WTOOLS and 2.0.4 FW issues?

[royor]

Hi,
Last weekend I tried the FW 2.0.4 for the first time during an event. (yes it's beta and I had an extra Wolfmix backup unit with the older stable public firmware with me)
About Firmware 2.0.4:
- Issue after loading my existing project: My Showtec Phantom 50MK2 movingheads had not the correct colors anymore. removed the fixtures from the project, loaded them again in the same project and the colors were correct.
- All Gobo icons on the display were back to one and the same default icon. I could not retrieve the mapped gobo icons I had mapped myself. (I did this mapping on the Wolfmix itself in the past)
- Don't know if this is a FW or hardware issue, because I only use 1 Wolfmix with the 2.0.4 FW for now. But I had the whole evening white light flickering now and then underneath all buttons? It didn't look ok to me and I have never seen this behaviour with my. other Wolfmixes (MKI and MKII) on the old firmware (used 2 different powersupplys to be sure it wasn't a faulty powerplug)
- In the beginning of the evening I had 1 button (color pink, second row, lowest button) with a flickering LED light for some seconds and became stable by itself. When powercycle the Wolfmix, it had the same behaviour again. Only that specific button.

About WTOOLS: I have 3 Wolfmixes so I backup and restore projects a lot. Also to use WLINK with them.
2 weeks ago I backupped all projects from 1 wolfmix and wanted to restore to another wolfmix. I succesfully backupped the Wolfmix MKII projects to my laptop with WTOOLS, but when I connected my other wolfmix MKI to the same laptop, it only showed me the projects on that Wolfmix. Restoring the projects to the wolfmix did not do anything. I deleted 2 projects from the Wolfmix MKI just to be sure it wasn;t a memory issue and when I restored 1 project I needed, it did restore but in the display the project got the old projectname I deleted before. I could reproduce this continously
laptop: Windows 10 Pro (up to date) - WTOOLS (Latest version with the FW2 downgrade option in it)
After this I took my backup laptop (Windows 11 up to date and WTOOLS latest update) and after a few minutes I managed to backup and restore the needed project from Wolfmix MKII to the Wolfmix MKI
Glad I could use the WLINK from that moment with all the same project settings. Never had this behaviour before and maybe this happened in the latest WTOOLS update?
PS: This happened with the 2 wolfmixes that still have the old stable FW 1.2.6

So.. Do I have a FW or hardware issue with my Wolfmix MKII FW 2.0.4?
And what's happening with the project backup restore procedure? This abnormal behaviour was really scary at that moment! And I did this a lot (a lot less after upgrading WTOOLS)

[axell]

I have heard "similar" reports that after upgrade 2.0 strange things can be seen with WTOOLS. There was recently an (internal) discussion whether 2.0 is requiring (just slightly) more power from the Computer USB port as previously delivered, and with that may exceed the level where Wolfmix was workink before, but now behaves irrational, which can lead to messages and/or false display in WTOOLS. This theory was not really put down as a possibility, but it was said that it is quite unlikely that the firmware switch is drawing more power.
What can you do?
1. make sure you definitely use the latest WTOOLS version which is 1.6.1
2. insert a small (self-powered/active) USB-3 Hub between Wolfmix and your Computer USB port(s), so power will definitely not being an issue - now and in the future. By doing so you at least eliminate one possible cause of the strange behaviour in your setup.

[royor]

Hi axell,

Thanks for your reply.
But the Wtools issue happened with two wolfmixes which still have the latest public v1 firmware and not the 2.0 FW.
Maybe I had to make 2 posts, because I'm talking about two different issues.
I made this in one post, because I did update wtools because of the 2.0 fw compatibility. So maybe the latest wtools update is the problem?
I have the wolfmixes for years now and never had this issue with the windows 10 laptop.

It still could be an usb issue.. because my Windows 10 which gave the strange behavior has usb-A connector and the new laptop only has usb-c ports So when it did work, i used a usb,-B to usb-C cable with the new Windows 11 laptop which could have more usb power and data throughput at that moment...

[axell]

USB is indeed a bit more complex, particular when "asking" for power.
No doubt that the latest and greatest laptops have way more power as Wolfmix is required. The question is: Will it GIVE the (higher) power to the port? To get more power as the "standard 500mA" out of a USB port, it requires a USB-PD (USB Power Delivery) "handshake" between the requestor (USB device/Wolfmix) and the Computer. Without this handshake the Computer will deliver its USB standard 500mA, which is not enough for Wolfmix for full operation (just switches on the lights and pretends to be "ready"). However, Wolfmix is NOT doing this handshake, so it (eventually) sticks to less power as it needs.
That is why I suggest a powered USB-3 Hub between Wolf and USB port. The Hub ignores handshake and deliver to its ports what it can, always enough to bring Wolfmix into "full operation mode".

[royor]

Yep i think you mentioned the handshake last year or two years ago already. So I bought a usb adapter to facilitate the handshake with my usb-c only laptop.
However, the wolfmixes did the backup and restore procedures fine for years on both my laptops until two weeks ago. And the only difference is Windows updates, wtools update and wolfmix fw update to 1.2.6

[axell]

I understand. For me WTOOLS 1.6.1 is running quite stable. WTOOLS 1.6.0 was terrible and didn't refresh the Cloud folders etc, so they quickly launched 1.6.1! Using 1.6.1 now since 5 or 6 weeks on both of my Wolfmixes and flip flop firmware from 1.2.6 to 2.0.4 constantly on both units.
If you think there is a WTOOLS issue with 1.6.1, open a ticket and report. It can also be something else but is being made "visible" by WTOOLS. Open a ticket is the right way to let development know something is wrong.