Old Owl Pedal not functioning

OWL OWL Pedal
#1

Hi all,

I recently purchased myself a used owl pedal. excited to try it out, I attempted to flash the latest firmware compatible with the Owl Pedal (OpenWare v21.2.2), unaware of the rev number or what the existing firmware was.

Before flashing, I was able to use the pedal with my instrument, switch to dfu mode, etc. After flashing using dfu-util. I’m now unable to use the pedal, plug it into my computer, or switch to dfu mode without following the instructions for hardware dfu.

Is there any way to fix/revert this?

#2

Hi @bvuong ,

There’s no need to run old firmware, the new version is working well on Owl Pedal and has more features (any patch can be overwritten, has USB audio, etc). It’s very likely that you’ve flashed firmware to bootloader address, then your device won’t be able to boot as it no longer has a valid bootloader. This can be fixed by installing bootloader to that address and then installing firmware to firmware address.

We can provide more specific instruction, but could you explain what happened first? I.e. what was the exact dfu-util command.

#3

Sure thing.

I use Ubuntu 20.04, and installed dfu-util via apt. I then downloaded openware 21.2.2. after having all that, I followed the instructions to get into dfu mode for the owl pedal (holding down the LED button and then plugging) which worked. after that, I ran the following command

dfu-util -d 0483:df11 -c 1 -i 0 -a 0 -R -s 0x8008000:leave -D OwlPedal.bin

I then unplugged the pedal and tried to use it by powering it up and plugging it into my instrument. I then noticed the LED not turning on.

if this information helps, my Owl Pedal is rev4.

#4

Ok so it’s the command from release announcement apparently, I don’t understand why it wouldn’t work. Could you just try again and post output from dfu-util here?

It would be better to wait for @mars to respond first. Something like that happened for another user before, so maybe there’s some mistake in our instructions.

The bootloader is available at [solved] Can't connect to Magus - #21 by antisvin , you should use the MidiBoot-Pedal.bin and change flash address, so the command would become:

dfu-util -d 0483:df11 -c 1 -i 0 -a 0 -R -s 0x8000000:leave -D MidiBoot-Pedal.bin

After that you should see “OWL-BOOT” MIDI USB device and will be able to flash firmware in Sysex format instead of using dfu-util.

#5

Just to make it clear - I’m not sure if installing MIDI bootloader is necessary in this case. It’s an alternative way to install firmware, but dfu-util should be usable too. You could try using webdfu from WebUSB DFU for OWL with firmware first (in Chromium), in case if something is wrong with current dfu-util in Ubuntu.

#6

this is what the output is after running the following command

dfu-util -d 0483:df11 -c 1 -i 0 -a 0 -R -s 0x8000000:leave -D OwlPedal.bin

dfu-util 0.10-dev

Copyright 2005-2009 Weston Schmidt, Harald Welte and OpenMoko Inc.
Copyright 2010-2021 Tormod Volden and Stefan Schmidt
This program is Free Software and has ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
Please report bugs to http://sourceforge.net/p/dfu-util/tickets/

dfu-util: Warning: Invalid DFU suffix signature
dfu-util: A valid DFU suffix will be required in a future dfu-util release
Opening DFU capable USB device…
Device ID 0483:df11
Device DFU version 011a
Claiming USB DFU Interface…
Setting Alternate Interface #0 …
Determining device status…
DFU state(10) = dfuERROR, status(10) = Device’s firmware is corrupt. It cannot return to run-time (non-DFU) operations
Clearing status
Determining device status…
DFU state(2) = dfuIDLE, status(0) = No error condition is present
DFU mode device DFU version 011a
Device returned transfer size 2048
DfuSe interface name: "Internal Flash "
Downloading element to address = 0x08000000, size = 252144
Erase [=========================] 100% 252144 bytes
Erase done.
Download [=========================] 100% 252144 bytes
Download done.
File downloaded successfully
Submitting leave request…
Transitioning to dfuMANIFEST state

#7

I’m still getting the same issue of not being able to use the pedal as describe in the original post.

#8

The flash address here is 0x08000000, this is where bootloader goes. But you’ve tried flashing firmware that can’t possibly work. You’ve previously mentioned that 0x8008000 was used - that’s where firmware starts on flash.

So now you have no choice but flash bootloader image to have something that can boot firmware. This is not a problem, I just wanted to see if you’ll have any errors from flashing firmware. Try flashing and bootloader image with the same command, it will probably give you a working USB device.

#9

Good to know! I was able to flash the bootloader and then the latest firmware. everything seems to be working. my computer is able to detect without the need for hardware dfu, and the web patch library is able to detect it as well. At the moment I’m figuring out how to load in patches. I’ve tried choosing a patch, and then “store” but every time I disconnect, it seems to lose the patch. Is there something I’m doing incorrectly?

1 Like
#10

On the device page you can see what patches are stored in what slots.

Before Store, I always recommend testing the patch first with Load. If it works, then you can Store it to a slot of your choosing. Slot 1 is used (with the new firmware you’ve got) for the default startup patch.

#11

You can either load patch to memory and run it directly or store it on flash and load it to memory later. You can’t store a loaded patch later, those commands do different things so just use one or the other depending if you’re sure that you need to store the patch permanently.

Running stored patches from flash (without computer) is explained here: [solved] Can't connect to Magus - #7 by antisvin

#12

should I be seeing more than one slot here?

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