V12 firmware 1.5.4 and firmware update problems

[ESB]

oh FFS did I just brick my wheel? I got the prompt to update to the latest firmware (1.5.4). I started the process and the wheel rebooted and LCD showed something like "updating firmware" and didn't progress past 20%. Then my phone said "update failed" with error code 330499 and under a minute later the wheel turned off.

Now the wheel won't fully turn on. If I press the power button it'll turn on enough to self balance but that's about it:

• the inmotion app finds it as "available to connect" but fails to connect
• the button under the handle doesn't work
• LCD screen doesn't turn on

 

Anything I can do to fix this?? I am **so** bummed out after only getting to ride it for 20 minutes. I hope there's some inmotion PC tool I can use to connect the wheel to my computer and re-flash the firmware without needing bluetooth...??

 

[allride]

Hi guys,

I'm new to EUCs and new to this forum.

Today was an emotional rollercoaster. I received the V12, my very first wheel, played around with it in the living room for a bit (everything worked well) but then I decided to connect it to the app... After connecting I followed the prompt to update the wheel as there were no stories so far of people having trouble with the firmware and I thought this was basically mandatory to continue.

So after starting the process and downloading the file the wheel started to update (update 1/2) indicating doing so on its screen. shortly after the inmotion app on my ipad showed a message that the update failed but the wheel continued installing for a minute or so.

Unfortunately the "20%" message was the last thing I saw before it went black.

Since then I'm unable to turn it on. screen is black, doesn't balance, no lights. Only the first time around it did start balancing quite a while after turning it on but now it doesn't do anything. No visible or audible reaction to pressing the power button but it activates bluetooth which doesn't help much. I can still use it as a 2500 bucks bluetooth speaker and it shows up in the inmotion app as available but can't connect with it through any of the known apps (inmotion, EUC world, Darknessbot)

 

So I'm in the same situation as ESB described above... It's bricked

I hoped so much I could have written a more positive first forum entry but there we are.

Does anyone know a fix to this? factory reset? USB firmware flash?

I don't want to send it in and wait several weeks to get it shipped, repaired and shipped again... maybe even wait for replacement parts...

 

Please, send help to Germany

[ESB]

I really wish there was a way to do USB firmware flash to recover from this. But have found zero mentions online of this being possible.

i think I’ll have to send it back to ewheels. But I am now traumatized over this and can’t ever imagine taking the risk to update firmware again - but that’s not a good place to be. I genuinely wanted some of the new features in that release but had I known this would happen of course I could have lived without them.

[Don M. Schiewer]

Has anyone updated to 1.5.4 without a problem…I’m holding off for now until I hear of more successful updates being done.

[Bizra6ot]

I saw on a topic or reddit can't remember, anyway not especialy for inmotion but that it was necessary to have only the wheel connected to the smartphone during the update, having several devices active bluetooth connections while update could cause the brick

Do you remember if an other bluetooth device was connected to your smartphone during your update?  

Sorry this doesn't solve your problem my friend but it might find the cause

[supercurio]

1 hour ago, Don M. Schiewer said:

Has anyone updated to 1.5.4 without a problem…I’m holding off for now until I hear of more successful updates being done.

2nd hand information but Adam from Wrong Way described how he recently got the update adding split riding modes, and I'm guessing it might be the same version that's failing here.
It worked for him.

In terms of recovery, if using an app like "nRF Connect", is the wheel showing up in some way (might not have a name)?
A properly designed Bluetooth update process should make the device reboot in "DFU" flashing mode in case the previous attempt failed in an unrecoverable way. It's a special bootloader mode for the device which only capability is to reflash.

There shouldn't be a need for a USB physical recovery nowadays.

Hopefully the dealer and Inmotion will be able to fix that just fine, possibly via a specially designed app.

[ESB]

2 hours ago, Don M. Schiewer said:

Has anyone updated to 1.5.4 without a problem…I’m holding off for now until I hear of more successful updates being done.

