Unable to complete boot after startup following faulty firmware upgrade

[puris 0]

I have been running 3 Ultimakers in a small shop for about 3 months now with few to no issues.

With the recent firmware release (12/04), I upgraded the firmware for all three. However, one of them, the one that's been in use the longest, has an unusual boot issue.

After the firmware upgrade process completes the first part and it reboots, the printer is stuck with "Ultimaker" on the screen, the dial light on, and the frame lights on at full brightness.

A power cycle does nothing, but a power cycle waiting 10+ seconds allows it to boot seemingly normally. In this state, network prints fail, the Cura web panel for the printer unable to show current printer sensor status.

I have tried redoing the firmware update manually with a USB using 4.1.4 (12/04) and 4.0.1 but to no avail.

I pulled the USB logs, there's some stuff about being unable to access the motion controller and other things but I'm not sure how that's exactly related.

I'm all out of ideas, so I'm hoping someone out there might be able to lend a helping hand.

Here's a snippet from one of the logs showing the errors:

https://pastebin.com/Nhmp9mGA

Edited December 7, 2017 by Guest

[Marco_TvM 34]

I think that one printer had some minor disruption during the installation of the update.

See also the following thread: 

 

 

[CarloK 205]

The problem reported in the log file is that it fails to open the serial port to the motion controller. This is a strange error and can have multiple causes.

The posted log message does not contain all info I need to analyze the root cause of your problem.

Can you mail the complete log dump file to me? Or post it somewhere from where I can download it.

[gr5 2,230]

How to recover a bricked UM3:   https://ultimaker.com/en/community/51752-recovering-a-bricked-um3

 

But I suppose it could be the Marlin firmware that was updated on the white PCB that is causing the problem.  Not sure if that can keep a UM3 from booting.

[puris 0]

I managed to get it printing after a few more days of troubleshooting.

 

After doing any update, the printer does get stuck just displaying Ultimaker. Once the logo displays, I wait for a period of about a minute, then turn off the printer and unplug it. I wait another 10 to 15 seconds and plug it back in and turn it on. Only then does it decide to boot. If I flash the firmware again, I have to do the same thing.

 

It seems to be fine now, but I'm afraid that I might brick it if I update it again.

 

I can't post a full log at the moment, I'm away from the shop for the holidays. I should be uploading it sometime in the second week of January.

[Marco_TvM 34]

Keep us posted, please. Logs would be helpful.

I just experienced something similar, but investigating didn't explain what the cause was.

I will be monitoring and trying to reproduce the problem.

[puris 0]

It started getting worse in May this year and got to the point that it wouldn't display anything when turned on. I left the shop for the summer (it's at my university) so I couldn't debug them until yesterday. Here's what happened:

1. Disassembled printer
2. Flashed recovery to red board via micro SD card and verified over HDMI output
3. The Ultimaker logo showed up again but it failed to boot until after a few flashes -- we think it was because the HDMI was still connected
4. Once it booted it was on an old firmware: 4.3.3
5. Connected over Ethernet and updated to 4.3.27 (?)
6. After updating, it asked to update again to major version 5 (latest, 2019-05-??)
7. It wouldn't boot on 5 so we had to reflash the recovery again a few times
8. Suddenly started working on 5 after we disconnected Ethernet -- this might have been because we have a Raspberry Pi that repeatedly polls our printers once they broadcast their existence over mDNS
9. Reassembled
10. Tried to load material, failed with an error message about failed communication with the print head
11. Restarted, got stuck on Ultimaker logo
12. After a few restarts, booted
13. Loaded material
14. Printing (now)

[CarloK 205]

Short answer: this printer has an electronics hardware problem.

What the problem is can be difficult to discover...

 

I never heard of a printer with similar problems, but then again, I'm a software engineer and our distributors do see a lot more of the field problems than I do.

 

The communication error to the printhead would be my first suspect. The early UM3 printers had a cable connection in the print head that was a bit too loose. Over time this stressed the connecter in the print head and creates communication problems. In the later models this was solved by a printhead cover that was slightly more tight fitting. Try pushing down the cable into the connector.

Reseating the printhead cable video

 

If this doean't work, contact your reseller or the distributor in your country for a solution. Sometimes a printer does break down and parts have to be replaced.