Possibly partially disabled hardware?

Bug Reports and Fixes
1

Hey guys -

I got the 4ms Meta module and the wireless expander at the same time. I am able to play basic patches like untwisted braid. I can trigger it with kbd signal and I can get audio out from it. So that is good. However, I have other problems…

Meta is PCB version p11, firmware version is v1.0.1

I was successfully able to follow the instructions for the wireless module setup, with cables connected correctly–i.e. red line on cables aligned with white lines on pcb, attached to wireless expander. I figured I’d start there,
and once I had the wireless operational, I’d do everything else… I got the wireless card to show a green light.

However, the 4ms system shows no wireless module connected.

I tried resetting the hardware. This did not help, and I fear it may have partially bricked the meta, because the other options didn’t work either.

I realized that I had not updated the firmware on the Meta. Then I downloaded the latest firmware and tried to get the meta to recognize the file system on two different USB drives, and the included microSDHC. Neither USB drive nor the microSDHC were recognized by meta. I cannot get either option to recognize anything, and no option on the meta that looks at these drives is able to see them at all.

I then fell back to the instructions regarding how to update firmware directly from a computer with USB and chrome.

In the chrome firmware update interface, I see options for 0x1209 - dapboot DFU bootloader, 0xOD28 - mbed DAPLink, and 0x1EAF - Leaflabs Maple/stm32duino bootloader.

I do not see “STM Device in DFU Mode” as a connect option in chrome.
Whenever I try to connect one of the three options that are available, I get “no compatible device found.” Thus connect fails with NotFoundError:Failed to execute ‘requestDevice’ on ‘USB’: No device selected. I can’t upgrade the firmware.

In device manager on my computer, “STM Device in DFU Mode” comes up with an asterisk next to it in devices–and the system can’t find appropriate drivers. This seems to lock me out of all options to update firmware, usb, card, and wireless are not working. Thus, I can’t transfer VCVRack patches either.

What should I do as my next steps for trying to get the Meta to update its firmware, get the USB or memory card working, and recognize the wireless card? Do I need to ship it back to you for repair?

Thanks,

Mark.

2

Hi Mark,
It looks like you should first make the Update by SD Card. The minimum update for the support of the WIFI module should be 1_4_6 or so.
I mean on the MM itself!
And warm welcome to our community!

Cheers
Mike

3

You may have already checked this, but the Meta only recognizes USB drives and Micro SD Cards formatted as FAT32. Windows will attempt to push you to format with ExFAT, which will not work with the MM.

See this thread for more info: USBC formatting, Size?

Good Luck.

5

Right. Make 100% sure your drives are formatted as FAT32. Also, if the FAT drive has damage to the FAT tables, the MM might not be able to read it. Re-format one to be sure. I had a cheap USB thumb drive that was technically formatted as FAT32 but the MM would not recognize it. When I inspected it more carefully on the computer using the macOS “Disk Utility” I saw the FAT tables were damaged, that is, the disk needed repair. I reformatted the disk as FAT32 and then it worked fine. So try that.

Then, once you are sure you have a disk that’s freshly formatted FAT32, copy some patch files to it (download the .yml files from the Patch Galleyry, for example). Make sure you are copying over the .yml files not the .vcv patch files.

Go to the Patch Selector screen (the one that shows the list of patch names. Watch the screen closely as you insert the drive.
Now… the big question… Watch closely…
Do you see a large orange circle pop up briefly? It shoudl be If so, then the MM is detecting the new drive but just not finding any patches on it (or possibly not being able to read it).

6

Another thing to try: the firmware files (on either a microSD card or USB stick) must be in a folder called metamodule-firmware (exactly this, lowercase, with the hyphen, no spaces) in order to be recognized by the MM.

7

Ok! Pushing me towards the SD card/microSDHC was the right answer.

I was using the card that came in the meta box. It is formatted to Fat32. The problem, was, I think, I was expecting it to be recognized even if it were empty.

I happened to look at it with the patch browser, and the menu entry did light up when I moved the card a little, while the card was still empty–maybe some physical issue there giving it a flakey connect?

However, this still didn’t get it recognized for the firmware update menu. Putting the zip file for the firmware on the sd card, didn’t get it recognized. Extracting the firmware on to the card (to “metamodule-firmware-v1.4.9-firmware-assets-wifi”) didn’t get it recognized.

What got it recognized was extracting the contained folder (“metamodule-firmware”) from the extracted folder and putting that at the root of the FAT32 SD Card. THEN it recognized it, and I was able to update firmware.

The firmware update got the wireless card recognized, and I was able to load my VCVRack patches across. I still haven’t tried the USB drives again, but I don’t need them now–I have wireless active.

I’m good to go. Thanks guys–it just took that prod to get me to go in the right direction and that got it.

Thanks again,

Mark

p.s. It sounds great! :slight_smile:

2 Likes
8

Great!
Right, you need to unzip the firmware file. In case anyone else found this by searching, here’s the documentation for updating firmware: