Jason McNeil Posted May 2, 2017 Share Posted May 2, 2017 We've had several cases of attempts to update the firmware from v1.23 (perfect satisfactory & functional) to v1.25 (more problems than fixes) with the board becoming completely unresponsive. Only solution has been to swap out the board. There's now an enough cases to warrant STRONGLY recommending owners to NOT ATTEMPT TO UPDATE to v1.25 on the 1200W KS. Have asked my rep is this is a known problem, but has not been able to confirm—since Tina left getting answers to even the most simple technical question is practically impossible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
US69 Posted May 2, 2017 Share Posted May 2, 2017 Really? Heard only of one guy on Facebook, that he bricked his board and has to get a new one from you... But even he has admitted in his original post that he "closed the phone" while it was updating. Other than that i have not heard of this issue or a bricked board because of update and myself and some others here run 1.25 on their KS18 since it came out. i Got a smoother ride, the low batterie management changed a bit, so some good changes imho, while i also see the real good changes for the KS16, and not for 14/18.... But as a seller for sure you have some more feedback.....so thanks for the warning! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason McNeil Posted May 2, 2017 Author Share Posted May 2, 2017 17 minutes ago, KingSong69 said: ther than that i have not heard of this issue or a bricked board because of update and myself and some others here run 1.25 on their KS18 since it came out. It might just be specific to the latest AY+ variant, I think you have the earlier model without the fans or updated board? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
US69 Posted May 2, 2017 Share Posted May 2, 2017 20 minutes ago, Jason McNeil said: It might just be specific to the latest AY+ variant, I think you have the earlier model without the fans or updated board? Yip, i have the earlier version...but i guess @abinder3 has the AY+ and also running 1.25? But whatever: Guess you will have more than one "closed phone while...." incident, so good to have such warnings! Thanx again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
US69 Posted May 2, 2017 Share Posted May 2, 2017 @Jason McNeil Just to make it clear, i trust your statements a LOT! To explain my question: i only asked because in our small EUC universe, you see a specific-problem post in FB KS Group, FB Euc Forum group, here in the Forum and then a customer might also ask you.... At first that then seams as "great general problem" has showed up to a lot of different persons which are affected! On the second view sometimes it comes up that all those reports where just from the same person using different nicks in social media :-) As the worldwide EUC usergroup is still very small (unfortunatly), ihave seen that happen a lot of times.... For example One very specific cut-out on a specific wheel then gets exaggerated to "brand is dangerous in general" :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason McNeil Posted May 2, 2017 Author Share Posted May 2, 2017 15 minutes ago, KingSong69 said: i only asked because in our small EUC universe, you see a specific-problem post in FB KS Group, FB Euc Forum group, here in the Forum and then a customer might also ask you.... Fair enough, but after I also bricked a board trying to update, the risks seem to me to be disproportionately too high to allow a continuation of the failed board experiment without judicious intervention. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
US69 Posted May 2, 2017 Share Posted May 2, 2017 5 minutes ago, Jason McNeil said: Fair enough, but after I also bricked a board trying to update, the risks seem to me to be disproportionately too high to allow a continuation of the failed board experiment without judicious intervention. I will spread the word/warning then also! :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abinder3 Posted May 2, 2017 Share Posted May 2, 2017 2 hours ago, KingSong69 said: Yip, i have the earlier version...but i guess @abinder3 has the AY+ and also running 1.25? But whatever: Guess you will have more than one "closed phone while...." incident, so good to have such warnings! Thanx again! Yes, I'm running 1.25 on my KS18AY. I've put more than 100 miles on it since updating and the riding included non-aggressive beach path riding to off-roading with Marty (except that last off road adventure they had on the south side of the ridge where I stayed on the north side of the ridge). No problems for me. I always make sure that whenever I update anything, especially firmware on something, I always have the phone plugged in and the item updating (my KS18AY in this case) has full charge. My one rule of thumb is to never expect something to be able to 'multi-task' when it's involved in the updating process. (Still wish that King Song would let my KS18AY run full speed until 20-25% of the battery capacity though.) Allen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunka Hunka Burning Love Posted May 2, 2017 Share Posted May 2, 2017 This sounds like a reseller nightmare if a lot of customers end up bricking their wheels and then call you up wanting a new board... I'm just curious - does KingSong reimburse you for replacement boards and shipping costs if you need to send a bunch out to deal with something like this? Say some customers aren't comfortable in replacing the control board and want to ship the wheel back. Would you have to eat the cost of shipping both ways as well as the tech time spent on repairing the wheel? I know there are normal and accepted costs of doing any business, but being the middle man when it comes to factory firmware bricking sounds like a major headache. It doesn't sound fair if due to KingSong's mistake resellers end up taking it out of their profits. Also, why isn't there a USB connector or MicroSD slot on the board for easy firmware recovery? I mean, com'on, swap a jumper from J1 to J2, plug in the USB/MicroSD, start up the wheel, wait for the green LED to stop flashing power down, remove USB/MicroSD, replace jumper and away you go... This seems to me like an easy fail-safe with a bad flash or firmware problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
