Photon Setup Failed at "Verify Product Ownership"

Sure. If i recollect it right, i used the following steps-

1)Photon in DFU mode
2) particle update
3) goto listening mode
4) particle serial wifi
5) back to DFU
6) particle keys save mykey --force
7) particle keys send deviceid mykey.pub.pem
8) particle flash --usb tinker

Note sure whether i can reporoduce the same, but hope this helps

1 Like

Guys, I had the same problem with all my newly arrived Photons: Failure during the mobile setup process in the “Verifying device ownership” phase and after that the Photons were left in flashing blue or flashing green state randomly. After a day of trying everything and no success I just rebooted my router and the mobile setup process suddenly started working. Mine is a crazy router, but maybe you have one of those too…

1 Like

@BazsoDombiAndras I have an Asus RT-AC68U router. I had the exact same symptoms as everyone on this thread (setup fails at “verifying product ownership” with a blinking green LED). I rebooted my router and setup finished successfully. Apologies i’m not able to provide more info, but worth trying.

Another Airport Express owner here. I was getting the same error, using the iOS app to claim device, kept failing on ‘Verify Product Ownership’ with an error message “Invalid network credentials”. I was maybe 35 feet from the router with 1 thin wall between us. Full wifi bars on my phone and laptop at that location. Moved within 1 foot of my router and tried again and it worked. I have not tried to move away from the router yet, because I need to test a new flash, but very alarmed by this. We are putting these in production sites in 7 days.

I complained about this problem several months ago (July 9th) and since then, I boiled the ocean to find the problem. I struggled keeping my first Photon connected to a router located in the same room as I’m in. Only when I moved the device next to the router was I able to maintain connectivity.

My discovery is that it has nothing to do with the access point, or more particularly with buggy software, but more to do with a device that may have a defect. I loaded Broadcom’s basic test software on the device and discovered that the device was “deaf” from an RF receive perspective. I would say it barely could receive the wifi signal 10 feet away. More specifically, it is about 40db less sensitive than one that works correctly.

Anyway, I am surprised that this problem took so long to discover and sort out. (At least for me.)

I cannot reconnect my photon or core managed it yesterday but not today.can anybody help please

the led is showing a slow blue flsfh I csn only grt safest fshing blue for a few seconds by pressing the join wifi button

A slow blue blink/flash means that it’s in listening mode, and waiting for credentials. Quick blue flashing (after holding the SETUP button for about 10 seconds) erases those credentials. Thus, give it some credentials with either the App, the CLI, the SoftAP website, or a Serial program. Plenty of choice I’d say.

After spending several unproductive hours with both the iPhone and Node.js methods of starting up, I tried two things from this blog message. It worked!

  1. I restarted my router. (It’s a linksys. 2.4GHz, 802.11g. No password. WPA2-AES although I have no idea what that means. Nor do I want to know.)

  2. The router is in a pantry several walls away from my computer room. I relocated to the pantry.

From this post and several others, it seems some people are having trouble. I note from the entries that these people seem to be quite knowledgeable about the internals of wi-fi, Unix/Linux, shell commands, PATH, etc. Unfortunately, I am not, although I can barely recall some of what I used 15 years ago when I retired from programming.

I used Arduino quite successfully for a year. It is intended for, and succeeds at, the simple hobby market. As the Photon is sold by Spark/Particle, I had thought it was intended for the same marketplace. Plus see the “Getting started” page note on the experience need to use the product:

    Experience
           None! This is your first project.

I would claim the Photon is NOT intended for the hobby market at all although the marketing leads one towards that conclusion. There is no way in the world a novice is going to be able to handle the steps needed to get this up and running if something goes wrong. What is needed is a fully “one key” download of software leaving the user with a fully functional IDE.

To continue in this path, under “Connecting Your Device, Using OSX” the note that “You may need to update xcode at this time” is kind of funny. The average OSX user (99.9% of whom are not programmers) will have no knowledge of what Xcode is nor will they ever have even seen ‘terminal’ or used a command line interface. So if you say in reply to that, they SHOULD know these things, that really makes my point that this is not the novice product implied by “No experience needed!”.

