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+--- Thread: May have accidentally bricked during firmware update (/showthread.php?tid=152)
May have accidentally bricked during firmware update - leifspacefriend - 2025-03-10
I used the companion app to update to v1.2.2, and while I was updating I stepped away for a short while, so unfortunately I wasn't able to catch if there were any errors that popped up. When I came back the Tangara screen was off and the companion app window read the default "To begin, connect your Tangara and make sure it's switched on." My OS is Fedora 41. Some things I tried:
- Switching it off and on again.
- Doing a hard reset.
- Plugging it into power source in case the battery had died, it was at ~80% when I started but you never know.
I also remember the USB cable had been kind of wiggly, so I am wondering if I hadn't accidentally brushed it while setting my laptop down and severed the USB connection. If that was the case, would that have been enough to brick the Tangara, and is there a proven way to recover after it's been bricked?
RE: May have accidentally bricked during firmware update - pgronkievitz - 2025-03-10
can you see tangara in your serial devices? If so, I'd give a try for manual flashing instead of relying on the companion, you can read more in the docs
RE: May have accidentally bricked during firmware update - Be - 2025-03-10
Compiling the firmware and flashing all partitions might do the trick
https://cooltech.zone/tangara/docs/flashing/#recovery-and-initial-flashing-with-idf-py
RE: May have accidentally bricked during firmware update - jacqueline - 2025-03-11
Usually in this case the device is not really bricked, just stuck mid-firmware-update. We should probably make the update process a little more robust against this failure more tbh.
Another recovery option you could try is reflashing the update via the tangara cli: https://cooltech.zone/tangara/docs/flashing/#using-the-companion-cli
RE: May have accidentally bricked during firmware update - Be - 2025-03-11
(2025-03-11, 12:30 AM)jacqueline Wrote: Usually in this case the device is not really bricked, just stuck mid-firmware-update. We should probably make the update process a little more robust against this failure more tbh.I think it could be helpful to ship all the flash partitions in releases. For speed, the updater (both GUI and CLI) could check if they can determine the existing firmware version. If yes, just flash the tangara and lua partitions; otherwise, fall back to flashing all partitions like `idf.py flash`.
Another recovery option you could try is reflashing the update via the tangara cli: https://cooltech.zone/tangara/docs/flashing/#using-the-companion-cli
RE: May have accidentally bricked during firmware update - jacqueline - 2025-03-12
That might be a good idea in general, but it's not really the problem here. Including all partitions in releases doesn't do anything to prevent a device getting stuck after an interrupted update.