Az-gti stuck in firmware update mode

[JorgeR]

Hello,
I got this mount a couple of weeks ago. Everything was working fine until I decided to update the firmware to the EQ version. 

I was about to flash the firmware for eq mount, it went to 1% and then reported an error asked to power cycle and try again. I did that but now I can connect to the wifi of the mount but it doesn't find it. In the android app, I can connect to the wifi but when I press connect it finds the wifi but there is no mount present. 
The mount led is blinking 3 times, indicating it has entered firmware update process but there is no way of getting out of that state. Is there a way to hard reset this unit? It’s powered on for more than 4 hours with no activity but the status is the same.

Any help will be greatly appreciated. 

Thanks. 
 

[johninderby]

 I assume you’re using a serial cable with a usb converter to connect.

Edited October 9, 2018 by johninderby

[Knighty2112]

Try another serial to usb cable. Sometimes these can be the problem.

[Cornelius Varley]

2 hours ago, johninderby said:

 I assume you’re using a serial cable with a usb converter to connect.

 

47 minutes ago, Knighty2112 said:

Try another serial to usb cable. Sometimes these can be the problem.

Unless the OP has a Synscan handset the firmware reflash is over the mount's WiFi.

[JorgeR]

3 hours ago, Knighty2112 said:

Try another serial to usb cable. Sometimes these can be the problem.

No serial cable, I tried the firmware update via wifi. 

[lenscap]

Have you read the following thread? it seems relevant.

Regarding the 4 hour reset, try instructing your phone & computer to "forget" the SynScan_xxx " SSID.

They may be polling the mount's Wifi preventing the 4 hour reset.

 

 

[JorgeR]

7 minutes ago, lenscap said:

Have you read the following thread? it seems relevant.

Regarding the 4 hour reset, try instructing your phone & computer to "forget" the SynScan_xxx " SSID.

They may be polling the mount's Wifi preventing the 4 hour reset.

 

 

Thanks for your suggestion. I will make sure my router is shut down and my phone and iPad (PC is off)  are not polling the AZ ssid to see if it performs the 4hour reset and goes out of the firmware update state. 

[heliumstar]

Just had the first light with mak 102 and this mount. I previously returned the mount but decided to give it another shot with smaller scope. The movements are much better and the whole thing is much stedier now with 102 mak with same tripod. The thing is that now there is a frustration with moving the scope manually with Synscan app. The downward movement sometimes work and sometimes it doesn't. Have to try it out on different phone. Maybe it's the app itself. All in all many people reporting various issues so not sure how much this was tested before putting it out on the market...

[ddalgi4u]

I have the exact same problem. My mount stuck in firmware update.

Did you fix your problem?

[JorgeR]

Not to leave this thread open, I managed to resolve the issue of the mount stuck in firmware update mode with the Skywatcher WiFi dongle. It’s a pity this was the only possible solution offered by skywatcher, as having a WiFi dongle is useless for a mount that has WiFi already, but then again updating the firmware through the dongle  solved the issue. 

Edited November 27, 2018 by JorgeR

[russp]

On 27/11/2018 at 06:50, JorgeR said:

Not to leave this thread open, I managed to resolve the issue of the mount stuck in firmware update mode with the Skywatcher WiFi dongle. It’s a pity this was the only possible solution offered by skywatcher, as having a WiFi dongle is useless for a mount that has WiFi already, but then again updating the firmware through the dongle  solved the issue. 

That's really annoying .. mine is similarly stuck now and cant access it at all. 

 

[russp]

On 02/12/2018 at 14:16, russp said:

That's really annoying .. mine is similarly stuck now and cant access it at all. 

 

As Jorge suggested using a Skywatcher wifi dongle sorted the issue - the unit would not reset itself no matter how long it was left including overnight with all the house wifi devices turned off. Luckily I was able to borrow the dongle. 

 

[adyj1]

Just thought I'd add some encouraging findings to this thread, as I managed to get out of the 'Firmware Update Failed' cycle.

The beta firmware for the EQ mode 'AZGTi_RightArm_AZ_EQ_V0316' would not flash, failing at different percentages during the update (I think I tried about 6 times, each time trying to fight back the tears ?).

I then tried to flash the normal firmware 'AZGTi_motor_controller_firmware_0316' and it worked at the first attempt. I tried the EQ firmware again and that worked first time too. 

So don't give up if your GTi does get stuck in a failed firmware update cycle - try different firmware versions.

Ady

[tonyowens_uk]

FWIW I'll add my own experience of getting stuck in the firmware update loop with an AZGTi and how it was resolved. My unit was on firmware rev. 3.12 and never updated. After a rebuild I tried to flash it to the current non-EQ version, which is 3.20, using the Synscan Pro app on an iPhone, across the wifi link to the AZGTi. The flash failed part-way through, and foolishly I cycled the power as instructed by the MCU update app, and tried again. The AZGTi would now only broadcast the ID "ESP_xxxxxx" instead of the ID "Synscan_5227" I had previously seen from my unit. The LED was cycling through three quick flashes, i.e., the MCU was still in update mode. I couldn't connect and further power cycling made no difference.

I tried connecting using PC Direct Mode with my Synscan V4 handpad, but did not have either an RJ12 to RJ45 adapter or the time to make one up. So I bought the Skywatcher Wifi Adapter kit, which has one of these.
After this arrived, I put the AZGTi on a 12VDC feed, connected the new wifi adapter using Skywatcher's RJ12 to RJ45 adapter and looked for a new Wifi connection. The only one available was still the one being broadcast be the AZGTi's MCU, i.e., ESP_xxxxxx. The Skywatcher wifi adapter was clearly getting power from the AZGTi but there was no 'heatbeat' LED.

