Is anyone else experiencing crashes of their Flex 6700 with the new 1.7.30.78 firmware??

Roy Laufer

In anticipation for my Maestro, that should arrive tomorrow, I updated to 1.7.30.

Since then, my Flex 6700 has begun to randomly crash, requiring me to shut down my 6700 completely and restart it. I tried a full factory system reboot, but just sitting there receiving for a few hours, leads to another lock up.

Is it just me?

Help?!

NM1W

I ran all day yesterday and most of this morning with no issues. (6700 w/ 1.7.30; All my qsos were cw; havent tried digital or voice with the new release yet)

Roy Laufer

Okay, here's a narrower focused question:

Does anyone have any problems using 2 Meters with a LNPA with 1.7.30?

I am still experiencing complete crashes needing 6700 power down. When time permits, I will let it solely receive one 2 Meter signal and see if/when it crashes and then try without any non-HF signal reception.

The devil is always in the details...

Roy Laufer

As an experiment, I set up my FlexRadio 6700 SSDR 1.7.30 with ONE slice receiving one 2 meter FM Repeater - it crashed in 30 minutes.

Then I set up four slices with receivers on 80, 40, 20 and 10 Meters...

Two hours later, it is still humming along.

I'll let you know if it crashes over night...

EA4GLI

Mine doesn't crash with 3 slices receiving the local vhf repeaters for hours.... I'll let you know of it crashes after staying on all night. I have experience crashes in the past, all network related... Bad patch cable.

Rick Hadley - W0FG

I have periodic crashes here, but they must be network related also, as they have been a problem I've dealt with all the way back to V1.2 running under Win7.  I noticed yesterday that apparently something, probably a Windows 10 update, had reset my network card to allow it to power off the computer.  I reset that and will see if that improves the situation.  I don't believe any of the lockups can be directly traced to SSDR, as they have also happened to the networked laptop that I use for web browsing, and it does not (at the moment) even have SSDR installed.

Steve-N5AC

Roy, I recommend entering a help desk ticket.  With your help we can recover a log from the radio if it can't be solved quickly and the log may let us know what is causing the issue.

Roy Laufer

Thanks for the reply Steve.

I just entered a help desk ticket. I hope it's a "quick fix".

The last time something like this happened, it was an undiscovered firmware bug that required a workaround until the next firmware update could "squash" it.

Tim - W4TME

Roy - thank you for entering a HelpDesk ticket.

For people experiencing a radio disconnect that is accompanied with a tone being emitted from the radio, please cold boot the radio to reboot the codex.  To cold boot, power down the radio, remove DC power from the radio for 30 seconds.  Reconnect power and reboot the radio as you would normally.  If after a codex reboot you problem still exists. please open a HelpDesk ticket so we can investigate.

Dan -- KC4GO

I have been running 1.7.30 with out shut down from release 24/7 with no failures.  (radio 6500)

Tim - W4TME

In regards to this specific problem report topic, there seems to be an issue that is causing some radios to crash after an indeterminate amount of time.  As recommended before, the first course of action is to completely boot the internal processors by powering down the radio, then remove DC power from the radio for 30 seconds.  Reconnect power and reboot the radio as you would normally. 

If the radio continues to crash accompanied by a tone being emitted from the radio, this particular defect is in our bug tracker database, marked as critical. and one we are actively investigating.  If you experience this issue frequently, then one option is to temporarily revert back to SmartSDR for Windows 1.6.20.

Sylvain Paquette

After having lost my flex 6300 for 6 weeks due to a booting up problem (still don't know what was the problem with the radio since no service report was included with it), I received the radio today and did the upgrade to realize that the new smartsdr 1.7.30.160 makes my computer unstable and has memory leak making it unstable. Let me tell you I fell like a beta tester. Now not only the radio seems unreliable, the software make my computer unstable and I'm out 85$ of shipping without knowing what happen.

Roy Laufer

If it makes you feel any better, I feel your pain. I've had my Maestro for a while now, and it makes a passable paperweight.

Some day when they fix the memory leak, I hope to enjoy it fully, until then...

There's a reason why they call this "the bleeding edge"...

