Hello,
I am working for a company that ordered around ten Witty Pi 5 boards used with Raspberry Pi 5 devices.
These Witty Pi 5 boards are powered by a 12.8V LiFePO4 battery via the VIN port.
After one or several scheduled wake-up and shutdown cycles, the Witty Pi stops blinking when it is in standby mode. When I press the push button, the LED reacts (one blink on push, one blink on release), but it will only power back on (and start the Raspberry Pi) if I supply power through the USB-C port.
Once this is done, it can again be powered via VIN.
I have tried reflashing the firmware several times, disabling temperature/voltage alarms, and formatting the Witty Pi storage via the “Administrate” menu.
The only fix I've found so far is to flash this :
https://github.com/Gadgetoid/pico-universal-flash-nuke/releases/tag/v1.1.0
then flash the firmware, but it's only a temporary fix.
I would like to know if anyone has found a solution.
Thanks in advance
After this issue occurs, have you checked the WittyPi5.log file on your Witty Pi 5? This file can be found in the "log" directory in the "Witty Pi 5" USB drive, if you connect Witty Pi 5 to PC with a USB-C cable. With firmware v1.2.1 and software v5.1.1, you may download this file to your Raspberry Pi directly.
The WittyPi5.log file may tell what actually happened.
When this problem occurs, the emulated usb drive is corrupted or unreadable
Here are the last logs on the Pi (/var/log/wp5d.log) before the failure :
Wed May 6 10:31:00 AM UTC 2026
[2026-05-06 10:31:00] Done 🙂
[2026-05-06 10:31:00] Startup reason: Scheduled Startup
[2026-05-06 10:36:57] Witty Pi 5 daemon V5.1.1 started. PID = 646
[2026-05-06 10:36:57] System: Linux, Kernel: 6.12.47+rpt-rpi-v8, Architecture: aarch64
[2026-05-06 10:36:57] Running on: Raspberry Pi 5 Model B Rev 1.1
[2026-05-06 10:36:58] Connected to Witty Pi 5
[2026-05-06 10:36:58] RTC has valid time, write RTC time into system...
Thanks for the information. We have been investigating this issue on our side.
We found a bug in the firmware code related to writing data to the onboard flash storage (the FAT filesystem area used by Witty Pi 5). At this point, we have not yet confirmed through real-world testing that this bug is the direct cause of your issue, but we believe it is a possible explanation for the FAT filesystem becoming corrupted after repeated operation.
This would also be consistent with one important detail in your report: a normal firmware reflash or formatting from the software menu may not fully recover the problem, while a full flash wipe with flash-nuke can temporarily restore normal operation.
So at the moment, our current understanding is:
- there is a real bug in the flash write logic,
- we have not fully confirmed that it is the exact root cause in your case,
- but it is currently one of the main suspected causes of FAT corruption on the board.
We are continuing to investigate this and will work on a firmware fix once we complete verification.