Portal 2.2.21 and firmware 2.2.14 upgrade

[korda]

We are in mass upgrade from 2.1 to 2.2 firmware.
1) It is very disappointing that Portal still cannot figure out if COM port is open in the main section of the program, versus upgrade section. It is really silly for a user to connect-disconnect all the time, depends on the mode of operation.
2) in Options->Firmware Upgrade dialog, can the upload function be made more robust? Reason - we do not have RFE reset button in our hardware, so the power connect-disconnect instead is used. Upgrade function fail rate is more then 50%. Probably because power is not stable yet in the first few milliseconds, but upgrade has already started. Can you delay sending upgrade packets some time to resolve this annoying problem?
3) Latest Portal script selection upload dialog still lock in synapse directory. There is no way to browse elsewhere for a PY file.
4) Latest Portal allows to select SPY file and attempts to upload it. But results are bad. RFE is not talking after that - script erase required. Can you check this please and make sure Portal is smart enough to recognize the difference?

[mgenti]

I moved this thread over to the 2.2 area since Portal is still in beta.


1) It is very disappointing that Portal still cannot figure out if COM port is open in the main section of the program, versus upgrade section. It is really silly for a user to connect-disconnect all the time, depends on the mode of operation.
We are sorry that this is still an issue, as mentioned previously we have had other users complain about requiring a disconnect before upgrading.

2) in Options->Firmware Upgrade dialog, can the upload function be made more robust? Reason - we do not have RFE reset button in our hardware, so the power connect-disconnect instead is used. Upgrade function fail rate is more then 50%. Probably because power is not stable yet in the first few milliseconds, but upgrade has already started. Can you delay sending upgrade packets some time to resolve this annoying problem?

The upgrader currently does resend packets up to 3 times. Is the upgrade starting at all?


3) Latest Portal script selection upload dialog still lock in synapse directory. There is no way to browse elsewhere for a PY file.

That is correct, Portal 2.2 will not support different directories for SNAPpy scripts. This is high on our list of things to do for a future version of Portal.


4) Latest Portal allows to select SPY file and attempts to upload it. But results are bad. RFE is not talking after that - script erase required. Can you check this please and make sure Portal is smart enough to recognize the difference?

I will make sure that this particular test is run again for our next Portal 2.2 release, it was just not run for 2.2.21, just for reference this test has passed for the last few revisions posted.

[korda]

sometimes firmware upgrade starts and then stops after 1 green bar is shown in the progress bar.
other times, it never starts, but timeout window appears. Time-out maybe too short for power cycle (no reset button - embedded RFEs).

It works fine for an amateur/test/prototype applications - I assume this is what you testing it with - synapse proto boards.

Once you go RFE embedded, and big number of RFEs - these issues are not addressed by your portal software.

[mgenti]

Time-out maybe too short for power cycle (no reset button - embedded RFEs).

If there is a problem with power at startup there may not be much we can do. The way the Freescale bootloader works we need to send a specific command within a certain timeframe to do the upgrade. To determine exactly what's happening it maybe easiest if we got one of your units to test with.

It works fine for an amateur/test/prototype applications - I assume this is what you testing it with - synapse proto boards.

Yes, this is primarily what we test with however we have done hundreds if not thousands of upgrades this way with no issues at power up. I personally usually do not use the reset button since I have it configured as a GPIO instead.

[korda]

I will send one board to you for testing. Thanks.

[kbanks]

I personally usually do not use the reset button since I have it configured as a GPIO instead.

Mark is referring to a jumper on the Proto Board that connects the push button to either GPIO 5 or RESET.

The physical RESET pin on this part can only be a RESET.

(I mention this because there are other Freescale parts where RESET can be turned into a GPIO).