Well, off to find out why “npm install” cannot find the make command. I know there IS one under OSX but it’s not clear where……

Which blog, or are you referring to this forum? And the successful steps were: resetting and decreasing the range?

Different people have different skills. Nothing wrong with that. You can learn as you go, but expect thing to go a bit slower than when you would've started with some know-how. I'm not saying knowledge of those things is mandatory, but if you've got it, it certainly won't hurt.
The Spark Core was my first microcontroller, and I've learned a lot since. Most of the time I'm still winging it and hoping for the best, but hey, that's how you learn.

How exactly is the fact that it's sold by Particle related to the arduino being suitable for the hobby market? Genuine question, as this may help in clarifying things in the future. The Particle products are (also) aimed at the hobby market, but are suitable for commercial products as well. Both have already seen plenty of successful projects.

The "no experience required" quote is actually from the setup process, not the general usage of the products. If someone told me.what buttons to press, I'd probably be able to jump-start a Particle accelerator. That doesn't require experience with working with one. But it's not fair to expect that I'd then be able to (fully) use it to its potential. So, depending on what you like to do with it, you may need more or less experience, which is not unreasonable.

I'd have to disagree. Like it said, the Core was my first microcontroller, and I've managed just fine, no prior programming experience. It is most certainly intended for the hobby market, and many people have already been able to use it as such. We've also already helped countless people in getting it up and working, so it's certainly doable.

This product as a whole is quite a bit more complex than your average Arduino. Connectivity needs to be handled appropriately, and things are generally a bit more complicated. That said, there's the Web IDE, which is a "no-key" instantly available IDE. There's also Particle Dev, which is an IDE based on the ATOM IDE, which might be interesting. Then there's also the CLI which you can use. Finally you can set up your own tool chain with your preferred IDE and tools.
Then there's the fact that no single IDE will be able to please everyone. And considering Particle makes Cloud infrastructures and microcontrollers, I don't think it's fair to expect them to build fully fledged IDEs, something which entire companies are based on.

Apart from the statistics... if you've got no programming/computer experience, then it's also unlikely for you to be playing around with microcontrollers. If you do want to play around with those, you'll somehow need to install the necessary software, which is a reasonable requirement.
If you want to work on your car, you don't say:
"The average car user (99.9% of whom are not mechanics) will have no knowledge of what a driveshaft is nor will they ever have even seen 'brake fluid' or used a wrench, so why expect me to?", would that seems fair?

I'm not saying that you should know them, but I think it's reasonable to expect that when you're working with advanced microcontrollers, that you're able to (partially) work it out, or learn-as-you-go. Or that you're at least willing to learn new things, and make an effort.

That's noted under the "Prerequisites for Setup", not the general usage of the product. To be able to drive a car requires you to be able to turn a key. That starts the thing. When you then want to use it, you might require additional experience which you may or may not have.

Have you seen this tutorial? Tutorial: Particle-cli on Mac OSX [26 Sep 2015]

None of the above is meant negatively, just pointing out my view on the case. If you've got ideas for improvement, then please do share them, or better yet, contribute them to the open source code. That way, everyone benefits :smile:

2 Likes

Dear Moor7,
Thank you for your comments on my post. I appreciate them. A few replies and when we are done I think we may have to agree to disagree on a few things.

I misused the word ‘blog’ and should have said ‘forum’. There are 113 entries in this forum topic and in one of them (or maybe two) somebody mentioned that they had success when they a) rebooted their router and b) moved the Photon and iPhone nearer to their router. That’s what I did and it worked. I don’t know which thing (a or b) was causal to success.

Let me try to restate my core point. Imagine you have a hardware idea requiring a half dozen digital inputs and outputs and you want to control them with a simple micro. You look at the Arduino and it seems to fit the bill. And it DOES fit the bill. Plainly put, it “just works”. I term this a closed system because there’s no real need to do more than what comes in the Arduino box. I don’t think people view the Arduino as a learning vehicle to end up being a Unix guru or someone that can write Makefiles or what I would call “under the covers” tasks. All this person wants to do is get his little hardware idea working.

