I’ve followed the instructions and I’ve gotten my Electron connected before. I just recently flashed a new binary and now it flashes green forever and never connects. So I tried resetting everything again, but same results.
I then checked to see what Particle thinks. While the Electron was flashing green (searching for internet I thought), Particle thinks the device is connected. The application shows the Electron is online with non-tinker and then running “particle list” from the CLI shows that the Electron is online.
So this makes me believe my Electron is online, but it isn’t connecting to the cloud for some reason. I had random times where the green blinking would change to red blinking than cyan blinking and finally back to green blinking. The red blinking was nothing as described in the docs, so I’m not sure what to think but it’s not an SOS. I have ran “particle keys server” with success so I know the cloud key is on there. I have also tried putting it in safe mode, but I still just get blinking green.
Could it be that Particle Cloud glitches and thinks my device is online? This could be why I’m not getting my breathing cyan and it’s just trying to connect. If anyone has insight, that would be great! I’ll pick up again tomorrow to try and figure out what is up.
Blinking green means attempting to connect to the cellular tower and doesn’t involve the cloud yet.
Can you place the electron in safe mode and see if it connects successfully?
Using the Dashboard’s last connection status might be more accurate since the electron is using UDP and that’s connectionless. The online/offline thing doesn’t really apply here.
My Electrons arrived yesterday and I had this issue with one of them when I was setting them up at my desk.
One Electron breathed cyan straight away when powered. The other one was flashing green for ages and never connected. When I moved the flashing green Electron towards the window, it breathed cyan seconds later. Then I moved it back to my desk and it remained connected.
My suggestion - try moving the Electron, maybe the antenna placement is off or there is poor cell reception? I’m purely speculating here.
I have tried putting it in safe mode and it still just kept flashing green. I haven’t touched it since yesterday, it’s still unplugged in my drawer. Ran “particle list” and it’s showing the Electron is online right now and I still don’t understand that.
@antos I know what you’re talking about. When I first started playing around with it, I had to move it over to the window and it would connect. I could only get it to do this in safe mode, but now it won’t connect anywhere. I’m going to try and take it home today and hopefully it is just the signal. I’ll also try resetting everything.
I also have a 3G Electron I haven’t opened yet, so I’ll go ahead and try that out to see the comparison of setup.
One the Core and Photon, with a TCP connection to the cloud, you can know when a core is "online" if it has an open connection to the cloud since the cloud can test if the connection is still open or not.
But with an electron with a UDP connection to the cloud, you can't really know if it is online or offline based on connection status since UDP is connectionless. All you can know is when the last time the cloud talked to your device and then have the cloud decide is it timed out or not. I don't think the Particle engineers have a robust way of determining the online status, so it might be better to look at the "last heard" from fields instead.
It can also mean that their is an issue with your SIM card. I am having lots of issues with what seems to be a poor connection between the SIM holder and SIM card. I have tried several cards and it works for a while and then stops and starts to blink green! Its driving my crazy.
You could try to carefully, slightly bend up the contacts with a needle and push the metal bracket that holds the SIM in place down to increase pressure on the SIM.
Thanks, I have tried most of the suggestions so far, its driving me nuts!
I am no specialist but looking at the design of the SIM holder I would rate it fairly poor. I have no idea why the bracket is positioned where it is in essence putting pressure everywhere except where it should be which is over the metal contacts! ?
I have again used a fine needle to lift the contacts up just a little. From experience it will work for an hour or two and then it goes back to the green blinking.
