Photon (not really) fatal hardware issue - only System.sleep [Solved]

Hi All,

I seem to have a hardware problem with the Photon.

When connecting (or using the reset button),
As usually its goes from white to green into the breathing cyan mode.
After about a second or two all light go of and the Photon is dead.

When applying factory reset the Photon doesn’t move out of blinking yellow.

Would anyone know what I can do to fix it?

Many thanks,
j

Can you place the Photon in Safe mode?

There is no factory reset on Photons, only Safe Mode.

And what code is running on your Photon?
Could it be that your code sends the Photon to sleep or takes control of the RGB LED and switches it off?

hi @ScruffR & @kennethlimcp,
Many thanks for your replies.

When trying to get the Photon into Safe Mode it simply keeps blinking Yellow forever and doesn’t turn magenta. I have literally hold it down for more than 10 min,

It might be something to do with the code but isn’t there another way out?
The code I’ve uploaded before this happened is here:

Update: Ive flashed the simple blinking LED light code and it does say uploading has been successfully. However seem problem happening. After a few second blue light disappear.

Any other suggestions?
Thanks,
j

Safe Mode comes before DFU.
Release the SETUP button as soon you see the first magenta blink after hitting RESET.

You mean cyan breathing stops, or are you refering to the blue D7 LED?

And I guess that's the solution to your riddle :wink:

// that's from the weather station code
void loop()
{
      //Get readings from all sensors
      getWeather();

      //Print to console
      printInfo();

      //Send data to Weather Underground
      sendToWU();

      //Power down between sends to save power, measured in seconds.
      System.sleep(SLEEP_MODE_DEEP,300);  //for Particle Photon    // <--- that's supposed to switch the LEDs off!!!!
      //Spark.sleep(SLEEP_MODE_DEEP,300);   //for Spark Core
}

And did the blinking happen as expected, or did your blinky sketch just not stick and you were still seeing the effect of System.sleep()?

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Sorry what do you mean by DFU?

Yes I mean the cyan breathing stops. Not referring to the blue D7 LED

The blink doesn't happen (on D7) as expected. To be honest I don't know what code has made it onto the Photon anymore.

DFU Mode is the mode you refered to as

The fact that your D7 LED is not blinking as it should is a strong indication that you haven't actually got the blink code onto the device.
To get rid of the sleepy code, you either use CLI in DFU Mode

particle flash --usb tinker

or you try Safe Mode.

BTW, the docs do tell nicely what the respective modes do and how to get into them
https://docs.particle.io/guide/getting-started/modes/photon/#safe-mode
https://docs.particle.io/guide/getting-started/modes/photon/#dfu-mode-device-firmware-upgrade-

2 Likes

Hi @ScruffR thanks again for your reply.

Yes its likely that the blinking code never actually made it onto the device.

Are you suggesting the get the Photon into DFU Mode (yellow light blinking) to (somehow) tinker it using Particle Dev serial connections. If so I still can’t actually connect to the Photon, even if its in DFU mode.

As mentioned before Safe Mode also isn’t an options as the Photon simply doesn’t let me. If applying a safe mode it doesn’t get out of the Yellow blinking mode…

What OS are you using?
If Windows, have you installed the DFU drivers via zadig?
Can you provide a video of you trying to enter Safe Mode?

For Safe Mode you never need to get out of DFU Mode since you can't even be in DFU Mode while activating Safe Mode!
After RESET you are in "Bootloader" which will either get you into normal app mode (when not pressing SETUP), or when holding SETUP first Safe Mode and only if you are too slow to release SETUP you'll end up in DFU Mode.

But if you really can't get into Safe Mode, you can try Listening Mode (blinking blue) and try

particle flash --serial tinker

@ScruffR Thanks again for your help.

Ive actually managed to get it back up and running as normal!
Not 100% sure how but I think I was simply to show in releasing the SETUP button when trying to get the Phonon into Safe Mode. Bloody hell, really happy Im back on it!

Being rather new to the community would it make sense to deleted this post as its more a mistake by me and might not be necessary helpful for anyone else.

Many thanks,
J

Mistakes are made to learn from them - and others might learn from reading about them rather than trying it out themselves :wink:
So I think this should actually be kept.

3 Likes

I agree with @ScruffR! This wont get deleted because there are others who could benefit from this post!

1 Like

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