No DFU capable USB device available

Getting Started
1

Hello, all …

I’ve used Particle Photons for various projects using the web IDE, and that’s been great. However, for this latest project I want to use an Argon LTE and build / flash everything locally using Particle Workbench. However, even though the Argon is breathing cyan, whenever I try to build anything locally via VSCode, I get this:

/Users/jmzorko/.particle/toolchains/deviceOS/5.0.1/modules/boron/system-part1/makefile /Users/jmzorko/.particle/toolchains/deviceOS/5.0.1/modules/boron/user-part/makefile
text data bss dec hex filename
499268 2630 62354 564252 89c1c …/…/…/build/target/system-part1/platform-13-m/system-part1.elf
Serial device PARTICLE_SERIAL_DEV : not available
Flashing using dfu:
dfu-util 0.9

Copyright 2005-2009 Weston Schmidt, Harald Welte and OpenMoko Inc.
Copyright 2010-2016 Tormod Volden and Stefan Schmidt
This program is Free Software and has ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
Please report bugs to dfu-util / Tickets

_dfu-util: No DFU capable USB device available
make[2]: *** [program-dfu] Error 74
make[1]: *** [/Users/jmzorko/.particle/toolchains/deviceOS/5.0.1/modules/boron/system-part1/makefile] Error 2
make: *** [flash-all] Error 2

I’m using an M1 MacBook Air running macOS Monterrey. I’ve tried different USB cables, including ones known to work with other boards. What am I doing wrong?

Regards,

John

2

Hi John-

If you manually put the device in DFU mode does it work? In order to use the Flash options, the device must be connected by USB and in DFU mode (blinking yellow). If the board isn’t responding to programmatic attempts to put it in DFU you can manually place it in DFU more by holding down the MODE (or SETUP) button while tapping RESET until it blinks yellow.

Let me know what happens!

3

Hello Colleen!

Many thanks for the response, it is truly appreciated. While I was able to manually put the device into DFU as you described, it still didn’t fix my issue.

  1. I hold down SETUP, tap RESET and wait for blinking yellow.
  2. In VSCode, I choose Flash application (local)
  3. The app (just an empty setup() function and and empty loop() function) apparently flashes
  4. The Argon blinks blue … forever (it was breathing cyan before).

Furthermore, the Particle mobile app no longer thinks the Argon (which I setup before this as it was breathing cyan before) is online. I’ve removed power from the Argon and plugged it back in, to no effect.

So, I’m still stuck.

Regards,

John

4

Update: If I use the Web IDE, I’m able to flash the device with my code, signaling the device works (the LED cycles colors) and all seems good. I’d really like to use Particle Workbench, though. What am I missing?

Regards,

John