• Registered: 2008-03-09
  • Posts: 10

Topic: Broken software update?

The black screen I mentioned in my previous topic is back.

After resetting to factory defaults my chumby one works fine for awhile, then as best I can tell it decides to update itself. I assume that's what it did last night in the middle of the night and what it just did at some point over the past 30 minutes when I wasn't in the bedroom.

After it tries to update, it reboots (supposition, I noticed it flashed bright white in the middle of the night but I was too tired to pay attention), and after showing the normal chubby boot circles it goes to a black screen.

  • Duane
  • Duane
  • Blue Octy
  • Offline
  • From: San Diego, CA
  • Registered: 2006-08-24
  • Posts: 8,209

Re: Broken software update?

We are not currently deploying any over-the-air firmware updates.

That's almost certainly a bad power supply.  See this forum thread:

http://forum.chumby.com/viewtopic.php?id=8438

The symptoms you described are the most common manifestation.

It's also possible that the current firmware is corrupt, see this post http://forum.chumby.com/viewtopic.php?pid=46120#p46120 to see how to update it.  Unfortunately, it the power supply is indeed bad, a power failure during an update is bad, and you'd have to open he case and remove the SD card to refresh it to get it working again.

Duane's Website

3 Reply by x-caiver (edited by x-caiver 2017-01-15 21:34:01)

  • Registered: 2008-03-09
  • Posts: 10

Re: Broken software update?

That's certainly a possibility, but it wouldn't be my first guess. It is a power supply I bought from the Chumby store in June 2015, and the Chumby has been running fine displaying the default clock that gets shown when you skip the network selection screen (I didn't join a wifi network so it wouldn't be able to try and update).

I don't have another Chumby One-compatible power supply down here to test with unfortunately.

Just checked the currently running software and it is 1.0.5. I'll see if I can dig up a USB stick to do a manual upgrade to 1.0.7...

  • From: Australia
  • Registered: 2009-03-19
  • Posts: 505

Re: Broken software update?

x-caiver wrote:

That's certainly a possibility, but it wouldn't be my first guess.

Yes, but it would truly really be everyone else's first guess. The Chumby One power supplies were fitted with bad capacitors, and failed early with the symptoms you've described.
It's fair to say you don't seem to have got much mileage out of your replacement power supply. I'm not sure whether the faulty capacitor would have deteriorated with age in storage rather than just with use. Even allowing for the fact that your power supply is fairly new, it still seems likely that the power supply is the cause of your problem.
Furthermore, there's a real risk that you will acquire more and worse problems if you try updating when your power supply is faulty.
The fault in the power supply is not apparent through voltage testing, because a faulty power supply gives a normal reading when not under load (ie, when you're testing it). However, it is immediately obvious if you crack open the housing and have a look. The bad capacitor will be bulging, out of shape and clearly not right - even if you have no experience with how electronic components are supposed to look, it should be clear that no factory ever manufactured such an irregularly shaped item.