Sorry to ask such basic questions but there was a recent post indicating that an attempt to update the genius to 22.5.0 caused major issues.
Is this version known to work for others, or should I just use the 22.4.0?
Also which firmware upload method should I use for the sysex upload?
I think the easiest way for you to figure out what works best is just to try those releases yourself. However 22.5.0 has an important bugfix for Genius - apparenly its UI code crashed if you end up sending a negative value as CV out signal. So using it would be ideal if it works.
If you’re not sure what to do, you can use either OpenWareLaboratory or Rebeltech patch library.
It may be a good idea to erase your patches after firmware update, especially if you have some issues. But it’s not strictly necessary, only if there’s some changes to flash storage format and that didn’t happen on every release.
Thanks very much for your advice. 
Once I’m back from my trip, I’ll try to flash the 22.5.0 firmware using OpenWareLaboratory. I’ll report back if I’m successful or otherwise.
S
@antisvin After trying to install 22.5.0 several times, I can confirm that it doesn’t work, indeed, the third time I tried, it basically felt like it bricked the genius as the screen went black with power and OpenWareLaboratory didn’t recongnize it.
Fortunately, after disconnecting power and restarting chrome, it recognized the device, and I managed to install 22.4.0 which works.
Ok, I see. Good to know that you were able to use bootloader to rollback to old FW version.
I think there was an issue with Martin’s last firmware build. My impression is that a bad USB libraries version was used and it caused devices to hang. I was able to build latest firmware with older USB libraries version to get it to work. I’m not sure if I did that for Genius specifically, but I might end up making some unofficial firmware build that I’ll share.
@antisvin That would be much appreciated!
May I suggest, since the firmware source code is open-source, to make a possible solution available via a fork.
I would be curious to know if this issue is only specific to the Genius. I have a number of the other Openware devices such as a Lich, Witch and AC/DC.
I already know that the issue I’ve mentioned happened on other devices. I only tested with Owl3/Xibeca boards, not sure if older Owl board had this problem. I had an impression that some users don’t run into problem with the same devices, not sure if that’s true or some misunderstanding.
Since I’ve written to Martin about this before, I can tell that the fix was to switch Libraries submodule in git repo to revision 9e8f64e07b7a64b76de32f67c164ecf9068b728c . There might be newer commits that can work too, I just had it in my local repo when I’ve realized that firmware builds that work for me are broken in official releases.
I’m not sure what side effects we should expect from that libraries change - I wouldn’t be surprised if newer libraries had some important changes for USB audio or some hardware peripherals. But at least OWL worked for me after that.