Photon in hard fault - can't recover

Troubleshooting
1

I have a Photon that has been running fine for a year or so. I checked it today since I noticed it wasn’t responding and it is indicating hard fault (1 red blink in between SOS). I’ve tried particle doctor several times, but without any success. I’ve also confirmed I’m on the newest version of the CLI. If I try to put it into listening mode, does that for about 1 second and then goes into hard fault again.

BTW, I have no trouble getting it into DFU mode. But that’s about it.

Any recommendations? I’d really like to get this little guy back into service, as it provides a very useful capability for us!

2

Since you can get into DFU mode it might be worth trying to restore the default software. The device doctor should have done that, but just in case there were some hidden errors, it might be worth doing it manually.

Put the Photon in DFU mode (blinking yellow) by holding down RESET and SETUP, releasing RESET and continuing to hold down SETUP while the main LED blinks magenta until it blinks yellow, then release.

Then enter the command:

particle flash --usb tinker

It’s also a good idea to put the Photon back into DFU mode (blinking yellow) and do:

particle update

if that doesn’t work, please copy and paste the command prompt output into the reply.

The normal sequence on the status LED is: white, blinking green, blinking cyan (light blue), fast blinking cyan, and finally breathing cyan.

Also let me know how far you get.

1 Like
3

Hi @rickkas7,

Here’s the requested output from the above:

[Toms-MacBook-Pro-13:~] tom% particle flash --usb tinker

Flash success!
[Toms-MacBook-Pro-13:~] tom% particle update

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

! System firmware update successfully completed!

> Your device should now restart automatically.

[Toms-MacBook-Pro-13:~] tom%

When this device was in service, it did have an external antenna, but I’m assuming particle doctor included steps to change it back to the default internal antenna.

It’s still the same…first time I’ve ever encountered this over dozens of devices.