Replacing SD Card AGAIN

Larry A. NN5O

Oh, fun and games.

Yesterday, I walked past my 6600M and noticed the power button was flashing red 3 times. Well, I've seen this before, so I figured "Hmmm! Must be time for a new SD card." Sure enough...

I unplugged the Anderson PowerPole connectors so the radio would be totally off. Left it off all night. This morning, I went out to the shack, plugged the power back in, and attempted a restart by pressing the power button until it turned white. All was well until.... (and I've seen this before, so I figured I knew what to expect)

It restarted its boot process. All was hunky-dory until it reached the "Please wait...." screen. Ahhh, the tension was rising, just like in an action movie! Yep! In a matter of a dozen or so moments (define this as you wish), the flashing red lights started. Drat!

So....that means it's time to replace the SD card AGAIN! After all, it's been such a LONG time since I replaced one before (previous replacement occurred on October 10, 2020...this one is on November 24, 2020...so maybe it's safe to estimate that I'll need a new one about every month. Reckon?). Tongue in cheek.

THANK GOODNESS, I made a clone of the SD card Flex sent me back in late August or early September. So, I had a "fall-back" plan if/when the hiccup occurred again. That means that today's surgery is the 2nd occurrence since the SD card failure in late August.

What is your suggestion? A support ticket? I don't THINK I need another SD card from Flex, because I still have their original in the bag they sent. I've been using very high quality (and not inexpensive) microSD cards for cloning the master image, so I'm confident/comfortable with continuing this system.

My main concern is that there might be something else "amiss" in the radio, itself.

Your suggestion(s)?

I am QRX for responses.

--Larry NN5O Tupelo, MS

VE7ATJ_Don

If this is the 2nd SD card you've had replaced in less than a month, I would definitely recommend opening up a support ticket.

Larry A. NN5O

Thanks, Don VE7ATJ, for your reaction.

Actually, it was longer than that. 'Twas 6 1/2 weeks since replacing the last SD card.

Ted VE3TRQ

What version of SSDR are you running? If the most recent with the fix, this is concerning, but if it is the version known to suffer corruption, you are only causing your own issues.

Larry A. NN5O

SSDR Version 3.1.12 (most recent that I know of)

UPDATE: I swapped out the malfunctioned SD card for a fresh one, then went through the restart routine and the radio works like a champ again.

If any of you have to change out your SD card, please be aware that, when you restart, you'll have to re-verify your SmartSDR license via the Internet. Also, you will have lost all your profiles, so be sure you have exported your profiles before you swap out the card. Then, one of your first activities will be to import your profile file so you're back in business with usual profiles.

The only lingering problem I've found is that, if/when I restart the radio, it has lost the profiles and I have to reload them. I guess it has a "hitch in its get-along," as we Mississippi rednecks say (I learned that phrase from our long-time very close family friend, Jerry Clower!). We'll see if I can figure out how to make it settle down and behave itself.

Steve KD2OM

My SD card just failed today as well. I opened a support ticket right away and Flex is sending a new card, although I haven’t gotten the shipping details yet. I am running the latest SSDR which Flex says won’t cause corruption, the explanation is that it must have been partially corrupt from earlier software which finally showed up. Sounds fishy to me. There is something wrong with a design in which this happens at all. There should be a permanent boot core that starts a minimal system to drag code from the internet if the card gets corrupted. A cheap single board computer like a beaglebone black does that so why not a $5K radio? That NN5O has had 2 failures in a couple months is very concerning as well as disappointing. I hope Flex actually gets to the bottom of this problem. This should NEVER happen.

Steve KD2OM

Mr Radio

As this problem appears more frequently, perhaps Flex could provide a detailed instructions how a user can make an own copy of "healthy" card taken from radio he owns. It would save Flex the costs related to posting a new card and frustration to the radio owner.
Tom

Bill

I have the same problem on my 6300. I have run both SSDR and SSDR for Mac, but have not experienced this problem before. I generally leave my 6300 on all the time to save time with the on/off cycles and to afford remote operating opportunity.

Something is definitely amiss....

Bill

KK4C

mikeatthebeach .

My SD card just fail in my Flex6600M

Running 3.1.12 latest

Red light flashes every 3 seconds

Filed a ticket

Tried a Factory Reset

No luck

No help from Flex so far

Mike

WB6DJI

schacterfoto

SD card on my 6400M failed yesterday (about an hour before my favorite contest -- the RAC Winter Contest -- began)

Mark VE3BXG
:-(

WX7Y

To bad that the FLEX SD card images are so large that makes it about impossible to put them on a repository somewhere

Hope FLEX sends you guys a new SD card quickly to get you guys going again and radio's back on the air, This is very frustrating to see this is starting to happen again.

Sure hope that FLEX support comes out with a permanent fix for this and the plethora of other bugs in version 3 so I could use what I paid for last year, I really liked the Multilink features but the rest of the issues was more then I could deal with so back to 2.4.10 I went.

If I were you I would backup the SD card image when you get the replacement before putting it in the radio but that is just me.

This way maybe you could be back on the air sooner if there is a NEXT TIME, My self I bought several identical commercial grade SD cards and made a backup SD card for both my 6600M and 6700.

Good luck and have a wonder Christmas

AA5SH

Well I just got back from vacation and decided to turn on my 6400M and it is not turning on. It goes to the please wait then shuts down with flashing red light.

Guess if I want to play radio this weekend have to hook my 7610 back up. 😐️ Putting in a help desk shortly.

Michael, AA5SH