i think brew install dfu-util works or http://dfu-util.sourceforge.net/
Happy to report that I was able to flash my bin to the device with this command, all other methods of getting new code to my photon failed. Is there anything I can do to be of assistance in getting to the bottom of why and preventing it from happening in the future?
I’m not 100% sure what’s the issue though… Can you try an OTA again? I have been using OTA and seems ok for me.
I just tried to post a blinker sketch from the web interface, looked like it flashed, but it did not. It still has the sketch I flash with dfu-util.
I’m guessing the CRC check failed and the Photon rejected the user-firmware.
Can you open a Serial Terminal, place the Photon in Listening mode and hit s and paste the output here?
Thanks for helping 
Another way to test is to place the device in SAFE mode and perform OTA to see what happens
I may need some more specific instructions:
What I did was:
- Open the command line prompt and type: particle serial monitor
- Place photo in listening mode by pressing the setup button for 3 seconds until it started blinking blue.
- Press “s” at the serial monitor (and nothing happened)
particle serial monitor doesn’t take in keyboard inputs.
Do you have something like http://freeware.the-meiers.org ?
Don’t waste too much time on this though… I’m not 100% certain what’s the issue but that output tells us something about the code running on the Photon 
Got it, yea on the mac there is an app called “cool term”, at any rate, here is the dump:
"p":6,"m":[{"s":16384,"l":"m","vc":30,"vv":28,"f":"b","n":"0","v":2,"d":[]},{"s":262144,"l":"m","vc":30,"vv":0,"d":[]},{"s":262144,"l":"m","vc":30,"vv":30,"f":"s","n":"2","v":1,"d":[{"f":"s","n":"1","v":1,"_":""}]},{"s":131072,"l":"m","vc":30,"vv":30,"u":"0102030405060708090A0B0C0D0E0F101112131415161718191A1B1C1D1E1F20","f":"u","n":"1","v":2,"d":[{"f":"s","n":"2","v":1,"_":""}]},{"s":131072,"l":"f","vc":30,"vv":30,"u":"F8BD014B0360704700BFF81E0A0810B5034B04460360FFF794F8204610BDF81E","f":"u","n":"1","v":2,"d":[{"f":"s","n":"2","v":1,"_":""}]}]
Formatting it:
{
"p": 6,
"m": [
{
"s": 16384,
"l": "m",
"vc": 30,
"vv": 28,
"f": "b",
"n": "0",
"v": 2,
"d": []
},
{
"s": 262144,
"l": "m",
"vc": 30,
"vv": 0,
"d": []
},
{
"s": 262144,
"l": "m",
"vc": 30,
"vv": 30,
"f": "s",
"n": "2",
"v": 1,
"d": [
{
"f": "s",
"n": "1",
"v": 1,
"_": ""
}
]
},
{
"s": 131072,
"l": "m",
"vc": 30,
"vv": 30,
"u": "0102030405060708090A0B0C0D0E0F101112131415161718191A1B1C1D1E1F20",
"f": "u",
"n": "1",
"v": 2,
"d": [
{
"f": "s",
"n": "2",
"v": 1,
"_": ""
}
]
},
{
"s": 131072,
"l": "f",
"vc": 30,
"vv": 30,
"u": "F8BD014B0360704700BFF81E0A0810B5034B04460360FFF794F8204610BDF81E",
"f": "u",
"n": "1",
"v": 2,
"d": [
{
"f": "s",
"n": "2",
"v": 1,
"_": ""
}
]
}
]
}
just wondering if by any chance you compiled code locally using the source code and changed the system firmware? Or all you used was Web IDE?
@mdma if you have a second later in the morning…
I have only ever flashed code from the web ide, and from the mac desktop client (particle dev) both of those compile in the cloud…
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Could you please email me the binary that was produced in the web IDE and I will try to reproduce the problem.
@mdma one other note. I have 3 photons, 2 work perfectly, it is just one of the photons that seems to have this problem. One other symptom that might shed some more light is that when I try to enter new wifi creds via the mobile app I see the following error (the other 2 photons can go through the wifi setup without a hitch):
On the photon that isn’t working, please apply this update - https://github.com/spark/firmware/releases/tag/0.4.2.
That should get you out of the problem.
Cheers,
mat.
1 Like
hi @steelydev Could you start a new thread, and provide as much detail as possible. I don’t advise updating to 0.4.2 beta until we’ve identified that it will help. The code not working could be for other reasons too.
Hi was a new thread ever instantiated? I too was (am) stuck with a Photon that behaved like it was being flashed, both OTA and by USB, but would then restart into the exact same stock firmware it’s always had (blue/cyan RGB pulsing, D7 LED blinking on and off every few seconds).
I applied the above 0.4.2 update which has had no effect except that the D7 LED is now permanently off, and the RGB breathes magenta.
Breathing magenta means safe mode - it means there’s no valid user firmware to run. That’s good. You can now try flashing your code.
As a hint, the code for small applications is just a few kilobytes in size. If it’s much larger, around 70-80K or more then you most likely have a binary for the Core, which won’t work on a photon.
Ok, I’ll give it a shot tomorrow!
Ok, I have reflashed both parts of the latest 0.4.2 firmware release to the Photon as per your suggestion in another thread. I still cannot flash locally compiled code by USB or cloud to the Photon, though.
The .bin’s being generated by executing make inside ../firmware/main are indeed between 70Kb - 80Kb, even for an exceedingly trivial program that just sets the RGB to be one colour.
So I’m given to understand here that local compilation is targeting a Core and not a Photon, which is why it’s being rejected (?)
How should I proceed to compile locally for a Photon then?
OH!!! I’ll just answer my own question here:
By default, the Core is the target platform. To build for the Photon, run
make PLATFORM=photon
All told, the solution for me was to run the “Update the System Firmware” steps found here. As soon as I did that, the Photon rebooted and the code that previously was flashed but not running, immediately started running.
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!
1 Like