He may well not know C. But Arduino’s documentation does a reasonable job of leading him down the path of writing simple programs. Buy a K&R and he thinks he’s an expert. He can push the Arduino to the limits of its capabilities.

I too loosely used the word “hobby person”. I was referring to a person like the guy in the preceding paragraphs who simply wants to get a hardware idea going. He’s never going to get it to a product stage. He doesn’t want to. He wants to see his “thing” work. So let me term him a “novice hobby person”.

I think my novice hobby person who looks at the Particle Photon description will conclude the Photon is just what he needs, just like he thinks the Arduino is just what he needed. From what I have read in the forum and via Google, the Photon is questionably a good choice for the novice hobby person. If he gets it going, great! I am not there yet and I will be delighted to eat my words if it really is the promised land.

But with 113 entries on this one problem (Fail at “Verify Product Ownership”) and several other posts on not being able to install the CLI, I think the novice hobby person will give up. And in fact if you read the 113 entries, you see that some knowledgeable users said they were about to give up.

So far I am only trying to get to first base. Hours and hours of work to get there (and CLI still does not install) is not the mark of a product for the novice hobby person.

Don’t get me wrong: This is undoubtedly a fantastic product for a wide set of users. But they are already highly knowledgeable. My quibble is that the product does not match Particle’s marketing message being read by the novice hobby person.

You laid out a reasonable analogy: If you want to work on your car, you don’t say: “The average car user (99.9% of whom are not mechanics) will have no knowledge of what a driveshaft is nor will they ever have even seen ‘brake fluid’ or used a wrench, so why expect me to?”, would that seems fair?

I agree. But if the car’s driveshaft or brake fluid has a problem, I can take it to a garage or the dealer. And MOST of the time it works perfectly when I drive it off the lot. I don’t have to get underneath the hood. Photon appears to need a mechanic. (I know: You’re gonna get mad at that statement.)

I hope to get my application ported to Photon and I certainly hope the “one key” IDE works well. We (my team of retired EE’s) started with Arduino and moved away from it for speed reasons. We now use Microchip’s starter kit board and that has been a true can of worms and expensive. We hope (pray) the Photon is easy to use, inexpensive, and is a neat fit to our application.

You pointed me to a site regarding where to get the ‘make’ command. I did get it downloaded from Apple, so thank you. Although ‘make’ is now here, the next battle regards:

*** No rule to make target `../.node-gyp/4.2.4/include/node/common.gypi', needed by `Makefile'.  Stop.

Thanks again. If you happen to live in the Phoenix area, I’ll buy the beer and we can talk face to face.
–jim

1 Like

Hey Jim,

You do have some valid points, so don't get the impression I'm disregarding what you say :wink:

Thanks for clarifying that, that might help other in the future. I find WiFi to be a bit of a strange beast. One day it works, the next day it doesn't, for no apparent reason. Much like any electronics it seems "have you tried turning it off and on again?" is a valid debugging step. Decreasing range might help too, depending on which distance you're at, if there are any obstructions in the way, and if all planets are aligned properly (don't ask me why, it's the wifi...). If you want to increase the range, a u.FL antenna might offer a solution?

That might be a cause of confusion, since I personally don't see the Photon as being a 'simple micro' anymore. True, it's no supercomputer, but it's (way) more involved than your average Arduino. It's an entirely different platform, it's much more powerful, it runs freeRTOS, and has the whole connectivity thing going on. That's not to say the Arduino is bad (they're great), but there is a noteworthy difference in capabilities that should be accounted for.

And that's perfectly okay. The Photon is (amongst others) also for those that want to expand on what the average Arduino can do. Like a said, the Arduino is great, but it has its limits.

Nor should they. I don't even think I know what Unix is (I'm pretty sure I don't...) nor can I write a Makefile (I don't even know what goes on in one :sweat_smile:), and I don't have to. Most, if not all, of the resources are described in one way or the other, and that suffices for the biggest part. Depending on what it is you're trying to do, you might not even need them. If it doesn't work the way I'd like it to, there's always Google, and better yet, this forum with some truly supportive people willing to help :smile:

That's where the Web IDE is 'perfect', or even Particle Dev. It's supposed to be plug&play, or code&flash. No in-depth knowledge is required to use that to flash your devices. Great to get a little hardware project working.
Particle Dev is better suited for those that prefer a bit more elaborate IDE with perhaps some file handling, and better library use. Whatever floats your boat.

