Trying to use my Oak's [Finally]

[nefarious]

I bought 10 Oak devices at the Kickstarter and finally have a project and time to use one.  I am trying to perform the first time setup and it doesn't seem to be working. 

First I do not intend to use the Particle Cloud, my intention is to build a wireless device that I will use locally in my house.  I hope this isn't a problem.

What I have done so far:

I connect the oak to a USB cable and both lights seem correct.  One is blinking and one is steady on.

I have disconnected the Ethernet cable from my computer and connect to the internet wirelessly.
I go to: http://rawgit.com/digistump/OakSoftAP/master/config.html

I try to connect to the ACORN-0b8d4c network and the graphic tells me it is attempting to connect to my oak until the connection closes and I am then offline.

Do I need to reflash the device?  What else could be wrong.

[thejim]

I have been working with my Kickstarter Oaks for the first time this week, too, and had some trouble getting things working with up-to-date browsers.  I tried current versions of Firefox and Chrome and met with a Javascript error during the step of saving the wifi settings to the device.  I had to install an older version of Firefox (45.6.0) on my laptop to be able to finally get things to work.

I downloaded the 64bit version for Windows from here:  https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/45.6.0esr/win64/en-US/

If you need a different platform, just back up a few directories and you should be able to find it.

[nefarious]

I finally got connected to ACORN-0b8d4c and it asked me for the main wireless connection.  I got that working and it said it was updating to the device.  I let it run for 6 or 7 minutes the first time and it just keep updating ...   There are no indicators on the board that anything is happening.  I finally killed it, and started it again, who knows.  The second time I just let it run 4 minutes and killed it.  I then wondered if it had worked and they failed to tell me?   

I tried to run the oak program before I try to log into the IDE and it fails to find a device, it must not have worked. 

I am running on ubuntu Linux if that helps any.

I am running on chrome, I will try firefox next.  It is unfortunate if the device doesn't run on the latest browser, firefox updates automatically so going backward is a PITA.

[nefarious]

I tried on Firefox 57.0.3 and the experience was better, but still disconnected.  I got the message at the top of the screen

Attempting to connect to your oak... 

for a few minutes and it then goes to disconnected. 

[mattster98]

OMG.. same here (getting back to messing with my kickstarter edition OAKs).

I can't believe installing a >1 year old browser got me further along in this process.  It's embarrassing.

However, it appears to update for me, but keeps popping back to the AP mode. :/

Clarification: got 2 of the 3 to update, but neither connects to the cloud.

[thejim]

I had to manually claim my Oaks through Particle:

http://digistump.com/wiki/oak/tutorials/manual_claim

I skipped steps 2 and 3 since I had at least one of my Oaks say "connected" and at least one say "not connected" and the process seemed to work for all three of them.

[mattster98]

Success!  Manual association worked!

Got one talking..  will try #2 then see about manually reflashing #3.

[nefarious]

I think the question for me is:  Can I build something useful with them and expect support in a couple of years.  I want to build my electric brewery with them and the project needs 8 of the 10 I have.  I don't want to have to rebuild it in a couple of years when there is no support for them.

Why I say this:  I have had them in their original box for over a year and still, the method of choice for setting them up doesn't work.  I plan to publish the build for my brewery and others will want to do the same.  I'll give all of the hardware design and software to anyone who wants to copy.  Should I use these devices?

[PeterF]

The easiest way to revert to an earlier browser (edit: on Windows!) would be to grab one of the PortableApps versions... i.e. Mozilla Firefox Portable 45 ESR ... it'll be totally independent of your browser of choice (you just need to close your installed version of Firefox before running the portable version. And yes, it is embarrassing that the browser makers have broken HTML and JavaScript code that was working perfectly will prior to them fiddling around again with their browsers again!