It’s the version that includes mph on display and the “split mode” which has been referenced several times. Seems like a lot of the YouTubers have it + several people in the main v12 thread. I was excited for it.

on Discord someone mentioned the update has higher odds of going wrong on iOS than on android. So if you have Android maybe give it a go … but yeah your mileage may vary

[SicFox]

I updated to 1.5.4 from 1.5 that my V12 came with.  Which is weird because the first thing I did was change the kph to mph on 1.5.  But here's my install:

I just got done with a ride and had 73% battery, I was playing in the app on the Led's.  I noticed a firmware update was available, I read the details and saw Soundwave updated, I was hoping it was to revert back to the original sound.....   So I started the install, it downloaded the firmware (Step 1 of 2) and just sat there..........nothing......There was an exclamation point on my main wheel screen so I hit it.  Wheel needs to be updated.  I let it sit there for a couple minutes then decided to close the app.  Re-launched the app and it couldnt detect the wheel.  So i closed the app and powered down the wheel.  Powered up the wheel, same screen with exclamation point, launched the app.........App connected to wheel and said Firmware Upgrade was interupted and the Update button was available again.  I clicked it and finished the installation.........Firmware upgraded.  phew.......

Might not upgrade again until this is more stable.

[rcgldr]

The problem could also be that the Inmotion web site (this is where the updates come from) went down. 

 

[ESB]

44 minutes ago, SicFox said:

I updated to 1.5.4 from 1.5 that my V12 came with.  Which is weird because the first thing I did was change the kph to mph on 1.5.  But here's my install:

I just got done with a ride and had 73% battery, I was playing in the app on the Led's.  I noticed a firmware update was available, I read the details and saw Soundwave updated, I was hoping it was to revert back to the original sound.....   So I started the install, it downloaded the firmware (Step 1 of 2) and just sat there..........nothing......There was an exclamation point on my main wheel screen so I hit it.  Wheel needs to be updated.  I let it sit there for a couple minutes then decided to close the app.  Re-launched the app and it couldnt detect the wheel.  So i closed the app and powered down the wheel.  Powered up the wheel, same screen with exclamation point, launched the app.........App connected to wheel and said Firmware Upgrade was interupted and the Update button was available again.  I clicked it and finished the installation.........Firmware upgraded.  phew.......

Might not upgrade again until this is more stable.

Phew indeed. Must have been scary lol.

on my end I never got an exclamation point. It also sat at 100% for a bit … nothing outrageous. Maybe like 30 seconds or so. Then wheel rebooted and LCD screen said “updating firmware 20%” which itself seemed like good forward progress.

but it never progressed beyond 20% and on the app itself nothing seemed to change

got a bit sus and indeed eventually the app said it failed. Haven’t been able to connect to Bluetooth via the app since then to give it a second go.

i was so intentional about not leaving the app or letting the phone display turn off etc. … just unlucky I guess. Oh well.

[ESB]

2 hours ago, supercurio said:

2nd hand information but Adam from Wrong Way described how he recently got the update adding split riding modes, and I'm guessing it might be the same version that's failing here.
It worked for him.

In terms of recovery, if using an app like "nRF Connect", is the wheel showing up in some way (might not have a name)?
A properly designed Bluetooth update process should make the device reboot in "DFU" flashing mode in case the previous attempt failed in an unrecoverable way. It's a special bootloader mode for the device which only capability is to reflash.

There shouldn't be a need for a USB physical recovery nowadays.

Hopefully the dealer and Inmotion will be able to fix that just fine, possibly via a specially designed app.

Yeah I can find it and connect via nRF Connect. I agree with you that I think all it needs is a simple reflash.

i think the default inmotion app fails to connect because it tries to interface more deeply with the wheel but with broken firmware the wheel doesn’t talk back correctly so connection fails.

nevertheless - pc cable or otherwise - I feel dead ended and unable to manually flash a firmware file to the device. 

[supercurio]

2 hours ago, ESB said:

Yeah I can find it and connect via nRF Connect. I agree with you that I think all it needs is a simple reflash.

i think the default inmotion app fails to connect because it tries to interface more deeply with the wheel but with broken firmware the wheel doesn’t talk back correctly so connection fails.

nevertheless - pc cable or otherwise - I feel dead ended and unable to manually flash a firmware file to the device. 

