I went to https://setup.particle.io and chose to setup my new electron. I am at the SIM activation page and I entered the ICCID number and clicked the activate button. The little particle logo has been spinning at the bottom of the screen for 30 minutes. This is the second time that I have tried. As anyone else experiencing this issue?
Sorry to hear you’ve been having trouble. We are seeing a good number of first or second time failures when trying to activate a SIM card. This is due to our telephony partner, and we’re working hard to smooth out the kinks.
What’s strange is that you should receive an error message if there is a failure. An endless spinner doesn’t sound like something you should experience.
Are you using a mobile phone or computer to do setup? Can you try logging out and logging back in and trying again? Also you can submit a request at support.particle.io, and we can look into your particular SIM card.
Thanks,
Jeff
Just FYI, I am having the exact same issue…
I’m not sure if particle fixed something on their end, but I just tried again, this time using Safari instead of Chrome, and it worked instantly.
Previously I had only tried Chrome and Chrome in incognito mode.
I’m experiencing the same thing. Just endless activation spinner. Not a good feeling at all after waiting all this time.
I am also having this issue.
Just to try and help (if that is what I do?), is it a issue with the website, database, or the hand off to the carrier?
[Just a guess that it is getting absorbed by the overloaded carrier network and getting dropped before it reaches the Electron without sending a RESYN]
I am also going to guess that is a bad idea to keep doing the activation at spam like intervals. What would be a fair interval if this happens to retry?
Also experiencing endless spinner. Tried with latest Chrome on windows and Safari on Mac, no dice. Entered kickstarter code, and that was accepted, but it just sits there.
I finally got past the SIM activation but now it won’t complete the claiming process. God this is frustrating. Does anything work?
I ended up having an error that it ignored the kickstarter code and charged me… It it was more than 2.99 I would be pissed, but, it is cheap enough to not be upset about. The reason I say so, is I tried it with the code working several times between yesterday and today, and the one time it worked it ignored the code and went FAST. It flew through everything after that including the claiming process for me.
One weird thing it did is while it wasn’t working it went to Blue and stayed there till I reset it. If it isn’t working for anyone else, I would remove the battery, power, then sim (carefully), wait 10 minutes, then reverse the process. I did this a few times, but I know from being a cell phone admin, sometimes the tower has to boot the stuck device off the layer 2 network. Usually that interval is 300,600,900, or 1800 seconds for most towers. Some more, some less… Also hit the reset button while the power is removed and release it. The coil in the BQ setup is a beast, and can hold a charge for a long time, and the controller is robust enough to use a base charge to try and start up. You want it completely dead because the cell setup may use <1.8v.
Hey everyone,
I’m Jeff, one of the engineers at Particle. I’m very sorry you all have been having issues getting your Electrons online. We’ve worked incredibly hard to make this a smooth process, but there are undoubtably some kinks to iron out that didn’t surface themselves until now.
The first thing I’ll say is that if you feel stuck, the best thing to do is reach out to our support team via our support portal, and we’ll be happy to look into your specific SIM/Electron. There are a lot of moving parts here, but I’ll try and break things down –
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SIM Activation: This step is where most of you seem to be having issues. To activate your SIM cards, Particle needs to interact with our telephony provider. Unfortunately, these attempts to activate SIMs do not always work the first few times, and the failures are outside of our immediate control. Normally, these issues resolve themselves after retrying a few times. Our engineering team is working very hard to handle these failures, and provide clear instructions to you when these failures happen. In addition, we’re working closely with our telephony partner to try and get to the bottom of why these intermittent failures happen. This is an ongoing task which is one of our immediate top priorities. As mentioned above, if you feel stuck, the best thing to do is reach out to support with your SIM number and we’ll look into the issue.
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Electron Claiming: Once your SIM has been activated, you can insert your SIM into the device and the on-board LED should move from breathing white (initializing) -> blinking green (connecting to cell tower) -> blinking cyan (connecting to the Particle cloud) -> breathing cyan (connected to Particle cloud). If your device is breathing cyan, this is a good indication that things are all
. Your Electron has used the SIM to come online over a cellular network, and your device should now be claimed to your account. During the setup process, there is a specific step where you should not advance until your device is breathing cyan. Some common issues are outlined in the Electron troubleshooting page in our docs. If you are seeing something strange or feel stuck, reach out to support. -
Promo Codes: If you are a Kickstarter backer, you received a promo code to enter during setup that’s good for free 1MB of data for 3 months. There is a specific step to enter this during the setup process, immediately after entering your ICCID. If you forgot to enter your promo code, reach out to support and we’ll help you out.
I hope that this helps some of you out there having some trouble, or at least provides some clarity. Again, sorry for the frustration some of you are feeling getting your Electron online. We definitely hear you and are doing everything that we can to solve these issues as quickly as possible as they come up.
Happy building!
Jeff
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