Botanicalls » Blog Archive » Topic: Not communicating

Not communicating – 14 yellow flashes

Tagged: yellow flashing

This topic has 0 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 15 years, 11 months ago by Rob Faludi.

Viewing 14 posts - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)

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December 1, 2008 at 6:21 pm #1358

butterscotch
Participant

Topic says it all — the device seems to be working, there’s activity on the Ethernet switch when I press the Test button, yellow light comes on solid, but then it fails with 14 yellow flashes (almost looks like it’s going for a fifteenth but just as the yellow flickers, it goes off and the green light starts pumping.

Any ideas?

December 3, 2008 at 3:23 pm #1683

butterscotch
Participant

URGENT! Please water this topic! Recording a segment on this gadget later this week!

December 3, 2008 at 4:41 pm #1684

Rob Faludi
Keymaster

Hi Butterscotch,

If it’s 12 blinks then it’s either an unknown error, or failure to connect. Most likely it’s the latter which means you got a local IP address, but it didn’t make a connection to the Twitter server.

Let me know if that helps!

December 4, 2008 at 2:36 am #1685

butterscotch
Participant

Nope – it’s definitely 14 flashes…have done the reset and test multiple times, and it’s always 14.

Is there a troubleshooting guide anywhere? Even if it WAS 12, I’d have no clue how to get the flower connected properly.

Cheers!

December 4, 2008 at 6:11 pm #1686

Kate
Member

You can find information on how to connect your board in the “Connect Your Leaf” section. I’m assuming you’re using the leaf board and not the earlier model of the kit…

In terms determining what the error is, do you happen to have an FTDI cable? If so, there’s more monitoring you can do with the Serial Monitor in Arduino that would be helpful for debugging.

December 5, 2008 at 1:17 am #1687

butterscotch
Participant

Yes, this is the new leaf board.

Already went through the Connect Your Leaf guide, which basically tells you to plug it in via Ethernet. That part was dead easy.

And no – we don’t have an FTDI cable…this was a one-off project for a segment we’re doing, and we’re not typically programmers.

I’m guessing we’re pretty much hung at getting this thing online before doing the segment if there are no other troubleshooting tips online, huh?

December 5, 2008 at 5:14 am #1688

Kate
Member

We’re happy to help you troubleshoot on the forums, or you can also email us directly at support@botanicalls.com if it’s more convenient. The blinks that you are seeing indicate that for some reason the network connection is not being made. Since you’re not able to monitor serial activity, it would be helpful if you could describe your network setup. Where is your board installed? (Office, home, etc.) And how is it connected?

December 6, 2008 at 5:25 pm #1689

butterscotch
Participant

I was trying it at the office, which was through a switch — definitely possible that there was a firewall, but I’m unable to gain access to the switch to figure out if it got DHCP. (DHCP is definitely turned on, however, as all the other computers get an address no problem).

Tried at home too, plugged directly into my modem/router combo. Now it’s flashing two times. I *do* have access to the control panel for this router and I can’t confirm whether or not it’s actually getting DHCP from the router as the MAC address of the Leaf isn’t showing up in the DHCP clients list, and none of the IP addresses in the list are responding to pings apart from the known computers.

December 6, 2008 at 5:26 pm #1690

butterscotch
Participant

Again, when you press the test button, the activity light on the router is flashing, so the Leaf *is* trying to communicate with the outside world.

December 9, 2008 at 2:42 am #1691

butterscotch
Participant

By the way, here are photos, if you need them: http://flickr.com/photos/globalhermit/sets/72157610936316820/

December 10, 2008 at 4:27 pm #1692

Rob Faludi
Keymaster

Did you change the username and password on Twitter, or is it still set to the original one you got with the kit?

December 11, 2008 at 4:14 am #1693

butterscotch
Participant

Password is the same as on the original packaging.

Now I’m getting 12 flashes instead of 2 or 14. I have to be honest: this thing is starting to drive me nuts.

December 11, 2008 at 5:33 pm #1694

Rob Faludi
Keymaster

Good, the password and username needs to be the same. 12 flashes means it timed out when it tried to connect to Twitter. Sometimes that happens when it’s down.

Let’s look into your account setup, outside the public forums of course. Can you contact us directly? mail(at)botanicalls(dot)com

January 5, 2009 at 3:54 pm #1695

Rob Faludi
Keymaster

UPDATE: The problem ended up being traced to one poor solder connection on one microcontroller pin. Re-heating that connection made the solder flow and bond with both the pin and the pad properly. Twittering commenced immediately.

Remember, you can’t see electricity so use a multimeter and check for connectivity if there’s any doubt!
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