Photon: green, cyan, red

I have several Photons a couple of which have not been on in months. When I powered up 2 of them yesterday the first Photon fast-flashed green and would not connect. I was able to CLI -> particle update, configure and that Photon is now working fine.

The 2nd Photon is still not working. It fast flashes; green, cyan, red and restarts the loop. The red flash is only one or two flashes. Tested;
CLI -> particle update
CLI -> particle flash --usb tinker
CLI -> particle keys server
CLI -> particle keys doctor <device_id>
All of the above worked with no errors but the device is still in the flashing loop

The Photon will go into listening mode and I tested;
Serial w: to update SSID etc that seemed to work but no change to the flashing loop once complete. Serial i: returns the device_id as expected. I also tested the Particle app which finds my 4 claimed devices and when I attempt to add this device all steps complete with no errors but the last step ownership->claim fails with Oops! could not claim your Photon.

This device was at one point claimed and working fine. Thoughts?

Is the photon online? (Breathing cyan)

If you just need to claim, just follow these steps with particle-cli:

# Put photon into listening mode
particle serial identify # Obtain deviceID
# Reboot photon and wait until online
particle device add your_deviceID # Claim photon

Thank you for the prompt response!

The device will not breathe cyan. I did test particle device add , it fails with server said: device is not connected which seems to be accurate.

1 Like

It sounds like you need to connect the photon to wifi:

#put in listening mode
particle serial wifi

Your photon must be online in order to claim.

Also from reading your post, you said you already claimed the photon(s), so there is no need to claim them again.

You can see the devices you've claimed with:

particle list

You should see your photon in the list if you have already claimed it.

Can you elaborate a bit more about the red code, or even better upload a video of it?

Can you enter Safe Mode?

1 Like

@nrobinson I have 4 Photons claimed and they show up with particle list. This device is not claimed, it was once by me but I unclaimed yesterday in an attempt to get it back online - so this device does not show up in the app or with particle list. I did test particle serial wifi, configured device, and when it completes with no errors the device goes right back to the green, cyan, red loop.

@scruffr The green & blue flashes are fast, <1s and flash about 20s each. The red flash is a single flash very fast. I can enter safe mode but as you noted in a different thread it flashes magenta for ~2 seconds then a fast white and into the green, cyan, red loop so not clear to me if safe mode was maintained. I will upload a video asap.

In that case I would suggest to try this again in DFU Mode nevertheless

particle keys server
particle keys doctor <insertYourDeviceID>
particle flash --usb tinker

Please post the actual commands with the whole output.

1 Like
C:\Users\Ed.THREEDOG>particle keys server
Found DFU device 2b04:d006
spawning dfu-util -d 2b04:d006 -a 1 -i 0 -s 2082 -D C:\Users\Ed.THREEDOG\AppData
\Local\particle\node_modules\particle-cli\keys\rsa.pub.der
dfu-util 0.8-msvc

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

Opening DFU capable USB device...
ID 2b04:d006
Run-time device DFU version 011a
Claiming USB DFU Interface...
Setting Alternate Setting #1 ...
Determining device status: state = dfuIDLE, status = 0
dfuIDLE, continuing
DFU mode device DFU version 011a
Device returned transfer size 4096
DfuSe interface name: "DCT Flash   "
Downloading to address = 0x00000822, size = 512
Download        [=========================] 100%          512 bytes
Download done.
File downloaded successfully
Invalid DFU suffix signature
A valid DFU suffix will be required in a future dfu-util release!!!
Okay!  New keys in place, your device will not restart.
C:\Users\Ed.THREEDOG>particle keys doctor 3c0039000447343337373738
Found DFU device 2b04:d006
Found DFU device 2b04:d006
New Key Created!
Found DFU device 2b04:d006
This file already exists, please specify a different file, or use the --force fl
ag.
Continuing...
spawning dfu-util -d 2b04:d006 -a 1 -i 0 -s 34:leave -D 3c0039000447343337373738
_rsa_new.der
dfu-util 0.8-msvc

