I’m once again at a place that is far too familiar. I am trying to get a PixelBlaze up and running after not doing anything with the unit for several months.
I’m using the Discovery Service which worked perfectly when I last ran the PB. Now I get the PB recognized by the discovery service and then no forward progress. I sometimes get the rotating colored cube sometimes not. But I never get to anywhere that lights up the unit.
I have seen several topics that discuss something similar to this issue but the solutions are just close to incomprehensible to me. Load previous firmware revisions etc. I don’t know how to dao any of this stuff and I’d like to get my lights back again and make stuff with them.
If anyone has the patience to get me back to a working PB that would be great. I am having the same issue with two different PB so that is the only data point I have.
It’s also quit humorous (in a darker sort of humor) that the PixelBlaze Discover Service “discovers” my PB when it is not powered up. Telepathy??
Maybe I need to put a Faraday Cage around my PB to disable the WiFi from the unpowered device. That’s a joke, incidentally.
It’s kind of interesting that of the half dozen or so WiFi connected devices I have used with my Mac only the PixelBlaze has repeatedly failed to play nice.
Hi again @alan_sailer ,
Sorry you are having trouble again. Seems like every year or so when you fire it up again?
What does the orange LED do when you power it up?
What does the last seen look like on the discovery service? Entries there can be stale if PB has been disconnected/changed recently. They stick around for an hour or so.
Yes. I never have any problem with the patterns. It is always the WiFi.
The problem is always with WiFi. PB is a tool that I pick up, go through problems getting WiFi to work. Then I move on, pick it up a few months later and have problems again.
The power up just like usual. Three orange blinks, green lights on LED flash and steady orange.
At this point it shows up on my list of WiFi but not on discovery service. I have run through the Client/AP, enable Discovery Service more times than I am willing to remember.
I also found out about the Recovery Page (had to wade through Forum post to discover this must have missed the documentation of this feature. This was also a failure since I got a message saying something to that effect.
I was trying to make a special effect for my nieces play but at this point I have ordered a set of fairy lights instead. Not as nice looking but no WiFi to connect.
I am not doing these things at the same time. I am doing them in series. When I say that the PB shows up on my WiFi I am saying that my Mac has a list of WiFi devices that it recognizes. The PB shows up as PixelBlazexxxx. I use the tools (I don’t know what they are called) to either configure it as a Client (sometimes) or AP (sometimes).
Either way I get nowhere. I either can’t get the spinning cube or I get the infinite spinning Cube.
I also went back to my notebook where I printed out the dialog form the last time you helped me. I wrote line by line what I did to get the PB running. You corrected my mistake and everything wnet well.
I am now doing exactly what you told me to do, line by line. When I get to the Discovery service, the PB does not show up. This particular instruction set was for Client mode.
Is there any way to figuratively hit the PB on the head, put it into a coma and then start it up like it was born again fresh from the factory?
I’m afraid the answer will be recovery mode which did not work for me
So here are my observations. I have been doing this process dozens of times so I can describe what happens very well.
One the WiFi Setup page I pick Client Mode and select my router. I enter the routers Password. And I always enable Discovery by checking the little box.
I click Submit. The message changes to Connecting.
And here is what happened dozens of times. The page displays Done but very dim. After this I cannot get out of the page any other way than closing the window.
After this, Discovery finds nothing. And as another data point, the PB stays in my Apples list of WiFi devices.
I repeated this process with two different routers and two different Apple computers. Dozens of times.
No luck.
So just an hour ago I did the exact same thing again. And this time, instead of displaying a dim Done, the window closes BY ITSELF!!!* And the PB no longer appears in my Apples list of WiFi devices.
I then go to Discovery, find my PB and start using patterns.
So if anyone can explain why I tried this WiFi set-up dozens of times and get stopped at a dimly lit DONE message and then at some point I don’t get the DONE message, the window closes and my PB is fine…
…I’d really, really, really** like to know.
It is my firm opinion (and I’d love to be proven wrong) that this problem is a PB interface issue and not my fault.
Cheers.
* I am not in the habit of typing caps and adding exclamation points. But I have spent hours getting to this point.