Serial.println() Blocking

Firmware
12

So while I may have been overrunning the serial buffer previously, I think something else is going on. I have implemented the following function that is run every iteration of the main loop.

void cloudKeepAlive(){
  unsigned long processtimer = millis();
  while(!Particle.connected() && (millis()-processtimer<10000)){
    Particle.process();
  }
  if(millis()-processtimer>5000){
    Log.info("Cloud Keep Alive Ran for: %u", millis()-processtimer);
  }
}

If it was a blocking issue then I was hoping the above would solve the issue. The problem is that the device is breathing cyan, so thinks it's connected, but I cannot communicate with the device from the particle console, ie. vitals, signal or particle functions. So it seems like the device thinks that it is connected when it is not. I did read in the api that if particle.process is not being called enough that the device can think its connected when infact it is not.

  1. Does anyone have any ideas how I can trouble shoot this a bit further?
  2. Should I just force Particle process to run for x amount of time every loop?
  3. If so, what would be an appropriate amount of time to call Particle process for to see if this resolves my issue?
  4. Could this be a bad signal issue?

EDIT: One other thing I have noticed is that when I try to push a new firmware to device using workbench cloud flash, I still get the started event but it will fail to update. Does the started event mean that the cloud has successfully connected to the particle?