Unable to Register Uninitialized Photons (Firmware 0.5.5)

Hello everybody

I currently have two working Photons that were initially difficult to register, but I managed to do so using the Particle mobile app, which is no longer available.

I also have two additional Photons from the same batch that have never been registered. Now, I’m trying to add them to my Particle account, but nothing works.

:small_blue_diamond: What works:

My two previously registered Photons work perfectly with the same PC and the same Particle CLI.
Windows correctly detects the new Photon in Listening Mode (blinking blue LED) on COM13.
The online registration tool detects the Photon, but when I click “Connect”, nothing happens (no console logs either).

:small_blue_diamond: What doesn’t work:

:white_check_mark: Particle CLI does not detect the new Photons in Listening Mode(blinking blue LED).
:white_check_mark: Running particle identify or particle usb list fails→ No device detected.
:white_check_mark: Registering the Photons via CLI (particle device add) does not work.
:white_check_mark: DFU Mode (blinking yellow LED) is not recognized by Particle CLI.
:white_check_mark: Flashing tinker fails (particle flash --usb tinker) because USB is not detected.
:white_check_mark: Flashing via serial does not work but device is recognized :

particle serial list

Found 1 device connected via serial:
COM13 - Photon - 00000000050C

particle serial flash --port COM13 "C:\Users\Flo\Downloads\p1-bootloader@1.5.2+lto.bin"

NOTE: particle flash serial has been replaced by particle flash --local.
Please use that command going forward.

Device not found: 00000000050C

:white_check_mark: Using dfu-util -l return this :

dfu-util -l

dfu-util 0.9

Copyright 2005-2009 Weston Schmidt, Harald Welte and OpenMoko Inc.
Copyright 2010-2016 Tormod Volden and Stefan Schmidt
This program is Free Software and has ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
Please report bugs to http://sourceforge.net/p/dfu-util/tickets/

Cannot open DFU device 2b04:d006

  • Additional Details

Firmware version on the new Photons: 0.5.5 (it keeps printing system firmware version: 0.5.5 on the serial port in Listening Mode with Putty).
PC & CLI setup: The same PC and CLI work fine with my registered Photons.
USB cables: Verified and working perfectly with my existing Photons.
Tested multiple USB ports and cables→ No change.

:small_blue_diamond: Main issue:

:bulb: How can I register these Photons without the mobile app?
:bulb: Is there an alternative way to retrieve their Device ID and manually register them?
:bulb: Is firmware 0.5.5 too old to be recognized by the modern Particle CLI? If so, how can I update it without DFU or USB detection?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, especially if someone has faced a similar issue!

Device OS 0.5.5 is too old to work with the web-based setup tool. Since you have the Particle CLI installed you should be able to put the device in DFU mode (blinking yellow) and use:

particle update

It's fortunate that flashing the p1-bootloader failed, because if it has succeeded you would never be able to boot the device again without a SWD/JTAG programmer.

Thank you for your answer ! I have already tried this but It does not work :

in DFU mode (yellow blinking) particle update is not returning any result (no error)

particle list doesn not work in dfu mode, or any other method

here an extract of commands i've done while photon is in listening mode (blue light blinking)

PS C:\Users\Flo\Documents\PlatformIO\Projects\test led arduino uno> particle serial list
Found 1 device connected via serial:
COM13 - Photon - 00000000050C

PS C:\Users\Flo\Documents\PlatformIO\Projects\test led arduino uno> particle update [here... no return, no changes on the photon]

PS C:\Users\Flo\Documents\PlatformIO\Projects\test led arduino uno> particle serial flash tinker
NOTE: particle flash serial has been replaced by particle flash --local.
Please use that command going forward.

Device not found: 00000000050C

PS C:\Users\Flo\Documents\PlatformIO\Projects\test led arduino uno> particle flash --local tinker
[no response here ..]

It seems that the CLI does recognize the device with serial, but is not able to communicate with it due to it's old OS version...

That's weird. Put the device in DFU mode manually and try using device restore USB to restore it.

Like with CLI, Photon is recognized by the tool while it is in listening mode, but not in DFU mode.

If a try to connect it while it is in listening mode, there is no result (no error, no message in console, no action on webpage on or the photon)

Same behavior that with the setup tool.

PS: i reallized that when io put photon in DFU mode manually, windows doesn't not continue to list it under COM devices.. is it normal ?

When you enter DFU mode the COM driver goes away. This is normal.

You probably have a device driver issue for the DFU device. You can follow the instructions here to fix it.

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Thanks a lot! it was a DFU driver issue.

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