Can Team Ultimaker offer a reversible Firmware update process?

[JohnInOttawa 104]

Good afternoon from frozen Ottawa!

 

With apologies if this has been beaten to death.

 

I've been reading the extensive threads on firmware issues.  While likely very rare, considering the numbers of units in the wild, firmware failures are so disruptive to any sort of commercial process that, like many I suppose, I'm running a number of versions behind, simply because it is stable and I don't want to rock the boat. 

 

Of course running with obsolete firmware will only work so long before the point where I can't print what Cura outputs and may not be able to directly update from the firmware I have - or that update will fail.

 

Given that these printers are increasingly marketed as professional grade,  I would like to suggest a more robust upgrade process - one that allows recovery without hours of lost time.  For example, something like a reset image written to a USB key prior to a new firmware update that allowed a back-out would reduce the hit from hours to minutes.

 

I'm sure there is a myriad of reasons why this request is impossible, but then, not so long ago, 3D printing was impossible too.  These things are all relative... 😉

 

J

Edited February 11, 2021 by JohnInOttawa

[Priddy 10]

Recently Ultimaker has updated the support.ultimaker.com pages to add firmware recovery options that may help:

S3 & S5 - https://support.ultimaker.com/hc/en-us/articles/360019088780-Firmware-recovery-procedure-for-the-Ultimaker-S3-and-the-Ultimaker-S5-mid-2020-

UM2+ Connect: https://support.ultimaker.com/hc/en-us/articles/360017100080-Firmware-recovery-for-the-Ultimaker-2-Connect

[JohnInOttawa 104]

Thanks.  I note this is only for the newest models but it is a start.  Hopefully something similar can be rolled out for the UM3 and UM2.

 

Cheers

J

[Priddy 10]

If you'd like, you should be able to get a recovery image for the UM3 from your local support. The process is pretty much identical to the S-Line in terms of the recovery procedure.

 

There isn't a recovery image for the UM2+ series available. However, if you want to try a previous firmware for that model, you should be able to use an older version of Cura to update your printer since the versions are tied with the software: https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/tags

It is worth noting, though, that the UM2+ firmware has not been updated since around early 2018 (Version 3.3).

I hope that helps!

[sj3fk3 22]

On 2/11/2021 at 9:18 PM, JohnInOttawa said:

I've been reading the extensive threads on firmware issues.  While likely very rare, considering the numbers of units in the wild, firmware failures are so disruptive to any sort of commercial process that, like many I suppose, I'm running a number of versions behind, simply because it is stable and I don't want to rock the boat. 

 

It is one of the reasons why we are changing our release schedule. We are going to work with a Stable and Latest channel. People who want latest and greatest can just stay on latest (about 8 releases per year) and always get updates. People who want more stability can choose "Stable". We will only release about 3 times a year to Stable and only with features that are already  (previously) released to Latest.

 

On 2/11/2021 at 9:18 PM, JohnInOttawa said:

Given that these printers are increasingly marketed as professional grade,  I would like to suggest a more robust upgrade process - one that allows recovery without hours of lost time.  For example, something like a reset image written to a USB key prior to a new firmware update that allowed a back-out would reduce the hit from hours to minutes.

 

We are indeed spending more and more time on this issue. We do not only extensively test all releases with many different configurations (both hardware and firmware), but we are also looking at making the whole process more robust. On top of that, we are also looking at ways to have easier fail-modes where you can recover when something went wrong.

 

On 2/11/2021 at 9:18 PM, JohnInOttawa said:

 

I'm sure there is a myriad of reasons why this request is impossible, but then, not so long ago, 3D printing was impossible too.  These things are all relative... 😉

 

 

Thanks for your very constructive feedback! I hope, I was able to answer some of your questions. We are working very hard on improving upgrading and although I'm not sure if a USB key is the way I will look into this.

[JohnInOttawa 104]

Much appreciated! 

 

John

[jsw 19]

I'm very much interested in this too.  I would love to have the static IP function, but with all of the horror stories of people 'bricking' their machines, I held off when the prompt appeared.  I would definitely appreciate some kind of a 'safety net' in case the upgrade fails.

[sj3fk3 22]

On 2/14/2021 at 11:43 AM, jsw said:

I'm very much interested in this too.  I would love to have the static IP function, but with all of the horror stories of people 'bricking' their machines, I held off when the prompt appeared.  I would definitely appreciate some kind of a 'safety net' in case the upgrade fails.

 

There was a bug in 6.1.0 that was triggered in about 1 in 100 cases. (Technically the upgrade worked and if you had dev-mode on it was easily fixed). This bug is fixed in 6.1.1 and it should be safe to upgrade. Currently there are 500+ S5's already on 6.1.1. with out any issue.