Recovering a bricked Zwave Controller - Xmodem FTW

[benjammin2068]

Hey there,

A humble suggestion for this page: https://github.com/kpine/zwave-js-server-docker/wiki/700-series-Controller-Firmware-Updates-(Linux)

Following the instructions, the firmware for a ZAC93 failed.

When looking at the needs for a zwave-js-ui instance running from the CLI (in screen via systemd) -- when I looked at what installing npm and all entailed, I decided to look at what protocol the gecko bootloaded uses (having read the debug output logs in the zwave-js-ui debug output page) and it was Xmodem.

installing minicom is a much quicker path to solve than installing all of npm and whatever else (which I partly tried and realized how much more infrastructure was going to be needed to make that path work -- and on a pi3B. Oy).

So I installed minicom, set up the comm port (115200, 8n1, any hardware handshaking or modem init strings turned off) and then hit '1' to start the gbl binary upload (to see the resulting CCCC start requests for Xmodem) and then did an Xmodem send in Minicom.

poof. Done. Easy.

I thought --- it'd be nice if the directions on that URL mentioned Gecko uses Xmodem - so using Minicom is also a fast path to recovering a bricked Zwave controller. Especially in a minimalist install environment.

Cheers,

-Ben

[kpine]

I don't have any desire to maintain Minicom instructions anymore as it is unnecessary for most people with Z-Wave JS.

Even in your situation ZJS would have worked just fine as it supports recovering from the bootloader. You can always download the Z-Wave JS UI binary if you don't want to use Docker or Node.js directly (which is also an easy install). I'm a little confused how you got here if you're not using Z-Wave JS though.

You can find a link to the archived Minicom instructions at https://github.com/kpine/zwave-js-server-docker/wiki/700-series-Controller-Firmware-Updates-(Linux)#minicom-and-z-modem

[benjammin2068]

No worries - it was just a thought.

As for how I got here - Google. :P

And I do have the binary and have been using that - but that's what narfed the firmware update in the first place leaving the ZAC93 stuck at the bootloader.

Anyway - I know how to recover one of these in the Gecko bootloader if I need to. It'd have just saved me time if somewhere someone mentioned "Xmodem!"

Anyway -- Problem solved.

Cheers,

-Ben

[kpine]

Z-Wave JS UI has a configuration option to restart into the bootloader where you can re-install the firmware.

Pretty sure the console command already handles this condition as well. Worth having Docker or Node around for that maybe.