As far as support, if you have no intentions of using Particle, then for longevities sake, switch to the ESP8266 Arduino core. You'll get more compatibility with existing code, and all the newer features that have been brought to the ESP8266 Arduino core since the Oak split from the main project (to add Particle OTA support, as OTA support didn't exist at the time Erik started on the Oak). Brendan (nog3) did an excellent write-up on how to change over to the ESP8266 Arduino core. I would recommend backing up the Oak as he suggested, as that will save your Particle keys if you do later change your mind and want to go back to using the Particle cloud for something. There is an update in the pipeline that will remove the requirement for the 'boards.txt' edit , but it isn't in the stable release channel yet.   Edit: 2.4.0 was released two days ago, which includes the Digistump Oak boards.txt definition.

As a bonus, you then have full control over if and when the ESP8266 connects to the WiFi (and what network) so you can more easily write power efficient code, and you can also do OTA via the ArduinoOTA library included with the ESP8266 core. It is a local OTA solution, so no external server required!

[nefarious]

I looked at PortableApps versions... i.e. Mozilla Firefox Portable 45 ESR ...  and it seems to be a windows executable.  So I can't use that. 

I am going to try the Manual approach as posted by theJim.  If that will get me going I can see how to make the Oaks work for my project.

[nefarious]

The first step of the manual claim process is:

Connect to your Oak's wifi network with a computer/smartphone/tablet/etc (which is available only when the Oak is in config mode/new) - with the SSID ACORN-XXXXX. If you can't see your Oak due to it now being connected to your wireless network, follow the instructions on the troubleshooting page to put it into safe mode.

So I have a network ACORN-0b8d4c and when I try to connect to it it connects for a small period and then goes disconnected.  So I went to the trouble shooting page and it tells me to go to claim, i tried most of the things on the trouble shooting page to no avail.

I tried to put the device in safe mode and it would only blink at the single blink rate.  Since i have 10 of them, I decided to see if it is the oak and got a new one.  I plugged it in and it took way long, but eventually started blinking,.  So far so good. 

I found its SSID as ACORN-0c4cf0

I try to login to my particle account and nothing. 

I try to put this device in Safe Mode, same result.  I assume Safe Mode is still put a jumper between P1 and Gnd and then apply power.  Remove jumper after 2 or 3 seconds.  I can't get this to work on two different devices.

I will see if I can switch to the Arduino 8266 core.

[nefarious]

I downloaded Firefox 45.0 for linux and I got much further.  Is there a version that is known to work?

I was able to where it was updating the oak and it told me the next update would be in 60 seconds.  The problem, the oak SSID went offline and was unable to finish?

I tried it again and it got to the same spot, I tried it on the second device and it was exactly the same. 

If I had a know working version of Firefox I could just do them all and revert back to the latest browser.

[nefarious]

Too bad I can't edit the page.  I should probably say that during the update the led was blinking in the rapid 3 blink mode.

[nefarious]

I tried it from scratch on a third oak.  I rebooted the machine and I only used the Firefox 45.0 browser.

I was able to get connected and start the download to the oak.  At 41 seconds remaining the wifi became disconnected and the oak was blinking with the rapid 3 blink scenario.

After the 60 seconds I tried to connect back to the acorn wifi and it would spin for a few seconds and then announce it is disconnected.  Once the oak is flashing the three rapid flashed it cannot reconnect.

Could it be something with my network?

[nefarious]

I have thought about my second project and I do need to use the Particle Cloud.  I was narrow minded and only thinking about the current project.

I have two projects I want to use the Oak for.  First, the current project, is a Brewery Controller where the oak controls the brew kettle using an DS18B20 temperature sensor, a recirculation fan, and a hot water heater element.  It connects to the Brew Console over wifi which is an NVIDIA Jetson TK1.  The original project connected them via I2C, but since I had the Oak, why not wifi.

The Second project is a Brew Fermentation Chamber.  I can ferment 6 beers simultaneously and I want each fermentation to be individually controlled.  If I do this correct, I can look at the fermentation progress when I am bored at work.

So, I need to figure this out if possible.