Flashing Yellow Light / No Factory Reset

Troubleshooting
1

One of my cores is with the constant yellow light I executed all the steps here http://docs.spark.io/#/connect/troubleshooting-by-color-flashing-yellow, when executing step 3, this happens:

dfu-util.exe -l outputs:

dfu-util 0.6

Copyright 2005-2008 Weston Schmidt, Harald Welte and OpenMoko Inc.
Copyright 2010-2012 Tormod Volden and Stefan Schmidt
This program is Free Software and has ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY

Found DFU: [1d50:607f] devnum=0, cfg=1, intf=0, alt=0, name="@Internal Flash  /0x08000000/20*001Ka,108*001Kg"
Found DFU: [1d50:607f] devnum=0, cfg=1, intf=0, alt=1, name="@SPI Flash : SST25x/0x00000000/512*04Kg"

Then the first command to update executes without error:

dfu-util -d 1d50:607f -a 1 -s 0x00020000 -D factory_firmware.bin
dfu-util 0.6

Copyright 2005-2008 Weston Schmidt, Harald Welte and OpenMoko Inc.
Copyright 2010-2012 Tormod Volden and Stefan Schmidt
This program is Free Software and has ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY

Filter on vendor = 0x1d50 product = 0x607f
Opening DFU capable USB device... ID 1d50:607f
Run-time device DFU version 011a
Found DFU: [1d50:607f] devnum=0, cfg=1, intf=0, alt=1, name="@SPI Flash : SST25x
/0x00000000/512*04Kg"
Claiming USB DFU Interface...
Setting Alternate Setting #1 ...
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
No valid DFU suffix signature
Warning: File has no DFU suffix
DfuSe interface name: "SPI Flash : SST25x"
Downloading to address = 0x00020000, size = 59252
..........................................................
File downloaded successfully

But the second one outputs the following:

dfu-util -d 1d50:607f -a 0 -s 0x08005000:leave -D factory_firmware.bin
Error: Invalid dfuse address: 0x08005000:leave

I’m using windows but this doest seems to be the problems, am I missing something, or I just got a faulty unit and should contact the spark core team?

2

Hello @flatlining
I tried copying pasting the same commands from this post and they seem to work both the times.

The first command is storing the firmware in the external flash memory, while the second stores it in the internal memory of the STM32 microcontroller.

You could try two things:

  1. After the first command, put the Core back into the DFU mode (flashing yellow) even if it is flashing yellow already
  2. After the first command, try doing a factory reset (skip the second command). This will make the bootloader boot from the external flash memory.
3

was able to execute the 2nd command as in the documents (i was using dfu 0.6, changed to 0.7 and it worked).

the core has even registered itself in the build webapp now!

But the behavior is still the same, go trought the normal colors, like it is going to work, stuck at magent, than start to blink yellow again (have to reflash it all over to try it again).

My second one is working fine.

Above is a video: flashing led > factory reset > flashing led:

https://mediacru.sh/ygipj_QQx_WK

1 Like
5

Hi @flatlining,

Did you try re-flashing the factory reset area using dfu-util 0.7 after you upgraded? It does look like the factory reset failed, most likely candidate is missing factory reset firmware. – Sorry for the brief post, I wrote a much longer one and then realized you had flashed factory reset earlier. Could you try writing factory reset to that area, and then reading it back using dfu-util to another file on your disk? I’m curious to see if the two match perfectly (could indicate a bad flash chip).

Thanks,
David

6

Hi @Dave ,

Really sorry for the late reply, I was working out of the country with no time to play with my sparks (unfortunately :().
Just did the write - read operation, as explained in this post http://community.spark.io/t/core-unable-to-update-firmware-over-the-air/1375/16 and this was the outcome:

It looks like that from one of my cores the dumped firmware is different from the one written to it.

1 Like
7

You really seem to have the same issue as me (you saw it here first, folks :P). Spark sent me a replacement Core, you should just email hello@spark.io and they’ll sort you out as well.

2 Likes
8

Totally, if you send us your shipping address / phone number @flatlining we’ll get you sorted out, looks like maybe your external flash chip is bad.

Thanks!
David

1 Like