I’m a newbie to Particle but very technically capable. I received two new Photons and successfully set them up. I decided to upgrade the firmware on both. I did so with USB cable attached. The first one updated with no problems. Firmware Manager for OSX showed the existing version and gave me the option to upgrade to 0.6.0. However, on the second one, Firmware Manager saw the device but did not display the current version and the light immediately goes to solid magenta. If I go ahead and click to upgrade, after a couple of minutes and no movement of the progress bar, I get a red banner stating “Aw, something bad happened.” I have to power cycle the Photon and it goes back to working normally. So, no real reason I need to upgrade firmware but just wanted them to both be on the latest version before I start working with them in depth. Does anyone have any thoughts on what’s up with the second Photon? Thank you.
I wonder what’s wrong. Did you managed to get both to connect to the :cloud (aka breathing cyan)?
You can then use https://build.particle.io to flash an empty app to the second photon. Before you do that, select the system firmware version under the Devices tab and you it will be upgraded to that particular version via OTA.
I was able to set up two Photons and one Electron with no problems. Even went through some of the tutorials. When I found information about Firmware Manager, I decided to upgrade all three. I upgraded one of the Photons first using version 0.6.0 and it upgraded as expected. The second Photon failed as I mentioned in my previous note.
This morning I decided to have another go at it. However, this time I decided to upgrade my Electron first. When I attempted to upgrade the Electron to version 0.6.0 I got a message saying I needed to upgrade it to version 0.5.3 first. Hmmm, okay, so I did that and then immediately turned around and upgraded it to 0.6.0. Both upgrades installed on the Electron fine. So, then the lightbulb went off. Maybe the second Photon was at a version prior. 0.5.3 as well but it just failed to tell me that. (I did notice that it was not until the 0.6.0 that the manager started telling you what version was already on the device.)
So, I ran the 0.5.3 upgrade on the Photon that had failed previously and it upgraded just fine. I followed up with the attempt to upgrade it to 0.6.0 and this time it displayed the current version and allowed me to successfully upgrade to 0.6.0. I’m learning. 
I appreciate your response.