FAQ: Updating Your UMC-1 SOFTWARE AND FIRMWARE

[LCSeminole]

What you need to get started:

1. The instructional .pdf file located here, (if you don't have Adobe Reader please download from the Adobe website, it's a free download):
umcsoftware.com/updates/UMC-1-FirmwareV6.pdf

I can't express enough that following this .pdf file is essential to a successful install, and as Hemster has suggested, PRINT it out for easier access.

2. The Emotiva AVR Installer program located here: umcsoftware.com/updates/Emotiva_AVR_upgrade_Install_V10502.rar

If you don't have a .RAR extracting program you can download 7-Zip from here: www.7-zip.org/

3. The three Upgrade .upg files located here: umcsoftware.com/updates/upgradeV6.zip

4. USB Printer Cable: A Male to B Male USB 2.0
www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=103&cp_id=10303&cs_id=1030301&p_id=5438&seq=1&format=2

5. You "MUST" be logged in to your operating system (ie: Windows XP/Windows 7) as one of the "ADMINSTRATOR ACCOUNTS" for this update to work.

Emotiva also has a video on their home website called, "Walkthrough of the v6 upgrade" which can be found here: emotiva.com/umcvideo2.shtm

Lonnie Vaughn walks through an actual upgrade of the UMC-1 in this instructional video.

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If you have Version 5 of the software you will need to follow the .pdf file above to upgrade your UMC-1 software to Version 6. If you already have Version 6 and want to upgrade to the beta versions 2 or 3, then go to Step 8 in the above instructional .pdf file and follow those directions. It is not necessary to install all the files again, just the beta file following Step 8 in the instructional .pdf file.
The beta files can be found here:

beta 2 - umcsoftware.com/updates/BETA2_upgradeV6.rar

beta 3 - umcsoftware.com/updates/BETA3_upgradeV6.rar

The beta's are .RAR files so you will need the WinRAR program to extract them. Please read below for some very helpful information provided by one of our own Lounge members.

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In addition to the above, one of our Lounge members, "BillBauman" (Mr. Emonatic himself) has a very thorough site in assisting with the UMC-1 update as well as other tidbits of info he has seen fit to make available, check it out here: emonatics.com/

I highly recommend using his link to a self extracting USBExpress Device Driver, which is an updated version to the one that Emotiva has built in to their installer program. He also makes available the installer program, the actual software and beta files, as zip files for those that don't have a .RAR extractor. His instructions are highly recommended by many on the Lounge.

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UPDATING TIPS not covered above but found to be useful by Lounge Members that have successfully updated their UMC-1's:

1. If using a laptop, use the power cord as opposed to running on battery power. Running on battery power normally puts a laptop on a "power saver" mode thus possibly causing a USB & handshake problem with the UMC-1.

[LCSeminole]

I am going to allow posting to this thread for a week or so. Please feel free to correct anything I have done and/or add to what I've put together as I'm sure I've left out something. I felt it necessary to put this together because of many Lounge member requests as well as for new UMC-1 owners that are having a hard time starting the quest to update their UMC-1's. I will update the original posting as corrections/additions come in and after everyone feels it's complete, I'll delete all other postings and close this thread so there is only one post for future UMC-1 updaters to read through.

[BillBauman]

As the WinRAR program is trial-ware, not freeware, and technically should be paid for before regular use, I would recommend linking to an alternate RAR-compatible program for un-RARing the files. 7-Zip is one of many, it is open-source, free, and works with RAR:
www.7-zip.org/

[willfixit]

Jun 22, 2010 19:11:37 GMT -5 BillBauman said:

As the WinRAR program is trial-ware, not freeware, and technically should be paid for before regular use, I would recommend linking to an alternate RAR-compatible program for un-RARing the files. 7-Zip is one of many, it is open-source, free, and works with RAR:
www.7-zip.org/

Or...RAR them as a self extracting file which does not require "anything"...

[BillBauman]

Jun 22, 2010 19:21:54 GMT -5 willfixit said:

Jun 22, 2010 19:11:37 GMT -5 BillBauman said:

As the WinRAR program is trial-ware, not freeware, and technically should be paid for before regular use, I would recommend linking to an alternate RAR-compatible program for un-RARing the files. 7-Zip is one of many, it is open-source, free, and works with RAR:
www.7-zip.org/

Or...RAR them as a self extracting file which does not require "anything"...

The subject of how Emotiva packages the updates has already been discussed. This thread is to discuss how to best deal with that packaging. .zip packages, which work without any archivers on most modern OS's, and don't have the same security concerns/ramifications of an executable, are available on the Emonatics site.

[LCSeminole]

Jun 22, 2010 19:11:37 GMT -5 BillBauman said:

As the WinRAR program is trial-ware, not freeware, and technically should be paid for before regular use, I would recommend linking to an alternate RAR-compatible program for un-RARing the files. 7-Zip is one of many, it is open-source, free, and works with RAR:
www.7-zip.org/

Thanks Bill, the "sticky" has been updated.

[ghstudio]

Good thread. You might suggest that if someone is using a laptop for the update, they plug it in and don't try to update using battery. The reason is that when you are running on battey, power management turns everything down to minimum (to preserve battery) and that can cause USB and handshaking problems (it did for me).

[LCSeminole]

Jun 22, 2010 20:44:09 GMT -5 ghstudio said:

Good thread. You might suggest that if someone is using a laptop for the update, they plug it in and don't try to update using battery. The reason is that when you are running on battey, power management turns everything down to minimum (to preserve battery) and that can cause USB and handshaking problems (it did for me).

GH, Thanks for the tip. I've added it to a new "TIP" section at the end of the post!

