# I poisoned my Pixelblaze

**URL:** <https://forum.electromage.com/t/i-poisoned-my-pixelblaze/4164>\
**Category:** Troubleshooting\
**Tags:** v3\
**Created:** [July 18, 2025, 9:59pm UTC](https://forum.electromage.com/t/i-poisoned-my-pixelblaze/4164 "2025-07-18T21:59:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Conor](https://forum.electromage.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@Conor](https://forum.electromage.com/u/Conor)\
**Post date:** [July 18, 2025, 9:59pm UTC](https://forum.electromage.com/t/i-poisoned-my-pixelblaze/4164/1 "2025-07-18T21:59:51Z")

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~~I know what I did wrong. I was creating a map and used Math.Cos instead of Math.cos.~~

The Pixelblaze is now in a permanently unhappy state. Despite resetting & power-cycling, on each power-up, I get the message:

`The controller has restarted from repeated errors and has loaded fail-safe settings. Proceed with caution - using this interface may persist fail-safe settings.`

Is there a way to do a complete factory reset?

[edit] The replacement Pixelblaze is now in the same state, so my typo was not the root cause. I’ll check on power issues tomorrow. Worth noting the original board had been driving pixels for a few days.

(FWIW: not my first Pixelblaze installation by a long shot.)

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**Author:** ![wizard](https://forum.electromage.com/user_avatar/forum.electromage.com/wizard/32/4_2.png) [@wizard](https://forum.electromage.com/u/wizard)\
**Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 8:19pm UTC](https://forum.electromage.com/t/i-poisoned-my-pixelblaze/4164/2 "2025-07-20T20:19:46Z")

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Sounds like a bad pattern that is crashing. Try pressing the button once it powers up and starts to draw stuff on the LEDs, hopefully you can switch it to another pattern and get in the ui

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Conor](https://forum.electromage.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@Conor](https://forum.electromage.com/u/Conor)\
**Post date:** [July 27, 2025, 1:23am UTC](https://forum.electromage.com/t/i-poisoned-my-pixelblaze/4164/3 "2025-07-27T01:23:11Z")

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Apologies for the delayed response. Most likely the problem was due to inadequate power. Both devices worked perfectly on the bench.

We were trying to install a second controller in the middle of a strip, where it would just tap power to run a second strip. Admittedly a hack.

Running separate power supply fixed the issue.  
Initially quite perplexing that they would both exhibit the same issue, but I would bet it was NVS-related behavior.

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**Author:** ![system](https://forum.electromage.com/uploads/default/original/1X/98123d16088a5451b5a585e24c0f2a40dd76061e.png) [@system](https://forum.electromage.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2025, 1:24am UTC](https://forum.electromage.com/t/i-poisoned-my-pixelblaze/4164/4 "2025-11-24T01:24:01Z")

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