Bangle.JS 2: Broken flash memory?

[devsnd]

I recently have more and more crashes when using my watch. I was using the iflash firmware for a while, but reverted back to stock a few weeks ago because of frequent crashes/hangs of the watch. But moving back to stock FW did not fix the issue. I then tried to remove all apps, but now I can't install new ones. Trying to reflash the firmware also failed, see photo.

How can I debug this? Is this a hardware fault, is the flash memory broken?

[gfwilliams]

That FW addr message happens when data that Bangle.js tried to write to memory wasn't the same when it gets read back (it checks). So that could be a memory problem but it also happens when there was something already in flash memory that Bangle was expecting was empty (since flash memory can only write a 1 into a 0, and has to then erase the bank to continue), and that's the most likely cause.

Given you were using the iflash build as well, I'd say maybe there's a chance that the flash memory got corrupted. Please can you connect with the Web IDE, type reset() and enter on the left, then require("Storage").eraseAll() on the left, and make sure it completes (displaying =undefined - it could take 30s).

Hopefully when that's done we'll be sure everything is clear, and you could do a firmware update with the app loader (although even if that fails you can use the DFU method: https://www.espruino.com/Firmware+Update#android-ios-app) followed by a factory reset and that might sort it out.

Even if external flash is broken (very unlikely) it's still possible to install a firmware that will use only the internal flash, but obviously that restricts the amount of storage you get quite a lot.

[devsnd]

Hey @gfwilliams, thank you so much for taking the time to debug this with me.

When calling .eraseAll() i'm getting this error:

Uncaught InternalError: Timeout on jshFlashErasePage (all)
    at REPL (:1:29)
require("Storage").eraseAll()

I've also flashed the newest firmware using DFU, which worked without a hitch. Then I tried again to erase the storage, but still no dice.

I'll try the iflash firmware again to see if it helps...

[devsnd]

The iflash firmware also does not work for me, I'll have now flashed the rather old noflash firmware (using DFU, since the regular firmware update also crashed) from the post over here

Now I am really size constrained, but at least I can tell the time again ;)

@gfwilliams would it be easy for you to provide add the noflash firmware to the build matrix, so I can get up-to-date noflash firmwares without building them myself?

[fanoush]

@gfwilliams would it be easy for you to provide add the noflash firmware to the build matrix, so I can get up-to-date noflash firmwares without building them myself?

or maybe the pipeline could accept board name parameter for manual run

[gfwilliams]

Done! https://www.espruino.com/binaries/travis/master/

[devsnd]

Thanks @gfwilliams for taking the time to provide the noflash build! My watch works perfect now, even though with limited storage, but much better than a broken watch for sure! 👍👍👍