So I gave up on the new wifi adapter and just used the RJ12 to RJ45 adapter cable to connect my Synscan paddle to the AZGTi serial port, connected the paddle to a laptop using a serial-to-USB adapter (with FTDI chip), setup PC Direct Mode on the Synscan paddle, and tried to connect from the PC to the MCU using Skywatcher's MCFirmwareLoader.exe v 1.74_nonwifi. I selected PC Direct Mode on the app and manually selected the correct COM port to use on the PC. No dice. The app could not find an MCU.

Finally, expecting to have to replace the AZGTi MCU with a new one, I decided to give the Skywatcher Synscan Relay Mode v4 a try. This turns the paddle into a simple transciever between an RS232 connection to a PC and the TTL level serial comms to the AZGTi MCU across its Hand Paddle port. So I first flashed my V4 paddle with SynscanRelay_V4_4.2 firmware, which was uneventful, then cycled the power on the mount (and thus the paddle) to boot up the transciever firmware. On trying to connect to the AZGTi with the MCU update app, the currently-loaded firmware could not be read, as before. But I linked the v3.20 firmware, and tried to update the MCU anyway. I was surprised to see this now went smoothly, and after power cycling the AZGTi on completion, restored to me a working mount.

As a final step I re-flashed the paddle to the current version of Synscan firmware. I very rarely use the paddle for mount control but find it occasionally useful for verifying reliable comms to Skywatcher mounts where I doubt the health of the MCU board.

[andyonroad1969]

I made up my own cable and flashed the firmware to recover my mount from the dreaded 3 lights with some parts from Amazon. You need a FTDI  232RL adaptor with 3.3 V logic and a RJ12 connector.

I have posted the fix instructions here.

 

 

[tramsmm]

I want to add my own experience updating AZ-GTi firmware

I tried to update its firmware over wifi. The software turned out to be very finicky and failed at ~35%. The popup message suggested to reboot the mount so I did it!

That was a mistake! (if you encounter this message please ignore it and just keep trying to flash until it succeeds)

Once I rebooted the mount it stuck in "Firmware update" mode. You can clearly recognize it cause the mount was blinking three times in a row. If you encounter this do not despair. I do not think it is possible to fix this problem without additional hardware but I manage to buy USB->RJ12 cable with FTDI chip. This cable enable you to connect AZ-Gti mount to a computer and control it using various software. What it also enables is to use SkyWatcher over-the-wire firmware flasher which will permit you to flash the firmware if you directly connect your mount to PC

 

Note I followed somebody else's advice and I flashed the original version of the firmware and only then I flashed experimental EQ. I do not know whether one needs to do this in order to restore the mount

[powerlord]

hmm. this is putting me off flashing the eqmod firmware tbh...is this the odd person who it fails with, or is it failing with everyone ?

[AstroNebulee]

1 hour ago, powerlord said:

hmm. this is putting me off flashing the eqmod firmware tbh...is this the odd person who it fails with, or is it failing with everyone ?

I had no issues when I updated my firmware via wireless, to the right hand eq mod version with my laptop and the 2 pieces of software from the skywatcher website 

[BollyFlex]

I just received an AZ GTi mount from FLO and immediately got myself into the same situation. After turning on the mount for the first time, I connected my PC to the SynScan wifi without issues. At this point I had already tried connecting with the Android SynScan Pro app, but it continually refused to connect ("no device found") despite connecting to the wifi hotspot fine. I hoped a firmware update would resolve this, so I downloaded the MC firmware loader v1.79 and AZ GTi motor controller firmware "right arm" v3.39. 

Same story as the others here - tried to flash firmware, update failed, I cycled the power as instructed. But it just kept failing around 10% in. I moved the mount as close as physically possible to my PC and retried, but no luck. The mount's LED was flashing three times on a loop. Thanks to this thread I realised that indicated it was stuck in the update mode. I was not able to find an older or alternate version of the firmware on the SW site. At this point I had the sinking feeling I would have to return the mount.

The fix in my case was simple but quite frustrating - I repeatedly tried the firmware update over and over again until it finally managed to complete. Usually it would not get more than a few percent in, but after it got to 46% on one attempt without failing, I was spurred on. After I would guess 50 attempts it finally completed and I rebooted the mount. The android app connected first time without any issues (connect settings are network, 5 resend tries, 500 ms timeout, find devices on, and IP set to 192.168.4.1, although I don't think that setting is used in find devices mode). I can now slew the mount using the android app which still seems to be connected after the time it took me to write this post, so it's looking good!

I know Skywatcher has a bit of a bad reputation for substandard software, but you would think after people experiencing this same issue for 4 years, they would have been able to fix the firmware loader by now, or at the least give the user some more control over timeouts etc.

Thought I would post this here in case anyone else is in the same boat! Persevere!

[Adam J]

On 09/10/2018 at 20:07, JorgeR said:

No serial cable, I tried the firmware update via wifi. 

You can get an EQ direct cable specific to the AZGTI from FLO then download the none WiFi firmware flash program from SW and use the cable. That should recover the situation. 

[Mach13]

Okay thanks for posting here you guys.... it helped me alot

I had the same led blinking 3 times after a firmware failure,, have to say Skywatcher support was next to useless...

 

I really thought i'd bricked my unit  🫣

 

but after reading here i realised that I after my initial firmware failure using wifi method i was trying to use the skywatcher usb adapter  (i recently bought) with the same firmware loader....when i really needed t o download the NON WIFI loader..

When I used that together with the Skywatcher Usb Adapter it worked a treat

 

Happy days... truly relieved

KUDOS to those that keep at it..