Photon 2 not detected over USB (no serial or DFU mode)

Device: Photon 2
Problem: My Photon 2 powers up (blue LED flashing — Listening Mode), but it’s not detected by any computer over USB.

What I’ve tried:

  • Multiple known good USB data cables
  • Multiple computers (macOS, Raspberry Pi)
  • USB ports confirmed working (mouse, keyboard, etc.)
  • Tried both Listening Mode (flashing blue) and DFU Mode (solid yellow)
  • No /dev/ttyACM*, no detection in lsusb, and no logs in dmesg

What I observe:

  • Photon powers on, LEDs behave normally
  • No USB activity or enumeration at all
  • Other USB devices show up fine

Questions:

  • Is this likely a hardware failure (USB data lines)?
  • Is there a way to recover via UART?
  • Should I request a replacement?

Failure of the USB port is rare, but from those debugging steps it, that's what it looks like to me, and I don't have anything else to try.

You cannot set up by UART. Theoretically you could set up by BLE, but not having a working USB port will make the device very difficult to use, and it's unlikely that reinstalling software would make the problem go away.

Hi, do you have other Particle devices? Do they show up in USB?

From what you describe, this has very low chances of working, but what if you try the restore tool?

thanks!

Gents;

Quick update - I borrowed my friends micro-usb to usb cable and everything worked, the device registered just fine. Doesn't make sense to me, but I can see the photon 2 in /dev/tty* and dmesg, and configure using the cloud tools and VSCode apps.

If anyone else is having trouble, it could just be the usb cable you are using!

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