5050 RGB LED Strip: 2x5 meter runs, No Red or Blue past the 2nd run, busted diodes...

apologies in advance for the lengthy description, but the issue i'm having is a bit strange....

i have two waterproof (silicone sheathed) 5 meter DOUBLE ROW 5050 RGB LED (w/ a 300W transformer) strips that i'm using as outdoor deck lighting and attempting to chain together. before i began attaching them, i plugged them all together and everything worked perfectly. no cutting or soldering. just plugged in male to female. i have everything hooked up to an "apple switch" (image #1: ).

IMAGE #1

i attached the first strip using a combination of clear silicone adhesive and soft silicone brackets that i delicately nailed every 3-4', making sure not to crunch any of the diodes in the process of nailing the brackets in.

after the first run was affixed, i plugged in the second one. only green was on at the time, and i did not cycle (turn the wall controller on & off) before plugging run #2 to #1. as soon as i plugged #2 to the #1, #2 came on but was green. so both had power, but were just displaying different colors. i then cycled the switch, and everything seemed to be perfect; both #1 & #2 were a lovely green color.

i then started the process of affixing #2 to the side of my redwood deck using the same silicone adhesive + silicone bracket method. the entire process was easy and delicate and i didn't tug or strain anything as far as i know.

after #2 was complete & connected to #1, i went back to the switch and tried to change everything to blue. what happened is the weird part: #1 went to blue, but #2 remained green. i swiped a bit more on the switch as well as tried the individual R, G, & B buttons... same deal. also, there is no red being displayed on #2. so i have the following:

#1------------#2
RED----------NOTHING
(PINK)------NOTHING
GREEN------GREEN
(LT BLUE)--GREEN
BLUE -------GREEN

i then made a meticulous inspection of everything from start to finish, and found that when ONLY blue is on a couple of the diodes on #1 are not operational (IMAGE #2), but THIS ONLY APPEARS WHEN BLUE IS ON. when LIGHT BLUE is on, the busted diodes are GREEN! (IMAGE #3), but when red or green are on, the same diodes on #1 appear normal as red or green.

IMAGE #2

IMAGE #3

to recap: BUSTED DIODES ON STRIP #1 DISPLAY ALL COLORS WITH THE EXCEPTION OF PURE BLUE

i have a third run that i bought as a backup, so i unplugged #2 from #1 and then plugged #3 into #1. the result was the same as above with no change.

if i were to guess, i'd say that there's an issue with #1, since #2 & #3 behave the exact same way when plugged into it. but what could it be? further guessing says it could be related to the blank, blue diodes.

i'd appreciate any educated guesses as to why i am experiencing this issue, or how i might further troubleshoot it, and i'm very grateful for anyone who took the time to read this.

You are experiencing what many of us have already found; most of these "reel" strip mounted leds are very fragile. I have tried using them for outdoor Christmas decorations for years and have finally given up. Having bought dozens of the reel strips, some had dead spots while still wound on the reels. Most others experienced failures either in the unwinding process, the mounting process or through movement of the strip after mounting. Please note that it doesn't take much movement to cause the solder joints and thin conductors to fail. Just minute movement due to temperature changes after mounting can cause them to fail. They seem to last longer indoors in areas that don't experience much temperature variation. Others have also noted that the current distribution is not uniform on these strips and some of the leds will run hotter than others with the end result being either burned out leds or significant color shifts over time due to over heating. The bottom line is that they are mostly very low quality and have proven unreliable for many applications.

thanks for the insight, Genes.