I am having problems with a Photon that spontaneously reboots at random intervals. Sometimes it works fine for hours (although the maximum is probably about half a day), sometimes it reboots every 1 to 2 minutes. Thinking that this was somehow related to my code I flashed the Tinker software (v0.4.4), but the problem persisted. The one time or so I could actually observe the reboot (the Photon is in an enclosure), it might have flashed an SOS hard fault. But why would the Tinker software hard-fault?
What’s more, after about a day of this, the Photon now completely fails to connect to the cloud. It seems to connect to the WiFi, according to the log in my router, but stays on only for 15 seconds before disconnecting again, and then reconnecting 3 seconds later, ad infinitum, for a couple of days now. It does not even seem to manage to get an IP through DHCP before disconnecting again (packet traces didn’t show any IP traffic from the Photon before it disconnects the WiFi again).
Unfortunately, the Photon is unattended about 150km from here, so I can’t even perform a proper reset to see if that brings it back.
Has anyone observed similar behaviour and has any idea what could cause it and how to fix it? Could it be related to signal strength? Although that also seems unlikely, considering that I am using an external antenna, and observed around -65dBm at some point.
For what it’s worth, the Photon is connected to a Fritzbox 7490, and strangely enough, a Spark Core that I was using in the same setup exhibited the same behaviour (random reboots a couple of times a day), but on a different Fritzbox (7390). I am also using the Photon on a Shield Shield with an XBee shield and an XBee connected to Serial1.
I hope that about covers it, but let me know if any further information is needed. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Quite a number of us have been having issues with the photon in this respect. (Although I can't guarantee the issues you're having are the same), I'd recommend following this thread:
Many of us have found it's reasonably common for the cloud connection to drop, but the WiFi remains intact.
From my experience, it's highly likely that if you were able to reset it, it would come right back online. (I know this doesn't help in your particular situation), but this is an area the Particle team are looking into I believe so stay tuned!
Actually I just re-read your message and note that you say your actual WiFi is dropping out as well. Not quite sure about this, although from my experience, -65dB is on the lower side for signal strength. I’ve seen WiFi drop outs quite a lot with an external antenna around the -70dB mark.
My automated solenoid device does the same thing, The photon will not stay connected to the network for a full 24 hrs. I unplug the USB power and plug it back in then it returns to breathing blue instead of flashing blue. The router is 10 feet away, the power supply is stable. Do other wifi devices interfere with the signal and cause it to lose its connection to the router? I don’t know yet, but I thought I would add my “incident” the rest.
JimS
@jagesh1 : I used to have problems with the photon losing connection or rebooting whenever I used my microwave, which didn’t seem to have any significant leakage. After weeks of trying “everything,” I noticed the wall socket I used for the power supply was a tad loose when I plugged the power supply in (never caused any other issues). So I replaced the socket. Strange but true, no problems since. Somehow the microwave surge in the house wiring was just enough to compromise the wall socket, I guess. Also, more recent firmwares have helped, too, but it was the socket change that finally fully ended the problem.