Still having trouble downloading using Arduino IDE

[Last_Mile]

After putting any of my Oaks into Safe Mode and getting the three quick flashes, I tried a download from the Arduino IDE.  After 8 to 10 tries, the download may complete and actually work.  Most of the time I get a WDT timeout error on the serial port.  At this point it is 50/50 if the Oak goes back to the three flashing mode or if it just freezes and I need to be put back into the Safe Mode.

Has anybody else seen this behavior?  It doesn't seem to matter what time of day or night I try, it just fails most of the time.  I just want to be able to get my successful download times reduced and speed up my development time.

[Last_Mile]

Looks like I'm the only one having trouble downloading using the Arduino IDE.

[PeterF]

I know it's not what you want to hear... but 'fraid so mate!  

I just grabbed my test subject, and fed it a modified blink program in the Arduino IDE, and it compiled and uploaded first time and in without any funny business (and the second time). Things are pretty quiet here in Oak land at the moment... people either aren't programming them at the moment, have given up on them for now, or have just Arduino-ESP8266'ifed them, and moved away from Particle.

[Last_Mile]

So how do you Arduino-ESP8266'ifed them, and moved away from Particle?  My other alternative is to ditch the Oak and move to something like the Adafruit Hazzah?

[PeterF]

You'll need a 3v3 USB to serial converter, so make you have one to start with... Something based on a CH340 is good... and ridiculously cheap

At that point, if you just want faster, more reliable uploads, you can upload to the oak over the usb-to-serial link instead of OTA.

If you want OTA, but a bit more reliable, then the Arduino ESP8266 way is probably the way to go. But basically, so you don't burn any bridges, I would first backup the entirely of the Oak's flash memory, so you can re-Oakify it if you wish to at a later date. You then upload a program to it via the USB to serial link when using the Arduino ESP8266 core... that's basically it (with the oak in flash/programming mode - P2 to GND on power up IIRC). You can also upload their ArduinoOTA sketch, which then gives you OTA programming capability (and scaffold for adding to your own sketches)... which is also much faster than serial uploading... much faster!

Sound like something you want to find about more

[nog3]

Late reply, but I recently have been de-particle-ing my Oaks as the Particle cloud seems a little bit wispy for at least a year.

I've written a (probably too) detailed blog about how I achieved it: http://nog3.net/2017/06/05/removing-particle-from-oak/

I still think they're great hardware (and firmware) but the Particle side of things has finally annoyed the stuffing out of me one too many times and significantly delayed development time.

[PeterF]

Hi nog3... that post is great... I'll have to keep that bookmarked for future reference when someone asks how to do-Oakify an oak :-P

[bnovaz]

last_mile ==> You are not the only only one having problems uploading to Oaks.

I'm having the exact same problem.  I can only manage one successful sketch upload.  After that all I get are timeouts.  Sometime, I even have to go to the extreme of reloading the Oak FW in order to get it to do one successful upload again.  NOT GOOD.  I have 4 Oaks and I like the concept of the Particle cloud, but the inability to upload sketches has me extremely frustrated.  My solution so far has be to develop on Wemos D1 minis with OTA FW and then move to the Oak when development has been completed.  I have no problems doing repeated sketch OTA uploads on the Wemos.

I suspect that a lot of other people are having the same problem but have just given up on the Oaks.  I really would like to see this fixed.

BTW - I have a Particle Spark Core and I have no difficulty doing multiple uploads on it.  Of course, it's not using the Arduino IDE, but the Particle build environment.

FIX THIS!

[Last_Mile]

I got so frustrated, I followed nog3's instructions and de-oakified my three Oaks and now use the Arduino IDE.  For now, I've abandoned OTA and I'm using a USB serial adapter.  Until I whip up a reset on download circuit, I'm doing the program and reset button routine.  I cannot believe how much my development productivity has increased!  My compile/download cycle went from 5 - 10 minutes to UNDER 1 minute. Woo Hoo!

[profero]

I still have problem with i2c devices after oaks were de-OAKified. I followed the tutorial and described pins, but after boot oak simply does not open i2c. Other wemos minis have no such problems. Btw, particle cloud works fine with the same i2c device. Am I missing something here?

[PeterF]

Did you take into account the differences in labelling to pin mapping?

http://digistump.com/wiki/oak/tutorials/pinout#oak_pin_to_esp8266_gpio_mapping

[profero]

i2c works now for me. Same configuration, just switched back to esp8266 2.3.0 library from git.