You can actually use the same language for the Particle products (Wiring, or C if you like. For the true enthusiasts, you can even go assembler if I'm not mistaken). That also means that the Arduino resources, the docs, and quite a lot of books, are applicable to the Particle universe as well. Of course there are differences due to the underlying hardware and connectivity stuff, but it's still helpful.

That's the thing, the capabilities are relatively limited. The Arduinos are great at what they do, but there's only so much they can do. That's where the Particles kick in and expand on these capabilities. And you know what they say, "with great power, comes... a greater requirement of knowledge on how to handle that power", or something along those lines :wink: It's like going from a bicycle to a motorbike. Sure, they've got two wheels, a steering handle, and can get you from A to B, but how to use them, and they way they do things is inherently different.
Much like you need braking fluid, gasoline and a drivers license for a motorbike, you may need to have some additional requirements to use a Particle device. Although they appear to do the same thing at first glance, there are some differences that you can't and shouldn't neglect. Although you may need to kickstart the motorbike every once in a while, there's so much more potential in it than your regular, no-nonsense, bicycle.

That's what we're here for, to guide you to the holy land :angel: (great time of the year ;))

The forum software that's used is called 'Discourse' and that's pretty much what the 113 entries are about: having a discourse. Although the number might be daunting at first, it's actually a lot of back and forward between a lot of different people. Things then tend to grow easily.
The CLI is difficult in a lot of ways. Most notably because of the fact that a lot of users are running it on a lot of different systems. Three major OSs, and countless of variations of versions of said OSs, not to mention different versions of software people have installed. If you've ever dealt with probability in maths, that's a lot of variables to account for. That means that there a also a lot of potential points of error. For that reason, some guides have been made for the most basic cases. For everything else, there's the forums, or even Google, depending on what you encounter. We've helped quite a lot of people already, and even though some have been at the verge of giving up, we've almost always been able to figure it out. If you're willing to give it a go, I'm confident that we should be able to get you going.

Agreed. The CLI install is a bit of a pain, and if I'm not mistaken, folks at HQ are looking into way to make an installer. There's a version available for Windows user, thanks to a great contribution from the community. IF you're running windows, that should work (it did for me on several occasions, running different versions).

I started from the bottom ("now I'm here" :notes:) and I still don't consider myself to be "highly knowledgeable". I started out with the Spark Core, and 'worked my way up'. Started with simple projects, and expanded on that. You have to learn to walk before you can run :wink: I've never even used an Arduino before, and am now highly hesitant because I don't want to miss my Particle features.

Fair enough, although I don't think 'under the hood' knowledge is required until your skills are advanced enough that you're willing to tackle a more complicated project. I've got a local toolchain installed, but hardly ever use it since I've got no need to. My projects aren't advanced enough to require that. If they are that advanced, I'd need the knowledge anyhow or I wouldn't be able to build it in the first place. You can't fix a broken car without proper tools. And if you don't know how to use the tools you've got, then perhaps the project is a bit too complicated in the first place? It's then better to learn how to use a car bridge before trying to fumble on the car. That's not to say you need to know how that bridge works, you just need to know how to operate it.
The same is true for many of the build tools. You don't have to understand their inner working to be able to use them. I haven't got the slightest clue how half of them work, but I get by.
Also, I'm not gonna get mad at anything. This is an honest argument, no reason to get mad :wink:

What are you building :innocent:? Also, let us know if we can help.

What exactly are you trying to do? Going from your first post, you've seemed to get the Photon connected to the Cloud, correct? If so, what are you trying now? I'm assuming you're trying to install the CLI? The link in my last post should contain some info on how to do that. ave you got a screenshot of the terminal output (error) when you're trying to run the install command, that might help?