[Deleted User]

Isn't that a little rough calling a Maestro a paper weight or . . . is it NOT ready for the big league yet.

Sylvain Paquette

I've been using my ft-817nd for 6 weeks so I'm really happy getting the amazing audio quality of the flex back but in the same time I can't believe that problems just pile up.

[Deleted User]

I understand. Maestro is not complete. Still working on Smart SDR software and now they've gone a new avenue with an amplifier. Everything 1/2  completed and now working on rolling something new out. How about taking care of all the current issues FIRST

Getting a little fed up with the flex promises that take forever to complete. And I think there are others that feel the same way.

Roy Laufer

Unfortunately, for me, using 1.7 will cause a crash within 40 minutes to 8 hours. As long as I stay with 1.6 I get no crashes, but I get no use with my Maestro.

So, perhaps it might be a good flashlight as well as a paperweight, but it can't control my Flex while running 1.6...

[Deleted User]

I guess so much for all that Alpha Testing???

Steve K9ZW

Pull a help ticket and see what FRS finds.

Slagging FRS and their Alpha team is pretty much not going to do anything to get you sorted out.

BTW the amp is largely 4o3a's project so I wouldn't fret too much about something else being set aside in favor of the amp.

I've passed on my observations and recommendations to which FRS hopefully gained, as I know we all did with later releases.

They even rolled a custom patch for a handful of owners with a glitch that we needed help with prior to the next release. Really cool dedicated folk who asked for feed back, darn brave and shows us users a lot of respect.

We should return a bit of that respect in our interactions.

73

Steve
K9ZW

SteveJ

Not good, not at all.

Roy Laufer

This bug is well known to FRS. This issue has been logged as defect number #3597.

Sylvain Paquette

After a complete desinstall and reinstall 1.7. seems to stabilize eating only 203mo of ram. Will watch this for couple of days.

Roy Laufer

Lotsa luck!

I tried this and thought I had solved my problem, only to have it eventually crash again and again...

EA4GLI

I imagine you have... But, have you tried connecting to the radio just with the Maestro? No pc.

Steve (N9SKM)

Seems like not many people are having the issue with this software release, So before we start slamming FRS maybe put a help ticket in? Also did you guys try doing the full uninstallation using the instructions before installing the new software?

Lest we remember that the radio isn't the only piece of equipment we are working with here, Perhaps there are issues with the PC that are surfacing with certain combinations of OS etc... Unfortunately a software manufacturer cant test their product on every pc on the planet before they deliver it. I for one have had a PC with memory leakage issues while running particular software that was tied to my PC and not the software. computer ran everything fine and had an issue with 1 program. turned out to be a ram issue.
I am confident that if it is a bug in their software with proper communication they will be able to track it down. Why not load up 1.7 and use the maestro? To call it a paperweight because you are having pc issues seems unfair when it can run the radio, and you can still run your digital software etc off the pc if needed.

Steve (N9SKM)

I have had no issues either as have just about everyone else it seems. Also 6500

Roy Laufer

I put in a help ticket. I did a full factory reset. I uninstalled andre-installed.

No joy.

I am glad that you aren't having a problem.

Unfortunately, this does not help my particular problem.

Dave-N9CHM

I just had my 3rd freeze/crash, with tone emitted, since I installed the new software the day it came out. Running 6500 (INV # AB7300) directly connected to PC (AMD Quad core, Win7 64bit, 6 GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD video) did complete uninstall of older versions, was just listening for about 4 hours on 75M and it locked up again, hadn't transmitted since I turned it on 4 hours ago. Not really worried about it, I'm sure it will be patched in the next software version.

Tim - W4TME

@Sylvain. There isn't a memory leak in SmartSDR. Smart SDR stores waterfall history data in RAM as it operates. Depending on the panadapter configuration, it may consume up to 2 GB of RAM.

EA4GLI

@Roy,

Have you tried to access just with the Maestro? No PC?

Marc Lalonde

have also revert back to 1.6.21 since 1.7.30  loss communication whit radio every 20-30 hour of operation ,then radio was gone until phisically reboot it  , not convenient for remote station ..
not remember to have reboot or power off a single time whit 1.6 so a good > 90 day of continual  operation