[hemster]

Thanks LCSeminole.. excellent resource!

I would just add that it pays to print out the instructional pdf mentioned in step 1 above and follow it to the letter!.

[wizardofoz]

I havent seen anywhere it mentioned that the updater seems to go thru several cycles of the graphical ramp thru guage... just when you think its nearly done it resets and appears to go again taking even longer on the 2nd run...perhaps it retrying or maybe doing other code segments... is this normal or just me?

[BillBauman]

Jun 23, 2010 3:43:37 GMT -5 wizardofoz said:

I havent seen anywhere it mentioned that the updater seems to go thru several cycles of the graphical ramp thru guage... just when you think its nearly done it resets and appears to go again taking even longer on the 2nd run...perhaps it retrying or maybe doing other code segments... is this normal or just me?

I have updated different UMC-1's more than once. I wish I could say I saw a discernible pattern to this. So far, I have not, but I also have not paid strictly close attention to it. I may do a complete firmware refresh on a UMC-1 this weekend or early next week. If I do, I'll try to note the process. Then I will do a single-file (re)update of the latest B3 and see if the update appears to go exactly the same.

[Nemesis.ie]

Jun 23, 2010 3:43:37 GMT -5 wizardofoz said:

I havent seen anywhere it mentioned that the updater seems to go thru several cycles of the graphical ramp thru guage... just when you think its nearly done it resets and appears to go again taking even longer on the 2nd run...perhaps it retrying or maybe doing other code segments... is this normal or just me?

Yes, when I did 7b1 (b3) it went up to about 75%, then the UMC-1 shut down, it then started up again and did (I believe) another full 0 to 100%. Not sure if it failed and restarted itself or if it does different parts of the code separately - or dare we hope there is now a verification pass?

[ÈlTwo]

Has anyone documented what cable brand works every time for them, and what cable length they are using?

Don't remember my brand, but I use a 3' cable, and every update has gone smoothly.

[wizardofoz]

Im using a 1M cable... not anything special... Macbook 13" unibody with XP Per in normal boot, no AntiVirus or anything else loaded... its a basiaclly bare XP updated to current SP's and HFixes.

Have also tried with Thinkpad X61 and I think that worked too with AVG and whatever else was also installed after a year or 3 of use. Likewise also using Vista with a Kohjinsha netbook, and that went ok too...Guess I am a lucky one.

Turn off your screen savers and power save options and run on mains power if you can...

[ghstudio]

Just some random info: I installed the update using an IBM/Lenovo X41 running Windows 7 Pro and a generic 25' USB cord (hey, I stole it from my printer...but it seemed to work). The long cable might have been why the update restarted so many times....

[woodworker]

Thanks LC and everyone else that contributed. I have been delaying the upgrade b/c I have not had too many problems with my current firmware... that is until this past weekend when all of a sudden I started having some issues... the details of that are for a different thread.

I am trying to update and am running into a problem that I cannot seem to find the answer to. First, I recently updated my OS to Win 7 X64 thinking that the newer OS would be a better path forward for HDMI support. I cannot get the Emo update program to run on Win7-64. I have seen mention from others of using this OS. How are you running the application on the 64 bit OS?

Thanks in advance.

*EDIT:

After looking (obviously not well enough) at the Emonatics site for a day I just found my own answer here: www.emonatics.com/UMC-1FW.shtml#Troubleshooting.

Thanks for all the hard work that you have done to keep us on the right path Bill!

[0pter0n]

FWIW:

There have been any number of issues reported here that seem to come back to Win 7 in its 64 bit version.

Many manufacturers have taken to supplying new computers for home use with the 64 bit version since it allows utilization of more than (nominally) 4 Gigs of RAM. Certainly, for some applications like editing video, games, etc., the extra RAM is very helpful.

However, since its introduction with XP, the 64 bit versions have always manifested driver issues with all sorts of accessories. Things are a little better now as more manufacturers of peripherals see its increasing use, but, as we've seen repeatedly here, even something as basic as USB drives can have problems.

Feh!

[LCSeminole]

Jul 10, 2010 14:53:57 GMT -5 0pter0n said:

FWIW:

There have been any number of issues reported here that seem to come back to Win 7 in its 64 bit version.

Many manufacturers have taken to supplying new computers for home use with the 64 bit version since it allows utilization of more than (nominally) 4 Gigs of RAM. Certainly, for some applications like editing video, games, etc., the extra RAM is very helpful.

However, since its introduction with XP, the 64 bit versions have always manifested driver issues with all sorts of accessories. Things are a little better now as more manufacturers of peripherals see its increasing use, but, as we've seen repeatedly here, even something as basic as USB drives can have problems.

Feh!

I definitely agree with the 64bit issues on the Window's operating systems causing issues. Bill's updated USBExpress driver is the key in 64bit versions of Windows 7 working flawlessly in the UMC-1 software updates & betas, its been the key for me anyhow, zero problems on my installs.

[Nemesis.ie]

Likewise, with the 3.2.2 (or whatever it is) driver, my updates have worked fine 1st time on 2 totally different systems Win7 x64 on an OCed desktop and Vista 32-bit Bootcamped on an older Macbook.

[jackdan]

Hi,

No matter if i use the lastest UDB drivers for X64 or Windows 7 32, windows XP, i have tryed without success to update from Beta 2 to Beta 3.

My UMC-1 keep turning on and off without any Beta 3 code send on it from four differents computer, the software updater keep sending the reset 0 1..2..3..4 and so on, and finally failed after a few try.
I have tryed two different USB cable also.

Anybody have a suggestion about this ?