"particle serial identify" timed out

[mawrob]

I have a batch of 30 new but older stock Boron LTE BRN402 modules that I am “provisioning”. I do not have the ICCIDs because they were not bought from the Wholesale store.

Obtaining the ICCIDs using particle serial identify is very time consuming:

1. Out of the box my Borons are not detected as serial devices in Windows 10 even though they are in Listening Mode. Not sure why but I assume it is because the firmware an older version.
2. I first need to update the firmware in DFU Mode.

C:\Users\rober\Dropbox\binaries>particle flash --usb --force boron-bootloader@3.1.0.bin

Flash success!

C:\Users\rober\Dropbox\binaries>particle flash --usb boron-system-part1@3.1.0.bin

Flash success!

C:\Users\rober\Dropbox\binaries>particle flash --usb tinker

Flash success!

After updating as shown above the Boron is detected as a serial device so I can run particle serial identify in Listening Mode.

particle serial identify then needs multiple attempts to obtain the ICCID. Resetting and power cycling the Boron between attempts does not appear to make much difference. Here is a typical sequence.
The number of attempts required varies and time outs take about 15 to 20 seconds.

C:\Users\rober\Dropbox\SentientThings\Ridgeline\binaries>particle serial identify
Serial timed out

C:\Users\rober\Dropbox\SentientThings\Ridgeline\binaries>particle serial identify
Serial timed out

C:\Users\rober\Dropbox\SentientThings\Ridgeline\binaries>particle serial identify

Your device id is e00fce686a7b31dbf5194f66
Unable to determine system firmware version

C:\Users\rober\Dropbox\SentientThings\Ridgeline\binaries>particle serial identify
Serial timed out

C:\Users\rober\Dropbox\SentientThings\Ridgeline\binaries>particle serial identify
Serial timed out

C:\Users\rober\Dropbox\SentientThings\Ridgeline\binaries>particle serial identify

Your device id is e00fce686a7b31dbf5134f66
Your IMEI is 352753085262352
Your ICCID is 89014103271226442645
Your system firmware version is 3.1.0

(numbers have been edited for security)

I am running the latest version of the Particle CLI.

Any fix for this issue?

[rickkas7]

A few things:

1. You cannot flash the bootloader in DFU mode (–usb) even using --force. It won’t actually flash successfully. You can only flash the bootloader in --serial mode (listening mode) when using the Particle CLI to flash a binary directly. (particle update can update the bootloader in DFU mode, however.)

2. With the Boron you probably will also need to flash SoftDevice, however if you don’t it can be downloaded OTA.

3. If you have really, really old Borons from when they were first released, running an 0.8.0-rc version, they do not support listening mode until Device OS is upgraded.

Is there a particular reason you need to use 1.3.1? It’s not a commonly used version, and if you don’t want to upgrade to LTS, 1.4.4 is probably a reasonable choice because that’s what new devices ship with.

And if you use 1.4.4, you can use Device Restore over USB to do this initial configuration. It’s far faster and easier than doing it manually.

If you want to automate it, there’s also a node.js version.

Also, are these devices going into a product? If so, you shouldn’t need the ICCID. If you add the Device ID to a product, it will automatically add the SIM as a product SIM for the Boron.