Power cut, now device won't boot, breathing a sort of blue tinged white

[daneboomer]

Last night there was a power cut in my area. When the power was restored all the other devices in the house from the freezer to the photon in the attic have come back online, but a Core in the kitchen refuses to even consider booting. I’ve tried power cycling it again and pressing the reset button. Anything else to try? Thanks!

[no1089]

Hi there,

How was your Core powered? What colour is the LED at the moment?

[daneboomer]

It’s still blue tinged white. It was connected by a 5v usb adaptor.

EDIT: Tried the reset, first time it did everything as it should upto and including fast flashing white, but then after that it went back to breathing the blue tinged white.
Second time I tried it it flashed an angry orange/red error code at me and wouldn’t play.
Third time I tried it was the same as the first. Looked like it would work but then didn’t.

If I try to put it in listening mode (blinking blue) it doesn’t respond.

[no1089]

What happens when you put it in safe mode?
I’d suggest plugging it into USB and running particle serial wifi to set up wifi again.

[peekay123]

@daneboomer, you might also want to look here:

Original Spark Core revival

Hi everyone, I’m one of the original backers on Kickstarter and very happy to see the progress since and building of a great company and community. I’ve decided to use some of my bottom drawer stuff for few tinkering projects, so I’ve recently tried to revive my 2 original Spark Cores. I’ve contacted support, but they’ve been unable to help me, stating that the products are now discontinued and no support offered. One one hand, I understand, those were more or less prototypes. On the other ha…

[daneboomer]

I don’t think the Core supports safe mode. Particle have hidden the Core’s documentation so I can’t be 100% sure.

[no1089]

Ah, you are correct. No safe mode, just tried it with mine.

I think the only option is to locally flash it with tinker compiled for 1.4.4 - That’s what I did the last time mine went wonky. It uses a monolithic firmware, so no separate devices/application files.

[daneboomer]

I think it’s toast. I was able (eventually) to get it into DFU mode - it didn’t want to cooperate. I got as far as the first hurdle - flashing the CC3000 firwmare - but it just flashed magenta forever and never want back to blinking yellow. Don’t know what did for it as whilst, yes, there was a powercut, no other device in the house suffered. That Core was powered by an Apple iPhone charger.

[no1089]

That's really sad to hear. I've heard reports of repeated attempts working, so maybe try again?

The 5V from an Apple charger should be stable, but power outages have a way of wreaking havoc on electronics. I lost a router on Friday due to a power outage.

I'm assuming you've tried the steps outlined here:

Original Spark Core revival

You could try a deep update. Put the Core in DFU mode by holding down both the RST and MODE buttons, releasing RST and continuing to hold down MODE until it blinks yellow and issue the commands below, in order. After completing some of the steps the color may change to something else; if so note what color/pattern it is, then use the button combination to get back to blinking yellow. The core should be blinking yellow before each of the commands listed below is entered. particle flash --usb -…