Good! Then unless Inmotion fudged their firmware update process (which is not very wise given the cost involved with shipping these back and forth), this should be re-flashable with the right app.

[CrunchyTire]

18 hours ago, Don M. Schiewer said:

Has anyone updated to 1.5.4 without a problem…I’m holding off for now until I hear of more successful updates being done.

Mine Updated without a problem. I watched Dufs 3 hour livestream video before I did it and he ran into some problems updating it, some commenters told him that the screen turning off maybe caused it to halt the update. I made sure to keep tapping the screen through the whole process and didn't have any issues. I have a new recent batch wheel. Not sure if the initial batch is more prone to this. Duf just shut his off and tried again, and it finished. If people are hanging, you should check out his video and give those steps a try.

[CrunchyTire]

I mean the phone screen, not the wheel screen (not sure how to update my post, maybe I cant because its waiting moderation lol)

[allride]

On 11/19/2021 at 3:51 PM, Bizra6ot said:

I saw on a topic or reddit can't remember, anyway not especialy for inmotion but that it was necessary to have only the wheel connected to the smartphone during the update, having several devices active bluetooth connections while update could cause the brick

Do you remember if an other bluetooth device was connected to your smartphone during your update?  

Sorry this doesn't solve your problem my friend but it might find the cause

HI, thanks for taking part in the discussion. I am convinced there were no other connections to my iPad besides the Wheel and WiFi

In my case the update of the motherboard failed as far as I remember. Duf had a small issue while updating, with the BLE module, but he could fix it by starting the update again. His issue was he got impatient. Ours was a message that the update failed and then the whole wheel going dark

[allride]

On 11/19/2021 at 4:51 PM, supercurio said:

2nd hand information but Adam from Wrong Way described how he recently got the update adding split riding modes, and I'm guessing it might be the same version that's failing here.
It worked for him.

In terms of recovery, if using an app like "nRF Connect", is the wheel showing up in some way (might not have a name)?
A properly designed Bluetooth update process should make the device reboot in "DFU" flashing mode in case the previous attempt failed in an unrecoverable way. It's a special bootloader mode for the device which only capability is to reflash.

There shouldn't be a need for a USB physical recovery nowadays.

Hopefully the dealer and Inmotion will be able to fix that just fine, possibly via a specially designed app.

Thank you so much. this means there's hope without sending the wheel anywhere!  and next time I'll use my android phone to update

Now I'll be sitting here, bugging my dealer every other day if inmotion already replied to him with a fix

(also checking in here and, of course, letting you know in case I get information, but I'm pretty sure ewheels will be faster with getting and forwarding a solution despite their warehouse fire situation potentially slowing them down)

Edited November 21, 2021 by allride

[ESB]

Bad news. At least in my case Inmotion says a new board will be required. They asked me to open the wheel up to take a video of some LED lights on the boards. Sent the video over and they confirmed I’ll need a new board.

I hope I can figure out how to put the wheel back together once I do the board swap. I’m 98% sure I can. Took plenty of pics along the way.

This is really *not* what you’d expect with a $2000+ product. But then again “batch 1” risk was always known to me.

Jason and eWheels have been very helpful and responsive along the way.

[supercurio]

32 minutes ago, ESB said:

Bad news. At least in my case Inmotion says a new board will be required. They asked me to open the wheel up to take a video of some LED lights on the boards. Sent the video over and they confirmed I’ll need a new board.

I hope I can figure out how to put the wheel back together once I do the board swap. I’m 98% sure I can. Took plenty of pics along the way.

This is really *not* what you’d expect with a $2000+ product. But then again “batch 1” risk was always known to me.

Jason and eWheels have been very helpful and responsive along the way.

Ah this is sad Inmotion didn't prepare for this, it is always known that a % of firmware updates fail for whatever reason, therefore unless there's unrecoverable hardware damage, attention during development and testing should be given to a painless flashing recovery method.

Disappointed, as well as I have a V12 on preorder.