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

Opening DFU capable USB device...
ID 2b04:d006
Run-time device DFU version 011a
Claiming USB DFU Interface...
Setting Alternate Setting #1 ...
Determining device status: state = dfuIDLE, status = 0
dfuIDLE, continuing
DFU mode device DFU version 011a
Device returned transfer size 4096
DfuSe interface name: "DCT Flash   "
Downloading to address = 0x00000022, size = 609
Download        [=========================] 100%          609 bytes
Download done.
File downloaded successfully
Invalid DFU suffix signature
A valid DFU suffix will be required in a future dfu-util release!!!
Saved!
attempting to add a new public key for device 3c0039000447343337373738
submitting public key succeeded!
Okay!  New keys in place, your device should restart.
C:\Users\Ed.THREEDOG>particle flash --usb tinker
Found DFU device 2b04:d006
spawning dfu-util -d 2b04:d006 -a 0 -i 0 -s 0x080A0000:leave -D C:\Users\Ed.THRE
EDOG\AppData\Local\particle\node_modules\particle-cli\binaries\photon_tinker.bin

dfu-util 0.8-msvc

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

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
Invalid DFU suffix signature
A valid DFU suffix will be required in a future dfu-util release!!!

Flash success!

Does it connect now?

No. The rgb signal has changed to; fast green - 3 flashes, fast cyan 20s, one red flash and the loop starts over.

Maybe there is an issue with the preexistent file that prevents this from working.
Could you remove that file (3c0039000447343337373738_rsa_new.der) and run particle keys doctor ... again?
Also, just to make sure, could you try connecting via an alternative WiFi network?

1 Like

As a test I just updated 2 other Photons using the same PC, USB port and cable. Both upgraded to 0.6.1 and tinker no issues.

I removed the .der, but not the backup .der and particle keys doctor gave the same file exists error. I then used --force, no message, completed as follows;

C:\Users\Ed.THREEDOG>particle keys doctor 3c0039000447343337373738 --force
Found DFU device 2b04:d006
Found DFU device 2b04:d006
New Key Created!
Found DFU device 2b04:d006
Found DFU device 2b04:d006
Saved!
spawning dfu-util -d 2b04:d006 -a 1 -i 0 -s 34:leave -D 3c0039000447343337373738
_rsa_new.der
dfu-util 0.8-msvc

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

Opening DFU capable USB device...
ID 2b04:d006
Run-time device DFU version 011a
Claiming USB DFU Interface...
Setting Alternate Setting #1 ...
Determining device status: state = dfuIDLE, status = 0
dfuIDLE, continuing
DFU mode device DFU version 011a
Device returned transfer size 4096
DfuSe interface name: "DCT Flash "
Downloading to address = 0x00000022, size = 609
Download [=========================] 100% 609 bytes
Download done.
File downloaded successfully
Invalid DFU suffix signature
A valid DFU suffix will be required in a future dfu-util release!!!
Saved!
attempting to add a new public key for device 3c0039000447343337373738
submitting public key succeeded!
Okay! New keys in place, your device should restart.

Device is fast blinking green-3s, cyan 20s, red one flash. Will test failing device with new network asap.

One thing to note if I try to config and claim the device particle mobile app tells me the device is owned by someone else. Just FYI.

That seems to be a recently popped up bug which is already on Particle's radar.

OK good to know, thank you.

I tested this with a couple of other AP’s and my mobile hotspot, no change. The device never shows up in the AP logs but when it is in listening mode it does show its SSID so we know the transceiver is working.

Are there any next steps or is it a brick? No matter the result thank you for the help.

I've run out of ideas, but maybe @BDub has some more wisdom to add.

Can you post the promised video of the RGB LED?

@norstar Can you try resetting the device and let it try to connect for a while and we’ll see if anything interesting appears in the logs?

@scruffr Will vid and upload tomorrow morning.
@bdub its been reset and is running.

@norstar I’m not seeing anything interesting. Almost like your device is not actually reaching the Cloud, despite it seeming like it is with the RGB flashing CYAN.

Maybe you can try specifically downloading the public server key and flashing that to the device under DFU mode instead of using the one built into the CLI. They should be the same though, unless you have configured your CLI to point to a different server at some point.

PSK: http://server-public-key.device.spark.io/

CLI command

particle keys server server-public-key.device.spark.io.der

If your file system doesn’t like all of the extra dots, you can try renaming the file to psk.der