Happy to help :slight_smile: I'm not even legally allowed to drink in the States (which is funny, because I've been allowed that for around 4 years already, being 20). Also, I live halfway across the globe in the cold, wet Netherlands... I do appreciate the offer though :smile:

-@Moors7

2 Likes

Hi there,

My experience:

1st photon connected using IOS app on 1st attempt.

2nd photon would not connect using IOS app, failed at “Verify Product Ownership”. Tried particle setup from the CLI, and was told that no nearby Photons were detected. Try resetting router and attempted both IOS and CLI setup multiple times without success. Then I read Corey’s message about updating the firmware using DFU-UTIL. I did this and it connected. Happy it connected but not happy it took me at least 6 hours of testing, searching, reading, trialing & frustration to get to this stage. I’ve got another 4 units to configure and am wondering whether that is going to go smoothly. Let’s hope so!

The marketing leads me to believe I can build a prototype in minutes. Hmm. If you guys can sort out these setup issues then it will be much appreciated.

Are the setup issues being worked on, or is this just how it is going to remain? I understand the challenges of technology and do want to support efforts to innovate. I purchased 2 cores a couple of years ago, which went into the too hard basket after they stopped working following a recommended firmware upgrade. I ordered photons recently assuming the technology had matured. So far I’m unconvinced. I’ve got my eye on the electron, but if it is going to be as flaky to set up as what I’ve just experienced then I’ll be thinking twice.

Regards
Dave

@DaveB is the device in Listening mode (blinking blue) when the CLI says “no nearby Photons were detected”?

@kennethlimcp, yes, flashing blue. The initial message is that it can see a photon connected via serial, then it warns me of possible loss of connectivity, then it says no photons detected. I let it listen for wild photons but then hit control C after a long time spent listening.

On several occasions I held down the mode button untill the flashing became more rapid to clear any stored credentials, but always the same result.

I’m curious as to whether it has anything to do with having configured the 1st unit recently, maybe some server-side setting is remembered which upsets subsequent configuration attempts under certain conditions? I’m probably way off track but sometimes stupid suggestions can trigger a line of thought that lead somewhere.

I also would have expected each unit in the batch I ordered to behave in a similar way, either all work or all don’t work. If it is a firmware thing then perhaps a variety of firmware versions have shipped in my batch. To test this is there a way for me to check firmware version before I start the claiming process for my remaining 4 units? I’m happy to post my findings here or privately if that helps.

Can you try this:

  • place the device in DFU mode
  • run particle update
  • device should be in Listening mode
  • attempt to use particle setup again

Be sure to use the latest CLI. Sorry for the hassle. Hopefully this works for all the devices. :slight_smile: If not i will be happy to guide you through the setup with least friction.

1 Like

Nope, there is no such thing, you can connect multiple devices in a row.

They usually do (with the odd chance to be unlucky and get a dud tho'), but there might be other issues preventing you from getting multiple devices online too.
One I can think of is your routers DHCP server might be running out of free IPs.
Not saying that's the case here, but other options might need to be considered too (new line of thought :wink:)

But with @kennethlimcp on board you are in good hands :+1:

@ScruffR, @kennethlimcp,
OK, I fired up photon #3 and attempted to configure using the IOS app.

  • On the first attempt it failed at “Verify Product Ownership”. I was about to follow Kenneth’s CLI procedure above but thought I would attempt using IOS again.
  • On the second attempt it succeeded. Perhaps I mis-typed the wifi credentials on the first attempt, or perhaps it was something else, but it is now happily breathing quietly on my bench.

I expect to be testing my remaining units in the next few weeks and will let you know how they go.

Thanks
Dave

3 Likes

Hi,

I had the same issue with one of my devices. I tried to reflash it with “particle setup” and now the mobile setup is saying me “Setup process couldn’t disconnect from the Particle device Wi-Fi network.”.
I’ve tried to reset everything without success. Do I have a dead device?

That doesn't actually refresh anything...
Try updating the CLI, then put the device in DFU mode and try 'Particle update'. Assuming you've installed the tools correctly, that should do something. Then, DFU once more, try 'particle flash --usb tinker'.
Put it in listening mode, and give 'Particle serial wifi' a go.