# Unicorn Hat not fully working

**URL:** <https://forums.pimoroni.com/t/unicorn-hat-not-fully-working/16446>\
**Category:** Support\
**Created:** [February 27, 2021, 1:48pm UTC](https://forums.pimoroni.com/t/unicorn-hat-not-fully-working/16446 "2021-02-27T13:48:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![markx2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/74df32/32.png) [@markx2](https://forums.pimoroni.com/u/markx2)\
**Post date:** [February 27, 2021, 1:48pm UTC](https://forums.pimoroni.com/t/unicorn-hat-not-fully-working/16446/1 "2021-02-27T13:48:16Z")

</div>

I have read and tried all the steps in this forum topic - [https://forums.pimoroni.com/t/new-unicorn-hat-not-working/2317](https://forums.pimoroni.com/t/new-unicorn-hat-not-working/2317) without success.

The Issue: I have two unicorn hats, a few Pi 3B’s  
Regardless of the Pi used, or the hat, the only pixels that light up are the top right 2 - 5 when the Pi is USB slots at the bottom.  
When this first happened I thought the hat was faulty so I bought another.

Edit: I just tried a Unicorn Hat HD and that run the Pimoroni examples perfectly.

I have some information below - what else can I provide?

Thanks.

```
uname -a

```

Linux raspberrypi 5.10.11-v7+ #1399 SMP Thu Jan 28 12:06:05 GMT 2021 armv7l GNU/Linux

```
cat /etc/os-release

```

PRETTY\_NAME=“Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)”  
NAME=“Raspbian GNU/Linux”  
VERSION\_ID=“10”  
VERSION=“10 (buster)”  
VERSION\_CODENAME=buster  
ID=raspbian  
ID\_LIKE=debian

```
pip list

```

Package Version

* * *

arandr 0.1.9  
asn1crypto 0.24.0  
automationhat 0.2.0  
blinker 1.4  
blinkt 0.1.2  
buttonshim 0.0.2  
Cap1xxx 0.1.3  
certifi 2018.8.24  
chardet 3.0.4  
Click 7.0  
colorama 0.3.7  
colorzero 1.1  
configparser 3.5.0b2  
cookies 2.2.1  
cryptography 2.6.1  
drumhat 0.1.0  
entrypoints 0.3  
enum34 1.1.6  
envirophat 1.0.0  
ExplorerHAT 0.4.2  
Flask 1.0.2  
fourletterphat 0.1.0  
funcsigs 1.0.2  
gpiozero 1.5.1  
idna 2.6  
ipaddress 1.0.17  
itsdangerous 0.24  
Jinja2 2.10  
keyring 17.1.1  
keyrings.alt 3.1.1  
MarkupSafe 1.1.0  
microdotphat 0.2.1  
mock 2.0.0  
mote 0.0.4  
motephat 0.0.3  
numpy 1.16.2  
oauthlib 2.1.0  
olefile 0.46  
pantilthat 0.0.7  
pbr 4.2.0  
phatbeat 0.1.1  
pianohat 0.1.0  
picamera 1.13  
piglow 1.2.5  
pigpio 1.44  
Pillow 5.4.1  
pip 18.1  
pycairo 1.16.2  
pycrypto 2.6.1  
pygame 1.9.4.post1  
PyGObject 3.30.4  
pyinotify 0.9.6  
PyJWT 1.7.0  
pyOpenSSL 19.0.0  
pyserial 3.4  
pyxdg 0.25  
rainbowhat 0.1.0  
requests 2.21.0  
requests-oauthlib 1.0.0  
responses 0.9.0  
rpi-ws281x 4.2.5  
RPi.GPIO 0.7.0  
RTIMULib 7.2.1  
scrollphat 0.0.7  
scrollphathd 1.2.1  
SecretStorage 2.3.1  
sense-hat 2.2.0  
setuptools 40.8.0  
simplejson 3.16.0  
six 1.12.0  
skywriter 0.0.7  
sn3218 1.2.7  
spidev 3.4  
touchphat 0.0.1  
twython 3.7.0  
unicornhat 2.2.3  
unicornhathd 0.0.4  
urllib3 1.24.1  
Werkzeug 0.14.1  
wheel 0.32.3

```
sudo pip install -I rpi_ws281x

```

Looking in indexes: htt ps://pypi.org/simple, htt ps://www.piwheels.org/simple  
Collecting rpi\_ws281x  
Using cached htt ps://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/51/3d/fd4029647ecc015cb61becab76d4b9eff8699681f3551adfd35596ea3df6/rpi\_ws281x-4.2.5-cp27-cp27mu-linux\_armv7l.whl  
Installing collected packages: rpi-ws281x  
Successfully installed rpi-ws281x-4.2.5

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![markx2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/74df32/32.png) [@markx2](https://forums.pimoroni.com/u/markx2)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 11:30am UTC](https://forums.pimoroni.com/t/unicorn-hat-not-fully-working/16446/2 "2021-03-03T11:30:14Z")

</div>

What I have done:

Formatted the card and reinstalled the latest Rasbian

Followed this exactly

[https://learn.pimoroni.com/tutorial/unicorn-hat/getting-started-with-unicorn-hat](https://learn.pimoroni.com/tutorial/unicorn-hat/getting-started-with-unicorn-hat)

Rebooted, tried to run examples and the only LEDs that light up are those indicated.

 ![IMG_1126b](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/pimoroni/original/2X/0/014ee60533493bad05b781f4af8e92da61a0ff0f.jpeg)

This happens with two hats.

I have no idea how to fix, thanks