Safe mode updater aborted. What causes this?

Hello,
One of the P1 was stuck in this mode while updating firmware. I want to understand what causes this behavior. The logs are below:

event: spark/safe-mode-updater/aborted
data: {“data”:“Too many tries”,“ttl”:60,“published_at”:“2017-11-15T04:00:01.841Z”,“coreid”:“particle-internal”}

When I try to update it, here’s the sequence:
event: spark/flash/status
data: {“data”:"started ",“ttl”:60,“published_at”:“2017-11-15T19:46:58.651Z”,“coreid”:“3b0045001851363034353731”}

event: spark/flash/status
data: {“data”:"success ",“ttl”:60,“published_at”:“2017-11-15T19:47:11.275Z”,“coreid”:“3b0045001851363034353731”}

event: spark/status
data: {“data”:“online”,“ttl”:60,“published_at”:“2017-11-15T19:47:17.477Z”,“coreid”:“3b0045001851363034353731”}

event: spark/device/last_reset
data: {“data”:“user”,“ttl”:60,“published_at”:“2017-11-15T19:47:17.673Z”,“coreid”:“3b0045001851363034353731”}

event: spark/status/safe-mode
data: {“data”:"{“f”:[],“v”:{},“p”:8,“m”:[{“s”:16384,“l”:“m”,“vc”:30,“vv”:30,“f”:“b”,“n”:“0”,“v”:11,“d”:[]},{“s”:262144,“l”:“m”,“vc”:30,“vv”:30,“f”:“s”,“n”:“1”,“v”:108,“d”:[]},{“s”:262144,“l”:“m”,“vc”:30,“vv”:30,“f”:“s”,“n”:“2”,“v”:108,“d”:[{“f”:“s”,“n”:“1”,“v”:108,"":""}]},{“s”:131072,“l”:“m”,“vc”:30,“vv”:26,“u”:“EDABB18CC251C402F982FB41118BF0D6AABEABF03B6EE5995544CA7B52A21604”,“f”:“u”,“n”:“1”,“v”:4,“d”:[{“f”:“s”,“n”:“2”,“v”:109,"":""}]},{“s”:131072,“l”:“f”,“vc”:30,“vv”:0,“d”:[]}]}",“ttl”:60,“published_at”:“2017-11-15T19:47:18.957Z”,“coreid”:“3b0045001851363034353731”}

event: spark/device/app-hash
data: {“data”:“EDABB18CC251C402F982FB41118BF0D6AABEABF03B6EE5995544CA7B52A21604”,“ttl”:60,“published_at”:“2017-11-15T19:47:18.958Z”,“coreid”:“3b0045001851363034353731”}

Thanks
Dheeraj

Does it eventually return to breathing cyan?

No. It stays in safe mode.

Is the electron physically accessible?

No. It’s not. It’s a P1.

Can you place the P1 in safe mode and flash your code?

I don’t have access to the setup and reset buttons. It’s already in safe mode.

Update on this:

After reboot and update I get the following:

event: spark/flash/status
data: {“data”:"started ",“ttl”:60,“published_at”:“2017-11-22T23:32:51.138Z”,“coreid”:“56003a000351353532373238”}

event: spark/flash/status
data: {“data”:"success ",“ttl”:60,“published_at”:“2017-11-22T23:32:54.147Z”,“coreid”:“56003a000351353532373238”}

event: spark/status
data: {“data”:“online”,“ttl”:60,“published_at”:“2017-11-22T23:32:58.555Z”,“coreid”:“56003a000351353532373238”}

event: spark/device/last_reset
data: {“data”:“user”,“ttl”:60,“published_at”:“2017-11-22T23:32:58.717Z”,“coreid”:“56003a000351353532373238”}

event: spark/device/diagnostics/update
data: {“data”:"{“service”:{“device”:{“status”:“unsupported”},“coap”:{“round_trip”:83},“cloud”:{“uptime”:1,“publish”:{“sent”:1}}}}",“ttl”:60,“published_at”:“2017-11-22T23:32:59.890Z”,“coreid”:“56003a000351353532373238”}

event: spark/status/safe-mode
data: {“data”:"{“f”:[],“v”:{},“p”:8,“m”:[{“s”:16384,“l”:“m”,“vc”:30,“vv”:30,“f”:“b”,“n”:“0”,“v”:11,“d”:[]},{“s”:262144,“l”:“m”,“vc”:30,“vv”:30,“f”:“s”,“n”:“1”,“v”:108,“d”:[]},{“s”:262144,“l”:“m”,“vc”:30,“vv”:30,“f”:“s”,“n”:“2”,“v”:108,“d”:[{“f”:“s”,“n”:“1”,“v”:108,"":""}]},{“s”:131072,“l”:“m”,“vc”:30,“vv”:26,“u”:“FE72813D59AC3968E854B9C0C621DCF54BB43B54BEFA3EF6611D8861D656B2FA”,“f”:“u”,“n”:“1”,“v”:4,“d”:[{“f”:“s”,“n”:“2”,“v”:109,"":""}]},{“s”:131072,“l”:“f”,“vc”:30,“vv”:0,“d”:[]}]}",“ttl”:60,“published_at”:“2017-11-22T23:32:59.993Z”,“coreid”:“56003a000351353532373238”}

This is something I have never seen before.

There is another thread dealing with same issue:

See here:

Particle is on Thanksgiving break. These strange messages will be explained when they return and my understanding is that they are nothing to panic about. :wink:

3 Likes

Any updates on this?

@rickkas7

Your devices tried to safe mode update too many times and failed, and so they hit a safety flag that prevented more retries.

My guess is that your firmware or hardware is preventing the device from maintaining a stable, reliable connection, and is causing the safe mode updates to fail. I can clear this flag for your devices, or you can plug in your devices and update them manually over the wire as well.

Thanks,
David

1 Like

Thanks Dave for this. I messaged you the device IDs of the P1 which ended up in this state. Please clear the flags for these devices.

Thanks
Dheeraj

I had an infield photon device doing the same thing: every OTA update attempt dropped back into safe mode.
This is code that is working just fine on at least 50 identical pieces of hardware, so something must have corrupted the initial OTA update.

However I managed to fix it. Some time back I was having issues with the OTA updates taking too long, so I wrote a tiny program that does nothing but connect to the cloud and wait forever. Loading this in OTA broke out of the safe mode loop, and I was then able to successfully upload the proper firmware.

Lucky - this problem unit is literally on the other side of the planet from me.

1 Like