Error Occurred while Flashing Device

[brohan]

After a few emails back and forth with Particle support folks I received the following this morning:

https://goo.gl/photos/GpSir4q3B4VBQXQL7

Hopefully all will be resolved very soon for all of us.

[PeterF]

There seems to be a bit of confusion there - yes, they don't support compiling for Oak, but they do support flashing (just not through the online IDE, which would also need to be able to compile first...).

Regardless, that seems like good news, as compile and flash from the cloud without needing a local Arduino IDE support is just around the corner.

[brohan]

Exactly my thoughts. I replied and asked them the same, but haven't heard back.
If only through the cloud, what does that mean for updating the Oak?

[brohan]

[brohan]

Upon a recommendation on the particle forum, I attempted to update to 1.0.5 by:

Loading the Arduino IDE, went to Tools, Board, Boards Manager, searched of Oak, in that section, chose version 1.0.5, and waited for the download to complete. I then put my Oak into config mode and went through the process as if it was a new Oak, including connecting to the Oak wifi, setting the wifi and password, after which it connected to Particle (that's what the browser window said)

After waiting approx 15 minutes, I logged into my particle dashboard, which showed my Oak connected, but again, no events. I logged into Oakterm, same as before, it showed as offline, however the last_heard timer was up to date, and updating. What did change is I went to my digistump dashboard for the program I have, and it was updating (particle.publish) which lists the output of my photocell. It wasn't doing this before this update.

I tried to flash the basic LED tutorial, and this time I received an error message that my Oak wasn't registered or something like it). I ran the Oak tool, selected my Oak, and restarted the IDE. I again tried to flash the LED program, and again received the error message an error occured while flashing device right after it showed the program was uploaded.

Going into config mode, my Oak still says System Version 6.

Any other suggestions?

[brohan]

Interesting to note, when logged into Oakterm, and pressing the config button, that registers on the particle dashboard. Unfortunately not for my Oak. However this did work for my son's Oak which I updated to 1.0.5.

[PeterF]

Best thing to do now unless you have a USB to serial adapter handy and can do a serial firmware update using the firmware Erik posted on the forum a few days ago in another thread is to wait until is made generally available, and instructions are released on how to force an OTA system firmware update. This is of course if you issue is related to the issues a few other people (myself included) had been having.

[brohan]

Here's the adapter that I have, how can I tell what voltage it is?

http://www.monoprice.com/Product?p_id=2067

[PeterF]

Ok, that's no quite suitable! It is probably 5v, but since the RS232 standard allows for the voltage between 3v & 25v (but typically 3-13v), it will be able to accept higher voltage levels, and perhaps even put them out.

You'll want to get one that's meant for electronics (i.e. not computer) serial links.

jens0771 on another thread got this pack from amazon and seemed quite happy with it as it has the three most commonly used modules in it.

I recommend the CH340 usb-to-serial modules or genuine FTDI modules. The CH340s are really cheap, and seem to have pretty good driver support, and even the cheapest ones(US$0.99!!) seem to come with 3.3v and 5v support. If you want a fancier one with a switch for 3.3v and 5v, you could splurge on a US$1.71 one. Either way, I'd recomend getting one of these usb to serial converters if you want to keep playing with oaks or other micro-controllers, as they are handy when you want to see what's going on.

[brohan]

I have the 3 pack on the way :-).
The gremlins are after me, my laptop HDD is about to fail, as of right now I am DD'ing my home dir and have a new HDD on it's way :-( Will be out of commission for a couple of days.

[PeterF]

Eeek! Good luck! It's always good to have backups... and even backups of the backups just to be doubly sure!

Well, by the time you are back up and running the USB UARTs should have arrived, and we should know more about the state of affairs re the 1.0.5 system firmware and OTA updates. Maybe Particle Build support will even be online!!

[jens0771]

jens0771 on another thread got this pack from amazon and seemed quite happy with it as it has the three most commonly used modules in it.

Why yes, yes I am very happy with it. It's got the CH340 along with a few other ones I've seen mentioned for various MCU flashing. I would definitely recommend it, especially if you're a PRIME member. 

Anyways, I tried hooking Blynk up and I'm now getting the flash failure. I've waited this long, I can wait another week or so for Particle to get the fix worked out on their end.

[brohan]

Are you saying that a manual update to 1.0.5 didn't fix the Particle Flash error?

I love prime, with buying all these low $ purchases I wouldn't normally  make with shipping, so I'd pay more at the gouging shack.

[brohan]

Got back from Boy Scout summer camp yesterday and was exhausted, so while all my parts were in, I had no energy to work on anything. Today I put my computer back together from replacing a failed hdd with a 120GB SSD for my Linux O/S and a 750GB spindle drive for everything else.

I started my system up, after installing a few missing, but crucial programs, I fired up the Arduino IDE, and tried to upload the basic blink sketch and . . . it worked!  I then tried to upload the sketch I had been wanting to test (a combo of photocell, and tactile switch connected to 2 LEDs which upon pressing would turn on the alternate LED). I crossed my fingers and waited..  this one worked as well! Well, at least it flashed, I think me debounce setting was off a bit, but IT FLASHED!

I didn’t do anything other than a complete fresh install of Kubuntu. I got the USB to serial adapters, but didn’t use them, etc.

Particle and Oakterm are both receiving info as well.

[kh]

Good to hear yours is back too. Mine and ajablu's came back some time over the last few days.

I don't know if Particle actively made a change, or something just periodically resets in the Particle Cloud every month or so that clears the problem.