Bought my second spark core and was really looking forward to using it. Unfortunately, it won’t connect to my network, and I get a flashing green light with no other progress. My first spark core is happily working on the same network, so I know that’s not the problem. Checked all the obvious things, even wasted my time re flashing the firmware and applying the patch. After spending a frustrating night trying to get things working without success, i’ve emailed the team at hello@spark.io but a day later no one’s replied. I really don’t want to waste my time in forums, etc, I bought my spark core for it’s ease of use, I want to use my arduino knowledge, not mess about with the command line. it would be great if someone could help.
Hi @markb,
Yup! We all take shifts answering emails during the day, and we’re almost always hanging out in the forums as well. 
I’ll look up your email and see what’s up.
Thanks,
David
Hi @markb,
It looks like it hasn’t quite been 24 hours since you emailed, but I apologize about the slow response. @Teke also works fulltime answering emails, but we get a ton.
It sounds like you already tried applying the patch, did you use the version that comes with the CLI, or did you grab it from the github repo? What kind of core did you buy, was it a Chip antenna core, or a u.fl antenna core, do you have an antenna attached?
Thanks,
David
Hi, sorry if I seemed impatient, it’s just I bought the first for personal use, but after extolling it’s virtues and ease of set up, we’re using this in a live project for a client, and I’m the one getting stick for suggesting it. I bought the chip antenna version, I used the github repo.
Hi @markb,
No worries! We’re here to help! Do you have the spark-cli installed? Can you try using the version from the cli with (or you can download that version here: https://github.com/spark/spark-cli/blob/master/js/binaries/cc3000-patch-programmer.bin?raw=true ):
spark flash --usb cc3000
#wait for it to flash yellow again after flashing purple, then run:
spark flash --usb tinker
Thanks,
David
could you write me a detailed step by step guide - I have zero command line experience. Thanks.
Hi @markb,
No problem! It sounds like you applied the patch earlier. so you just need to open a terminal / command prompt, and go back to wherever you put dfu-util and run:
1.) Download https://github.com/spark/spark-cli/blob/master/js/binaries/cc3000-patch-programmer.bin?raw=true to wherever you put dfu-util
2.) Open a terminal or command prompt, and go to wherever you downloaded the dfu-util program, it’ll be something like:
cd dfu-util-0.7
3.) Apply the patch the same way you did earlier, something like:
dfu-util -d 1d50:607f -a 0 -s 0x08005000:leave -D cc3000-patch-programmer.bin
If you’d rather not troubleshoot that, or things still aren’t working, let me know and we can arrange a replacement instead.
Thanks!
David
Hi, I installed th CLI and ref lashed - everything working now ! great thanks.
Is this likely to happen often? as we may want to use quite a few, but ideally don’t want to have to go throughout this sort of troubleshooting?
Hi @markb,
Oh, awesome! Nice job!
Patching the WiFi module is a one-time thing, so don’t worry about having to do that again. The cores are patched during manufacturing, but sometimes that process doesn’t work perfectly. We’re also releasing what we’re calling ‘deep_update’ soon that will help make this a smoother process for everyone as well.
Thanks,
David
GREAT, I should probably start a new topic for this question, but is there a way to hide a core in the IDE? As once one project is out of the way and competed, it would be great to lock it, or make it harder to accidentally flash that core - especially if it is in the hands of a client.
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Hi @markb,
Hmm, the easiest way right now would be to create another account for finished / production projects. But that’s a really interesting idea. I’ve been thinking about some kind of feature where a core could optionally be tied to a software project, and/or you get a warning that you’re changing projects when attempting to flash a different project, etc. What do you think @jgoggins ?
Thanks,
David
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@markb, I have renamed the thread to better reflect your problem.
Have fun!
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