Edited November 21, 2021 by supercurio

[Bizra6ot]

  

19 hours ago, allride said:

HI, thanks for taking part in the discussion. I am convinced there were no other connections to my iPad besides the Wheel and WiFi

In my case the update of the motherboard failed as far as I remember. Duf had a small issue while updating, with the BLE module, but he could fix it by starting the update again. His issue was he got impatient. Ours was a message that the update failed and then the whole wheel going dark

 

You are welcome

It also could be inmotion bad servers, some riders had problems cause of that before on the V11, i don't know how they work if the firmware is downloaded and flash or if it's "live" flash so loosing some packet make it fail

Hope you'll get it working

 

Edited November 22, 2021 by Bizra6ot

[Slashebeest]

No idea if EUC world app can apply updates on a V12 or inmotion in general ?

@Seba can answer this question, I guess ?

[Seba]

25 minutes ago, Slashebeest said:

No idea if EUC world app can apply updates on a V12 or inmotion in general ?

@Seba can answer this question, I guess ?

No, EUC World can't update Inmotion wheels. This feature would require agreement between me and Inmotion to access their firmware server, but apparently Inmotion is not interested in adding firmware update support to apps other that their own. The problem is that Inmotion app is fully dependent of their servers, so in case of connectivity problems (which often are unreliable), Inmotion app doesn't even connect to the wheel, not mentioning being able to update the firmware.

[AtlasP]

10 hours ago, Seba said:

No, EUC World can't update Inmotion wheels. This feature would require agreement between me and Inmotion to access their firmware server, but apparently Inmotion is not interested in adding firmware update support to apps other that their own.

To be fair, this statement by itself makes it sound like InMotion is the outlier when in fact they are not unique amongst the OEMs for being this way. The only difference is that the King Song apps were *SO BAD* and unusable that eWheels pressured and threw money at King Song to get them to cooperate so that EUC World could add this functionality. Since the InMotion apps are slightly better than the other OEM apps (which are atrocious), there's not the same dire need for eWheels to do the same for IM. We might like it and it would be better if they did, but the question is is it worth the effort and money for someone like eWheels to make happen again. (They have to pick their battles, with plenty of other battles to fight with each and every OEM.)

Edited November 22, 2021 by AtlasP

[Brendan "nog3" Halliday]

This is a bit correlation = causation-y but every case of bricked V11 or V12 ble board/display from firmware update that I'm aware of has involved an iOS device

[supercurio]

3 minutes ago, Brendan "nog3" Halliday said:

This is a bit correlation = causation-y but every case of bricked V11 or V12 ble board/display from firmware update that I'm aware of has involved an iOS device

What's odd is that the BLE stack and APIs on iOS are more robust than on Android, where it's so easy to mess up in one of the many ways possible.
But entirely possible that their iOS implementation is buggy and Android one solid in comparison.

Edited November 22, 2021 by supercurio

[allride]

12 hours ago, Brendan "nog3" Halliday said:

This is a bit correlation = causation-y but every case of bricked V11 or V12 ble board/display from firmware update that I'm aware of has involved an iOS device

Yep I connected those dots as well and not only us but Inmotion as well.

After a person from Inmotion spent over 2h trying to remote diagnose/fix my wheel and failed () yesterday I told him about that suspicion and he replied they already pulled the function of updating on iOS/iPadOS. So although it's too late for me it might save a few other wheels.

12 hours ago, supercurio said:

What's odd is that the BLE stack and APIs on iOS are more robust than on Android, where it's so easy to mess up in one of the many ways possible.
But entirely possible that their iOS implementation is buggy and Android one solid in comparison.

Yeah I don't have much in depth knowledge (just a nerdy consumer, not an IT guy) but I picked my iPad to update because I was convinced iOS was the more reliable OS but it was the wrong decision this time, I'd guess because of their (inmotion's) dev team paying more attention to android.

 

 

Anyway, as mentioned above, my wheel could also not be fixed remotely yesterday so my dealer organized a pick up for today and it's already on its way to them.

They also already requested a new motherboard from inmotion or - in case they get a new wheel faster than the repairs would take - they'll send me a new wheel instead.

thank you oneride.eu! So far my experience with that shop is top notch.

Edited November 23, 2021 by allride