I checked mine as well and it is not conductive either.
Hi @jkhan001
The black foam is slightly conductive and not a good to leave it on there. It is meant for shipping and handling.
If you want to prove that it is conductive, push your ohm meter probes into it until they almost touch and see what it reads.
@kennethlimcp The Photon has been blinking magenta for about 10 hour continuously. Do you think we could have more success with the dfu-util feature?
Definitely works via DFU 
@kennethlimcp This is the response I get after running the the dfu-util from here. After the second command finishes, the Photon leaves DFU mode and looks like a solid green color. It does not appears to be breathing green.
$dfu-util -d 2b04:d006 -a 0 -s 0x8020000 -D system-part1-0.4.5-photon.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
dfu-util: Invalid DFU suffix signature
dfu-util: A valid DFU suffix will be required in a future dfu-util release!!!
Opening DFU capable USB device...
ID 2b04:d006
Run-time device DFU version 011a
Claiming USB DFU Interface...
Setting Alternate Setting #0 ...
Determining device status: state = dfuIDLE, status = 0
dfuIDLE, continuing
DFU mode device DFU version 011a
Device returned transfer size 4096
DfuSe interface name: "Internal Flash "
Downloading to address = 0x08020000, size = 249612
Download [=========================] 100% 249612 bytes
Download done.
File downloaded successfully
$dfu-util -d 2b04:d006 -a 0 -s 0x8060000:leave -D system-part2-0.4.5-photon.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
dfu-util: Invalid DFU suffix signature
dfu-util: A valid DFU suffix will be required in a future dfu-util release!!!
Opening DFU capable USB device...
ID 2b04:d006
Run-time device DFU version 011a
Claiming USB DFU Interface...
Setting Alternate Setting #0 ...
Determining device status: state = dfuIDLE, status = 0
dfuIDLE, continuing
DFU mode device DFU version 011a
Device returned transfer size 4096
DfuSe interface name: "Internal Flash "
Downloading to address = 0x08060000, size = 162096
Download [=========================] 100% 162096 bytes
Download done.
File downloaded successfully
dfu-util: Error during download get_status
I have quite a few Photons, and one of them did exactly this. Never ending update mode. Flashed 0.4.5 by USB. Now it’s just solid green.
Maybe it’s the same issue, maybe it’s not – @jkhan001 does your Photon still allow WiFi listening mode?
@msolters Yes, I can place it into listening mode where there blue light flashes.
Ok, just verifying. Mine does too. But once it’s set up–boom. Solid green. I’ve rebuilt the firmware from scratch and its always the same. 
Some Photon's have corrupt firmware. The solid green light indicates you have this problem. In this case you have to manually install the firmware yourself.
Place Photon in DFU mode:
Solution:
My node version: v0.10.40
Install particle command line: npm install -g particle-cli
When complete type: particle update
Response:
Your device is ready for a system update.
This process should take about 30 seconds. Here goes!
! System firmware update successfully completed!
Your device should now restart automatically.
You may need to re-flash your application to the device.
Flash the new firmware via USB : particle flash --usb tinker
Response
Found DFU device 2b04:d006
checking file /Users/name/.nvm/v0.10.40/lib/node_modules/particle-cli/binaries/photon_tinker.bin
spawning dfu-util -d 2b04:d006 -a 0 -i 0 -s 0x080A0000:leave -D >/Users/name/.nvm/v0.10.40/lib/node_modules/particle-cli/binaries/photon_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
dfu-util: Invalid DFU suffix signature
dfu-util: A valid DFU suffix will be required in a future dfu-util release!!!
Deducing device DFU version from functional descriptor length
Opening DFU capable USB device...
ID 2b04:d006
Run-time device DFU version 011a
Claiming USB DFU Interface...
Setting Alternate Setting #0 ...
Determining device status: state = dfuIDLE, status = 0
dfuIDLE, continuing
DFU mode device DFU version 011a
Device returned transfer size 4096
DfuSe interface name: "Internal Flash "
Downloading to address = 0x080a0000, size = 3952
Download [=========================] 100% 3952 bytes
Download done.
File downloaded successfully
dfu-util: Error during download get_status
Error writing firmware...dfu-util: Invalid DFU suffix signature
dfu-util: A valid DFU suffix will be required in a future dfu-util release!!!
dfu-util: Error during download get_status
Verify your Photon is online with new firmware installed: particle list
Response
Photon_Name [[Photon ID assigned by Particle - a long set of numbers]] (Photon) is online
Functions:
int digitalread(String args)
int digitalwrite(String args)
int analogread(String args)
int analogwrite(String args)
1 Like
I thought the same thing