Old Shake and Boom Quit talking to server. Different working Pi 3 B 1.2 replaced but SD cards won't boot

Technical Support
1

I received an email yesterday that my Shake and Boom quit reporting more than three days ago. I could not access it remotely from http on its IP address; it said ‘refuses connection’ However, I could SSH with PuTTY into it. I rebooted it with ‘sudo reboot now’ and it rebooted into oblivion. It appeared to recover yet I could not ping it and searched for a new IP address on my home network where 80 devices are ALL static IPs. No new IP addresses either DHCP or static.

I retrieved the device from under the crawl space of my house this morning and first put in a new SD card with the latest firmware from raspishake-release.zip · main · raspberryShake-public / Raspshake Sd Img · GitLab. I tried both methods of extracting the files detailed here: raspishake-microSD-card-software-Instructions.txt · main · raspberryShake-public / Raspshake Sd Img · GitLab. I get this behavior no matter which extraction method is use: The blue LED on the Shake board lights as does the red LED on the Pi; the green LED never blinks (forever). Next, I put the original SD card back in and it acts the same.

Next I swapped the Raspberry Pi with the exact same model running my DHCP/DNS server. I get the same behavior above. I then swapped them back and the DHCP/DNS device resumed working with its proper firmware. So I concluded it is not the Pi. The Pi from the Shake Boom does work with the DHCP/DNS server firmware. That conclusively proves it is not the Pi.

Lastly I programmed up two more SD cards, both SanDisk Extreme of 32-GB and 64-GB respectively. Neither worked in the Shake and Boom; same symptoms: Blue LED on, Red LED on steady, Green LED never lights.

So I am obviously doing something wrong. I have extracted the files directly to the SD cards, copied the files on the SD card to the root and deleted the now empty folder. I also extracted on the rshake_os.xz file, expanded it, and copied it to the SD card.

I obviously have no log files since I can’t access the device anymore and it would boot.
Any suggestions? Really frustrating for a scientist with dozens of working Pi’s doing all kinds of interesting things. And yes, I am a certified network engineer and experienced with wired and wireless networks. I suspect I am missing something simple.

2

It is working finally. I used a different computer and started the .zip file download afresh. Used a different SD card writer and got all the same results except when I plugged the SD card into the Pi, it booted. I am guessing file contamination somewhere. I am too tired to look (the two computers are in different buildings).

3

Hello drwireless, and welcome to the community!

Given all the troubleshooting you’d already done, I would have recommended the same. The only variables left were the files themselves, and we had users in the past that, after downloading the OS/burning the microSD card from a different PC, got everything back on.

Difficult to say why, as such cases are rare, but happy to read that your Shake is up and running again!