The Monkey Bricked My PODxt!!

[CapnLockheed]

Lovely sentiments Dean and words I try to live by myself. I'm all about supporting brothers in arms and paying it forward by giving the kids a leg up whenever I can.
Thanks again both for the kind offer and renewing my faith in humanity.
And yeah, I agree that Line6's response was what it should be. I totally agree
that it was chip failure...as you pointed out this is all to common. And I also
agree that, while theoretically possible, the chance of the joint failing at exactly the same time as the firmware update completed is slim indeed. But hey,
as long as I get working unit in my hands I really don't care about the blame
game.




@rockstar_not:


Great choice of beverage and I will, indeed, post an update when I get the unit back.

[martygras]

They do say that calls may be recorded, so maybe they reviewed what Hugo said and, well, there you go. Reversal of attitude on their part.

Should you have had to push the issue? Definitely not.

Also, cold solder joints do not make it past optical QC inspection lines on reflow boards.

I assume they are a large enough company to use modern technology on their QC line.

[Hink]

interesting thing came up here in Mass about recording calls a couple of years ago. We are a two party state (must have consent to record from both parties on the phone or just in general), but the Atty Gen and the District Atty of my county revealed that if you get a call or call a place that says "this call may be recorded" they have given their consent to be recorded...here you can be prosecuted for recording phone calls without permission (but video with no audio is okay )

[CapnLockheed]

They do say that calls may be recorded, so maybe they reviewed what Hugo said and, well, there you go. Reversal of attitude on their part.

Should you have had to push the issue? Definitely not.

Also, cold solder joints do not make it past optical QC inspection lines on reflow boards.

I assume they are a large enough company to use modern technology on their QC line.

Good points but there are a fair amount of documented cases of line6 products failing from bad joints. The mere fact that they would even suggest it as a cause is, IMHO, evidence enough to support it.

@Hink....LOL!! There's some crazy laws on the books and plenty that are so ambiguous in their wording that a clever lawyer,(much like a clever preacher),
can interpret them in whatever way suits their purpose.

UPDATE!!

Alright...I got the RMA# from line6 and I was getting ready to send it back.
BUT...I had to convince myself that I'd truly exhausted all possibilities
before paying for shipping and giving up my unit for who knows how long.
So first I tried to do the firmware update on another machine. Same results.
NO JOY. I was about to throw in the towel when I remembered a little factoid
from earlier years in line6's evolution. There was a time, in the dark past,
when the aforementioned !@#$% MONKEY allowed us humble end users to update
our firmware OFFLINE with the "update from file feature." In their infinite
wisdom line6 decided that the end users were either too incompetent or too
lazy to do a manual update so this feature was eliminated in the !@#$% MONKEY
thereby forcing users to update online....ok, get the picture? I searched the
high and low and finally found the firmware FILE: PODxt_3_01.xtf and an
outdated version of the !@#$% MONKEY that would actually allow me to USE
the file....AND GUESS WHAT?? My PODxt is now fully working!! PRAISE JESUS
it's a FRIGGIN' MIRACLE!! Not only did the MANUAL firmware update unscramble
my POD's memory chip but, apparently it MUST have re-soldered that cold solder
joint that line6's tech was so certain was the cause of my POD's failure.

In any case....in closing...kudos to line6 for willingness to attempt to make things right. MUCH appreciated. HOWEVER...when I f*ck up I man up and admit my mistakes.....'nuff said.

[CapnLockheed]

Oh GAWD!! Just when you think it's safe to go back in the water.....the drama continues!!

The Monkey may not have permanently bricked my POD but there is still a severe lack of joy here. The latest drivers/firmware/monkey are still messing me up. EVERYTHING worked just fine before updating. But NOW, even after solving my POD's "Invalid Code Error 1" bootup message, Line6 Edit no longer works properly. It recognizes my POD but will not complete sync. And there's nothing wrong with my USB cable,
it's not a USB hub problem.....EVERYTHING worked fine before the update...NOTHING else has changed. I also tried connecting via MIDI AND USB on three different machines and on three different OS's. I even tried using Gearbox. It DOES work.....partially. I can send and receive single patches but it still
times out when trying to load the POD's memory. I've tried just about everything....uninstalled/reinstalled EVERYTHING, rolled back drivers and Java....nothing works. I REALLY wish I'd read all the threads about this out there BEFORE I made the mistake of updating my POD. I am FAR from alone in this boat.

Everything looks fine in the Monkey but no Line6 Edit:

[CapnLockheed]

I'm really getting sick of this BS. I've tried everything. I've successfully re-flashed the 3.01 firmware. The MIDI timeout continued to
occur at exactly the same point timing out at 21%. So I thought perhaps this was being caused by a corrupt tone from the user
library. Sooo, one by one, I loaded the unit with factory patches in GearBox. This caused a change but did NOT solve the problem.
Now the MIDI timeout error occurs at 44%. This happens at EXACTLY the same point whether connected via MIDI or USB and it
happens at EXACTLY the same point on THREE pc's and THREE OS's. It SUCKS not being able to load and save bundles but
least GearBox allows me to edit and save individual patches.....Line6 Edit isn't working at all.

[CapnLockheed]

Ok....one last update:

Maybe this will help some other users with this problem. There is DEFINITELY something wrong with Line6's coding.
It's either the current firmware or the drivers. Even tho I loaded my PODxt with Line6 FACTORY patches from GearBox I
was still getting a MIDI timeout at 44%. However, being that it changed from 21% to 44% after loading said patches, it
occurred to me that there must be some compatibility issue between the patches and the software. Now, mind you, I NEVER
had this problem before installing the current update. Soooo I re-flashed the firmware one more time BUT, this time, I allowed
the update to install the factory patches that came WITH THE UPDATE. And GUESS WHAT?? No more MIDI timeout!!

Now that's all well and good provided I NEVER load ANY other patches. But, apparently, some older patches....EVEN THOSE
WRITTEN BY LINE6!!.......are NOT compatible with this version of firmware/drivers.

[Lee fu]

At least you recovered a large part of your POD XT, more to the contrary, I was in the middle of 2022 trying to solve the error code 02, if you are still here, I would really appreciate it if you could tell me the version of monkey you used, I got firmware 3.01 but I can't find the monkey to update offline. This is my only pedal and I wouldn't want to lose it. Cheers!

[zerocrossing]

I’d personally look on the bright side and take it as the universe telling you that you deserve a good guitar amp modeler. I’d recommend a Kemper or Fractal. Maybe the Neural DSP, but I have no direct experience with it.

[CapnLockheed]

At least you recovered a large part of your POD XT, more to the contrary, I was in the middle of 2022 trying to solve the error code 02, if you are still here, I would really appreciate it if you could tell me the version of monkey you used, I got firmware 3.01 but I can't find the monkey to update offline. This is my only pedal and I wouldn't want to lose it. Cheers!

Sorry, it's been wayyyyyyyyyy too long for the old grey matter to recall such details.
I moved on to a POD X3 not long after this fiasco and have never had a problem with
it. Even using all the most current software, Monkey, Licenser, Updater etc.

Best of Luck......Trust me, I feel your pain.

Cheers.......CL

[Bombadil]

Shoulda written a song about it. Rolls off the tongue like 'United Broke My Guitar!'

[CapnLockheed]