Blink goes dark after uploading sketch

Support
1

Hi.

So I received a beta development kit yesterday and started playing with it. I noticed that usually when a new sketch is upload to a blink, it reboots and shows rotating blue dots on its surface.

Now I have this project I wrote blindly (without having blinks) and when I try to upload it, the blink simply goes dark. Nothing happens and it does not appear it is working at all. Then if I upload a different sketch, it works again.

What may be the issue here?

Thanks in advance.

2

The rotating blue light is “seed” mode where the blink tries to download the new program to any neighbors. This is a brand new pre-release feature that is not yet part of the main line that is meant to make it faster to download and test new code on a group of blinks. This mode should automatically terminate after a few spins if no other blinks are around, or you can press the button to manually cancel it.

If you are just getting started you might want to switch to the production version since it is better tested and matches the documentation.

If you are still only seeing a dark blink after the blue spin is over then something is wrong. Can you post the code that you are uploading?

3

I am using the source code as documentation, so I do not think that is an issue. :slight_smile:

Sorry, I was not clear. What I meant is that normally there is the rotating blue dots but when it fails the way I mentioned, not happens. The blink just stays dark (not even the rotating blue lights). Also, it happens from time to time so it is not a problem with what specifically I am trying to do. Is just that I have been doing this a lot and noticed it there.

4

Hmmm… the only things I can think of that could result in just a black blink after a download are… 1) The game is running, but it just does not turn on any of the LEDs, 2) The download actually failed and so there is no code inside the blink.

You can test for the first case by adding something like…

if (millis() < 1000) { 
    secolor(RED);
    return;
}

… at the top of your loop(). Also make sure there is no way to get stuck in setup().

If that does not help, then next time this happens, can you select all-copy everything from the scrolling console window in the Arduino IDE so we can see what happened during the download?

Thx!

5

I actually managed to figure this one out (the problem, not a fix). I have been alternating between VSCode and Arduino and uploads always fail like that when I use VSCode. It might be related to the extra flags someone else set on the other thread (that I did not). I will try those flags.