's not showing up in the SIM card tab on the console. Maybe I did something that killed the link between my SIM and Particle?
That is possible, however it's not the cause of your problem if the device is getting past blinking green. The cloud does not enforce a relationship between the device and its SIM, it just requires an activated SIM card.
I'd put the device in safe mode. Hold down the MODE button and tap reset. Continue to hold down MODE until the status LED blinks magenta (red and blue at the same time). Once blinking magenta, release, then wait for the device to progress through blinking green, blinking cyan, and to breathing magenta. Then try flashing code OTA. It's possible that the firmware on the device is interfering with the cloud connection.
You could also try Web Device Doctor to put your device back into a known state.
Still no joy. The Web Device Doctor seems to do what it's supposed to do and it shows the correct info (Device Name, IMEI, etc.) but it never seems to connect to the network. I'll let it sit for awhile and see if it ever connects. It might be time to junk the Electron and get a Boron. Thanks for your help, @rickkas7
Now it's back to breathing cyan, I upload Tinker and it says successful but the LED never changes from breathing cyan. Particle Console shows the device is only and the last vital was at 5:40 a.m., over 2 hours ago. When I try to signal the device from the Console nothing happens on the device. I must be uploading a lot of codes and signaling a lot to someone elses device, haha!
Darn. I was finally able to load Tinker and it worked. I went to load my code and the LED stuck at blue/red. Never saw that before and I don't see anything in the documents that tell me what it means.
Blinking blue and red at the same time is blinking magenta. It may stay solid for a few seconds at a time, but as long as it periodically blinks, just let it be and eventually it will stop. It's either upgrading the firmware OTA, or upgrading Device OS OTA.
It appeared solid red/blue. But it doesn't matter because FINALLY, after a bunch of resets, Doctor visits and patience, I got my code to upload and it's working! Kind of. I think part of the issue might be the T-Mobile towers. I'm only getting something like 20% signal strength and it doesn't stay connected often.
So now a super newbie question: If my code is loaded shouldn't the Electron do what's in the code even without a cell connection (with the exception of Particle Publish?) For instance, let's say I make an LED blink every 5 seconds (using millis not delay,) shouldn't the LED blink regardless of if I have a cell connection?
Great! I will try that if it gives me another chance to upload code. Thanks for taking the time to help me, despite that the Electron has been deprecated.