Allowing for FW downgrades without emergency ROM flashing

Discussion in 'General - Guides and FAQ' started by Nice Monkey, Dec 15, 2020.

  1. Nice Monkey

    Nice Monkey Well-Known Member Beta test group

    At the moment it is not allowed to downgrade any FW not even Beta versions. To go back an emergency flash procedure must be done restoring the original factory ROM image to the player. Next it can be upgraded to the target version again.

    As correctly stated in the emergency procedure itself this is not really without risk of bricking the player if anything goes seriously wrong during that procedure. There is really no need to use this procedure as often as done now. There are in fact very few cases when it is to be used as a last remedy when the OS has been corrupted not allowing for normal FW refreshing or factory resets.

    Please remove the FW version check when updating. One can always do a Factory Reset if some incompatibilities cause problems. :(
    I own(ed) many brands of players with some allowing downgrading and others not. Those allowing it never caused me any type of serious problems when going back.

    Zidoo also could go for just allowing going back to a stable release. For that option stable releases could be published with a special go-back version with an implicit reset/clean data. Creating such an image is very easy to do. The emergency ROM reset will then only be needed for what it is supposed to be used for "real emergencies". :)

    Benefits of adding "Clean Install Stable FW updates with Go-Back" implicitly enabled:
    - Little overhead creating these additionally versions as stable FW releases are relative few.
    - Customers can choose then for a normal Stable update without wipe or a full clean update.
    - Customers can go back to any previous stable release without special instructions or precautions. The only warning is that it will clean all data and settings which should be a pop-up warning when running the procedure.
    - Avoiding risky emergency ROM restores via the bootloader mechanism reaching the same goal being a clean install.
    - Avoiding going back all the way to the initial released factory ROM. In fact the risk of incompatibilities grows with every new update.
    - It will most likely attract more people using Beta versions leading to more feedback and FW advances to be experienced earlier by many. Don't like it just then go back to the last stable FW!

    Frankly I see no argument not implementing this and I am sure many customers will highly welcome it.
    Please contradict me where I am wrong.
     
    Last edited: Dec 18, 2020
  2. Whitfield

    Whitfield Active Member

    Good post, Nice Monkey.

    +1
     
    darkeyes909 likes this.
  3. ghostshadow

    ghostshadow Member

    Yes the only check that needs to be made on the update is the Firmware corresponding to the material: Z9x Firmware ---> Z9x device, that's all.
    In addition, the Emergency Flash for a downgrade can cause more problem than solution, the last time it corrupted basic files for me, even after a factory reset, some functions no longer worked, I had problems. black screens hard HDR and DV movie playback, some parameter that I entered was not taken into account.
    Besides, there is a problem I think with these firmware, because for everything to be taken into account in the settings after an update, I must modify a parameter in color settings so that it takes my changes into account.
    So the possibility of flashing with any version of the firmware would be a plus.
    Nice Monkey.
     
    darkeyes909 likes this.
  4. boxerfan

    boxerfan Active Member

    +1000
     
    darkeyes909 likes this.
  5. Nice Monkey

    Nice Monkey Well-Known Member Beta test group

    I feel allowing downgrades as a general feature is a step too far for Zidoo as it may cause problems occasionally. Not all customers may then know what to do. The proposed alternative is a good compromise I think.
     
    Last edited: Dec 15, 2020
  6. iordan99

    iordan99 New Member

  7. blenky

    blenky Well-Known Member

    I agree something needs to be done. I had issues with my Z9X and went down the emergency flash route. It completely bricked the player. Luckily Futeko replaced it without issue.

    I moved from having Dune players. Although you could install from a download they were always excellent at pushing the firmware OTA. Whenever a new release was available a message popped up when you tuned on the device. There was also a option to opt in or out of beta releases. So cautious customers could always ran the final versions where the more adventurous could dabble with the interim betas.

    On Zidoos official support pages https://www.zidoo.tv/Support/downloads.html the new (not so new now!) players are not listed in the download section. My previous Z9S has a timeline of official firmware so you can see the current official firmware is 2.3.32 from 18/06/20. This would be the backout point if rolling back from a more recent beta. There is no such timeline for the new models. I assume that at this point no official firmware exists?!


    So what I would like to see is

    Proper OTA implementation
    Option to opt in/out of betas
    Ability to roll back from a beta to last official version.

    TBH this is all pretty standard stuff that should be on all models by now!
     
    darkeyes909 likes this.
  8. darkeyes909

    darkeyes909 Active Member

    I heartily agree. This would be very helpful.
     
  9. Markswift2003

    Markswift2003 Well-Known Member SUPER Administrator Beta test group Contributor

    Talking to Zidoo about it now...

    I think it's an issue with SDK updates on every firmware, but the engineers are looking at it.
     
    darkeyes909 likes this.

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