GPIO Pin 4 flashes even when it should be off

Question

I have a raspberry pi B v1.1, with raspbian. I am using GPIO pins 4,17,27, to illuminate an RGB LED.

My problem is that GPIO Pin 4 flashes randomly. Ok, not exactly randomly, it seems to flash briefly once every 10 seconds. Even when my program is running, or when my program is off. The flashing, makes the color change, when it should not.

I don't recall setting a start up script, or anything else to use that pin. Im not sure why it is flashing.

Here is my source code:

/*
   pulse.c

   gcc -o pulse pulse.c -lpigpio -lrt -lpthread

   sudo ./pulse
*/

#include <stdio.h>
#include <pigpio.h>

void blinkRed();
void blinkGreen();
void blinkBlue();
void initZero(); 
int main(int argc, char *argv[]){

   if (gpioInitialise() < 0){
      fprintf(stderr, "pigpio initialisation failed\n");
      return 1;
   }

   /* Set GPIO modes */
   gpioSetMode(4,  PI_OUTPUT); //blue
   gpioSetMode(17, PI_OUTPUT); //green
   gpioSetMode(27, PI_OUTPUT); //red

   /*init io to zero*/  
   initZero();
   int i;
   for(i = 0; i < 60; i++){
   blinkRed();

   }

   /* Stop DMA, release resources */
   initZero();
   gpioTerminate();

   return 0;
}
void initZero(){
      gpioWrite(4,  1); /* off */   
      gpioWrite(17, 1); /* off */
      gpioWrite(27, 1); /* off */            
    }

void blinkBlue(){
      gpioWrite(4, 1); /* off */
      time_sleep(0.5);
      gpioWrite(4, 0); /* on */
      time_sleep(0.5);
    }

void blinkGreen(){
      gpioWrite(17, 1); /* off */
      time_sleep(0.5);
      gpioWrite(17, 0); /* on */
      time_sleep(0.5);
    }

void blinkRed(){
      gpioWrite(27, 1); /* off */
      time_sleep(0.5);
      gpioWrite(27, 0); /* on */
      time_sleep(0.5);  
    }

I made a couple videos of it miss behaving, and will attach those when I find a good resource to do that with.

My LED is Common Anode (common V+), and I am using 470 ohm resistors on the 3.3V power supply pins.

Answer 1

I switched to a common cathode LED and it works fine now. In my code, I notice that the Pins are set as OUTPUTS, but a default state, high or low is not set. The default setting, would be low, on outputs, so I should have specified HIGH for the pin setting. Alternatively, a common cathode LED also fixes the issue.