US69 Posted May 2, 2017 Share Posted May 2, 2017 25 minutes ago, Hunka Hunka Burning Love said: This sounds like a reseller nightmare if a lot of customers end up bri Thats what i mean with my comments above :-)....and how a mosquito gets to an elephant...."a lot of customers"??? :-) Here in Europe i would guess KS france and especially Ks Germany-quite good in wheel technics- sold the AY in high numbers, and there was never ever something heard/told about "1.25 bricks board".... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty Backe Posted May 3, 2017 Share Posted May 3, 2017 8 hours ago, Hunka Hunka Burning Love said: This sounds like a reseller nightmare if a lot of customers end up bricking their wheels and then call you up wanting a new board... I'm just curious - does KingSong reimburse you for replacement boards and shipping costs if you need to send a bunch out to deal with something like this? Say some customers aren't comfortable in replacing the control board and want to ship the wheel back. Would you have to eat the cost of shipping both ways as well as the tech time spent on repairing the wheel? I know there are normal and accepted costs of doing any business, but being the middle man when it comes to factory firmware bricking sounds like a major headache. It doesn't sound fair if due to KingSong's mistake resellers end up taking it out of their profits. Also, why isn't there a USB connector or MicroSD slot on the board for easy firmware recovery? I mean, com'on, swap a jumper from J1 to J2, plug in the USB/MicroSD, start up the wheel, wait for the green LED to stop flashing power down, remove USB/MicroSD, replace jumper and away you go... This seems to me like an easy fail-safe with a bad flash or firmware problem. I think if I were a seller I would stipulate that upgrading your software will void the board warranty. In this regards @Jason McNeil is probably very happy that Gotway does not support firmware updates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaxLinux Posted May 3, 2017 Share Posted May 3, 2017 15 hours ago, Jason McNeil said: since Tina left getting answers to even the most simple technical question is practically impossible. Does anyone know what Tina is doing now or why she left? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clovis Posted May 3, 2017 Share Posted May 3, 2017 9 hours ago, abinder3 said: Yes, I'm running 1.25 on my KS18AY. I've put more than 100 miles on it since updating and the riding included non-aggressive beach path riding to off-roading with Marty (except that last off road adventure they had on the south side of the ridge where I stayed on the north side of the ridge). I also have the same wheel as @abinder3, which I purchased from @Jason McNeil. I was able to successfully upgrade to firmware 1.25 from 1.23, probably the same week the update was released. I have ridden > 200 miles with no issues. I guess the "bricking" happens during the upgrade process. I'm assuming since I have gotten past that process, my wheel should be good? (I also wish that I could ride full speed without the wheel throttling down the speed after 50% battery consumption.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chriull Posted May 3, 2017 Share Posted May 3, 2017 13 hours ago, KingSong69 said: ... But even he has admitted in his original post that he "closed the phone" while it was updating. ... I had this happening in my mind too last week, when i updated my KS16C to 1.25. After downloading once it started to update, i thought i'll turn the phone to airplane mode so updating can't be interupted by a call. But i did not think about the turned off bluetooth ... ;( Fortunately update just repeated without any probs after reestablishing the bluetooth connection... Could be good luck - or the way the updating process is interupted or the motherboard version matters? Anyhow i'll try to remember to not repeat this while performing future updates... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason McNeil Posted May 3, 2017 Author Share Posted May 3, 2017 Have done some more FW update testing on some other boards, result: a bricked KS16, 3x successfully applied. Here's a theory, because the fw binary files are located in China, the connectivity links are notoriously slow & unreliable, during the download stage it frequently gets stuck & doesn't successfully download (maybe packets arrive out of order with a connectionless download protocol)—had also experimented on different networks like 4G & two WiFi, but it doesn't seem to matter from here in the US. I recall from another thread that there's no integrity checking on the file, so perhaps if there's a bad file, the App will attempt to load it & brick the board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abinder3 Posted May 3, 2017 Share Posted May 3, 2017 33 minutes ago, Jason McNeil said: Have done some more FW update testing on some other boards, result: a bricked KS16, 3x successfully applied. Here's a theory, because the fw binary files are located in China, the connectivity links are notoriously slow & unreliable, during the download stage it frequently gets stuck & doesn't successfully download (maybe packets arrive out of order with a connectionless download protocol)—had also experimented on different networks like 4G & two WiFi, but it doesn't seem to matter from here in the US. I recall from another thread that there's no integrity checking on the file, so perhaps if there's a bad file, the App will attempt to load it & brick the board. I was wondering if that could be the case. Allen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodlu Posted March 2, 2019 Share Posted March 2, 2019 I have a KS18AY and its been acting weird since last year. One day i turned it on for a ride and it never said "Hello Kingsong" then i noticed the lights werent working. Ive read in many forums about KS Wheels forgetting their serial number. This maybe due to an update. I'm not sure. All i know is i miss riding my wheel and need this problem resolved. The dealer i bought mines from no longer sales wheels. Can anyone help with this situation? Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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