[Solved] Troubleshooting: Reset Wifi on FEIT Dimmer Switch with OpenBKT 1.12.60 without Serial Connector

So I had successfully imaged and used OpenBKT 1.12.60 onto a FEIT dimmer switch.
After a bit, it is no longer on Wifi. It acts like it is (solid connected light) but it is not.
The manual parts still work as expected, however, I am unable to use anything to control it.
I have tried turning it off and on several times, but it doesn't do anything.
If I press and hold the switch, eventually the light starts to flash, either quickly or slowly. I am unable to see any new SSID in either state.

Is there a way to reset the switch so I can configure it without having to pull it out of the wall and connect it back up to a serial connector?

Thanks,
Brian Andrus

Hello, what kind of device do you have, is it a TuyaMCU based one?
I am asking because I want to determine whether manual part still works because it's handled by the MCU, or is it that just really WiFi part of OBK is dead.

Is your build from earlier than Mar 13, 2023? On Mar 13 we added a watchdog so it's not possible for device to lock itself in crash state for longer than 10 seconds, so device is now immune to crashes.

How long was device working before it crashed?

You can enter safe mode by doing quick 5 power on/off cycles.

Are you sure that your version is 1.12.60? It seems quite old, considering that even two weeks ago we released something like 1.15.599. Most likely just a watchdog update would totally fix your issue, but you'd still need to flash it somehow.

The device is this one: https://www.elektroda.com/rtvforum/topic3949246.html
I had flashed it in October and it worked for a few months. I have been living with it for the time.

I flashed two more of them yesterday using v1.15.631, which is showing as the latest release at https://github.com/openshwprojects/OpenBK7231T_App
That is where I downloaded OpenBK7231T_UA_1.15.631.bin
Am I getting the incorrect release?

Turning the device on/off 5 times doesn't do anything. It may have to do with how it turns on/off. It doesn't just go on, unless it is on the lowest dimming setting. Instead, it will 'ramp up' to the setting it had before being turned off.
Turning off is similar, it 'ramps down' until it is off.

I guess I will have to pull it out of the wall. I'll just swap the board for one that I have just flashed and go from there. Maybe the logs will show something.

@brianandrus the device will go into safe mode after 5 or more failed reboots, and reboot is marked as ok after 5 seconds. So if you do quick 5 power on/off cycles, or more, then it will start in AP mode.

It is not possible that device is not going into AP mode because you did more than 5 power cycles.

But it has to be 5 power cycles, not 5 button presses.

And if device has a capacitor inside it, then you might need to wait a bit more than 1 second, because it's possible that disconnecting power for 0.25s is not enough for capacitors to discharge and device in reality does not see it as a "power off".

Futhermore. did you have PowerSave 1 command used? Some of cheapest devices can wear out power supplies quickly without power save.

Ok, I had to use the breaker switch to do the power cycling (which I couldn't do until now). It did come back up with the default wifi and I was able to connect to reconfigure the wifi. All is working again. I have also done an OTA update of the firmware, so we should be in business.

Thanks for the assistance! Always great stuff happening here and everything you do is appreciated!

Used circuit breaker to power unit on/off 5 times to force a reset.

Good job! Keep in mind that current version has certain stability improvements and watchdog system, so now it should be impossible to crash and stuck the device forever. The watchdog mechanism will reboot it if if something goes wrong.