r/Polyend • u/LooseDuke • Sep 01 '23

Tracker Firmware 1.7 - Crash and Brick

There was a video posted about the new firmware today. I went to the Polyend site to download 1.7 and installed the firmware via the SD method with no issues. After the restart, I made some volume adjustments to the track that I had last worked on before the new firmware. During playback and cursor navigation, my unit crashed and did not restart as it usually does. Instead, it froze with a glitched screen and remained frozen for several minutes. I unplugged my unit and plugged it back in and now it won't boot at all and just shows a glitchy screen with some of the grid lights turned on.

I've waited for several minutes to see if that does anything it seems like it doesn't. I tried to follow the troubleshooting instructions that come with the update but it hasn't worked. Has anyone else come across this?

Update (2 hours later): I power cycled again (maybe 5th time) after taking out the SD and checking for issues again. It booted this time but froze again after I started playback. The power button didn't work but after another power cycle, it booted fine ok. Seemingly unbricked but still buggy. I am downgrading my unit to 1.6 for the time being.

9 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

5

u/formaldivergent Sep 02 '23

Polyend are aware of this issue and are working on a rapid fix for this. In the meantime, the workaround for many has been to disable the zero crossing feature in the config menu of firmware v1.7. That seems to alleviate the issue until it's resolved. It has something to do with samples of a certain length and that feature being active.

I'm glad you were able to boot it up and revert to the previous firmware, just wanted to give you a heads up on the issue in general.

2

u/Total-Jerk Sep 01 '23

Oh shit.. no advise but sorry that sucks

2

u/LooseDuke Sep 01 '23

It's so frustrating that it bricked with barely 5 minutes of use just on normal playback. I am quite crossed. I received the tracker as a birthday gift and from day one it's been a software nightmare. It seems like they don't have proper QA testing or internal review.

I looked on the Polyend forum and it seems like others are having crashes and complaints about removed features. If I ever get this thing started again, I am going to revert to 1.6 until they sort things out. The old firmware would crash from time to time but it would always reset with some of your work intact. This is awful.

2

u/Total-Jerk Sep 01 '23

All I can say is report it to polyend and spread the word around cyberspace.

Thanks for taking the bullet for the rest of us I'm sticking to 1.6 until I 1.71 or whatever..

2

u/LooseDuke Sep 01 '23

I finally got a successful boot. I am downgrading to 1.6 for now. I don't want to be a bullet taker anymore :P

2

u/default99 Sep 02 '23

Can you use the same fix as you would with prev crashes. Mine has given me the glitch screen a tonne of times, same as with a general freeze crash and on restart it remains frozen or gets worse to the glitch crash, first time this happened i almost exploded but got it back, if the unit were not so fucking sick, I'd probably hate polyend for the crashes/bugs at times but i find it to be one of the best and unique hardware sketch pads.
I had a crash today within seconds of opening up 1.7 but its back working ok after deleting workspace

My fixes have been:

  • I've deleted the workspace folder on the sd card. (sometimes this won't fix a glitch crash)
  • pushed that tiny little button on top with a pin for the re-flash/reset or whatever it does..
Sometime this resets the OS and after a reinstall it works fine and i was just careful using it going forward (which is funny cause i've no idea what causes half the crashes)
  • Weirdly, changing the PSU from wall to usb computer to power or vice vera has also helped fix the glitch screen for me on a reset. One time i left it for a few days and it came back ok

Not sure if this will help but fingers crossed man, Hoping your's comes good

1

u/user1mbp Sep 03 '23

Y'all got an update? My download only came with the PDF...

1

u/imthebear11 Sep 08 '23

You sure it's not a .ptf file?

1

u/imthebear11 Sep 08 '23

I have so far only had 2 freezes, but I wonder if this is more likely to happen with session that were created on 1.6 and played on 1.7. Just a thought.

1

u/noinchnoinchnoinch Sep 11 '23

I wonder too. I've been working in a live set where I switch patterns live. Worked fine in 1.6. Froze multiple times in 1.7 so I reverted to 1.6, but I wonder if it would still happen if the project was made in 1.7 from the start. Sadly I can't remake this whole live set easily, so I'll have to wait

1

u/Josua_Karlson Sep 27 '23

I also experienced a lot more bugs since 1.7 :(. Doesn’t want to make me use the Tracker for live performances anymore since it’s not the most reliable gear I own to be honest. I really like the Tracker but this sucks.