Photon board will not connect properly

Troubleshooting
1

Hello,

I have a photon board that is causing me nothing but trouble.

I have tried connecting it to my account using the latest Particle app and although it completes with a breathing cyan LED, and appears in my account, the app says that setup failed because the wifi credentials were incorrect.

Well, they are correct.

Anyway, despite it being on my account I can’t flash it from the web IDE. It fails just saying “Flash was unsuccessful” after a “This request is taking longer than typical, be patient” message.

I’ve tried resetting the board and reconnecting it several times. It just doesn’t work.

I can signal it though. I can’t flash it.

I also tried using the connect html page from particle but that didn’t even begin to work. Wouldn’t even recognize a connection to the particle wifi. On Mac OS latest version using Firefox.

2

Hi David,

Have you tried the ‘command line interface’, of what is offten refered to as the CLI.

Download the cli tool relivant to you computers operating system and try the command line tool ‘device doctor’. It will do a load of re-set stuff.

Device doctor referance

That is definitely worth a try.

Liam

3

Thanks for the help. Here’s the log

particle device doctor
The Device Doctor will put your device back into a healthy state
It will:
  - Upgrade system firmware
  - Flash the default Tinker app
  - Reset the device and server keys
  - Clear the Wi-Fi settings

The Doctor will operate on your Photon connected over USB
You'll be asked to put your device in DFU mode several times to reset different settings.

Updating system firmware

Put the device in DFU mode
Tap RESET/RST while holding MODE/SETUP until the device blinks yellow.
? Select Continue when ready Continue

> Your device is ready for a system update.
> This process should take about 50 seconds. Here it goes!


! An error occurred while attempting to update the system firmware of your device:

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



> Please visit our community forums for help with this error:
https://community.particle.io/
The Doctor didn't complete sucesfully. Cannot read property 'code' of undefined
> Please visit our community forums for help with this error:
https://community.particle.io/
5

Can you put your device into Safe Mode and try flashing OTA again?

6

I have no idea what is happening to this poor board.

I had to run setup again because it didn’t have connection credentials. This time, for the first time, it says it completed successfully and linked to my account.

I got a message that a firmware update would be taking place.

Then it immediately went into breathing magenta.

The Web IDE says that I’m flashing it successfully but I am not. Nothing from Web IDE makes it to the board despite the log on the web happily claiming it did.

I tried flashing tinker and it seems to flash OK, but then I’m right back to breathing magenta.

Device doctor fails in the exact same way as before.

I tried putting it into safe mode and that results in exact same things.

7

What version do you get with particle -v?
When putting the device in Listening Mode (blinking blue) what do you get off particle serial inspect?

8

To follow up on Scruff’s post, I’d like to get the information on particle serial inspect. I suspect you may be on an older device OS version that isn’t playing nice.

9

I’ll check these suggestions out tonight. Thank you! It’s certainly running a very old firmware. I just removed it from its brand new packaging and I ordered it on launch day of the photon. (I have used many photons, but just not that one yet)

10

Version of particle cli is 1.39.0. Log output below

particle serial inspect
Platform: 6 - Photon
Modules
  Bootloader module #0 - version 2, main location, 16384 bytes max size
    Integrity: FAIL
    Address Range: PASS
    Platform: PASS
    Dependencies: PASS
  System module #1 - version 1002, main location, 262144 bytes max size
    Integrity: PASS
    Address Range: PASS
    Platform: PASS
    Dependencies: PASS
      System module #2 - version 204
  System module #2 - version 1002, main location, 262144 bytes max size
    Integrity: PASS
    Address Range: PASS
    Platform: PASS
    Dependencies: FAIL
      System module #1 - version 1002
      Bootloader module #0 - version 7
  User module #1 - version 2, main location, 131072 bytes max size
    UUID: F9F552AA98D7E3EAB750862A01743024A4D05514021598A4341B3D83B37EDA36
    Integrity: PASS
    Address Range: PASS
    Platform: PASS
    Dependencies: PASS
      System module #2 - version 1
  User module #1 - version 2, factory location, 131072 bytes max size
    UUID: 1346034A294610682246BDE83040FFF76EBF6403002045000A081D000A088500
    Integrity: PASS
    Address Range: PASS
    Platform: PASS
    Dependencies: PASS
      System module #2 - version 1
11

You need to update the bootloader
Download from here
https://github.com/particle-iot/device-os/releases/download/v1.0.1/bootloader-1.0.1-photon.bin
and apply in Listening Mode via

particle flash --serial bootloader-1.0.1-photon.bin -v
1 Like
12

It works now! Thanks so much for the help. What was happening? Bootloader out of date and couldn’t be updated remotely?

13

In following this, can I please ask…

Would the particle doctor not fixed the bootloader?

14

David, in my experience it is best and saves the problems you have experienced to clear WIFI credentials and put devices in DFU mode and use the CLI to Particle flash --usb 1. System-part1, 2. System-part2, and 3. Tinker then run Particle setup and using --serial 4. Bootloader. These should all be for the device os version you are targeting.