A dealer reached out to us midday Thursday with an odd issue on his freshly updated Big Dog Single Outlet unit (locked into continuous rebooting), Adam thought that the unit might be defective, so he arranged an RMA. This AM we had reports of 4 more units doing the same, this sent Adam and the firmware crew into overdrive to find out WTH was going on, because the issue was not widespread it took a bit to track down the culprit, by 5 this afternoon the fault had been identified, at a little after 6 the fix had been created, tested and posted on the Ethereal Big Dog Site.
An Email, Facebook and Social Media blitz is currently being employed to get this info out. Please read the release below and be ahead of the issue.



Update Available to Correct PR-S1PI Firmware Issue

Hello everyone,

I am Adam Rogers, Product Manager for the Big Dog Power and MAVBase.com system. I wanted to personally reach out to our dealers and let you know that we are aware of an issue with the PR-S1PI Single Outlet PDU after it has been updated to firmware version 2.07. The symptoms of this issue are very clear; random and ongoing power cycles to the controlled outlet. Not all PR-S1PI were effected by this bug.

Our team of software and firmware engineers have been working tirelessly to develop a simple solution, and have just released over-the-air updates to the PR-S1PI, available now on our MAVBase.com website.

Good news! The fix for this is very easy:

Go to mavbase.com
Go to the PDU details screen
If the Single Outlet PDU is showing offline, unplug the single outlet from the wall then plug it back in. It will reconnect to the WiFi signal and connect to MAVbase.com
Select “PDU Firmware”
There will be an available Firmware update to apply
Press “Update”
That's it! The PDU will perform the update and return to its online state. This process is necessary as we have removed the PR-S1PI Single Outlet PDUs from the Auto Update process since the update WILL reset power to the outlet.

We apologize for any inconvenience this issue may have caused, and appreciate your patience and understanding as we worked to resolve it.

Thank you for being a customer of Big Dog Power and MAVBase.com!


If you have any questions or are in need of additional assistance, please contact:

Tech Support
386-492-8584
[email protected]

For immediate assistance contact Adam Rogers directly:
386-202-6132
[email protected]

I haven’t deployed any of these units. Would a site visit be required to fix any previously deployed units? I wouldn’t expect any issues from old stock in future projects because I’d update during installation.

No, a site visit is not required. Sign in thru the MAVBase Dealer Portal and do the update, the rebooting is actually only on the Receptacle outlet portion and not on the MCU.

I appreciate this kind of communication.  so many other brands try to keep their issues secret. so we're stuck spinning our wheels, only to find out that tech support knew about this issue but never informed their dealers.

First; Thank you.
Second; Adam and I are both still doing "CI" work, I can promise you that we do not want our butts left hanging out on a job when the Mfgr. knew there was an issue and did not post warning and or solution. We have all heard some company say "Really? That is the first that we have heard about that". Now, someone does have to be the first call, and ours came on Thursday mid-day (west coast dealer), but because that was the only call we assume (?) that is was a (very) rare defective product. But on Friday AM when we received 4 more calls, well now we panic.
This most be fixed by close of business, so Adam and the Software/Firmware guys got onto it (and skipped lunch).

Thank god for device logs and dealer help, because without those it would have taken much longer to determine that the problem was not on the device MCU, but instead on the controller for the outlet relay. Granted it was 5 before this was verified and the beta patch tested and also sent out to a dealer in the field. But once that was complete we were to get the solution posted and get the Social Media team on it.

Amazing teamwork and communication! Something we need more of in this industry.

Not to be a negative nancy, however, but it also points out something that has been an ongoing habit of manufacturers and software engineers, especially in the consumer electronics industry, not throroughly and rigorously alpha and beta testing stuff before sending it out into the wild with the dealers and our clients. You cannot tell me that a few weeks or months of lab bench testing would not have found this particular bug before any units were shipped/sold to customers. But it is the norm now, so I do not get surprised by it anymore.

Still, I appreciate the forwardness of the communication here and putting yourselves in the line of fire admitting that your product (even if it was just a simple few lines of coding that got fubared) had a problem that required a fix. A lot of manufacturers will not readily admit that. They will quietly fix it and slide the problems under the rug hopefully before it gets too widespread and everyone hears about it. Their reputation is more important than their dealers' sanity and success.

Good job Brent, Adam, and the unseen heroes at Ethereal! Have a pizza party! :)

Hopefully the final word on this issue:

So last weeks update resolved must of the installed devices issues. However; most is not all, Adam and his team continued to chase a very elusive bug for the next few days (and found a few other potential trouble makers as well), on Wednesday afternoon we downloaded a test firmware based on issues (see following letter from Adam), we ran this for 24 hours on devices with known issues. at 2 PM today we still had not had a recurrence. After a team discussion the latest patch was uploaded at 2:30 today. Please do this update (even if the other fixed your issue).



This is Adams update:

Hey Pack,

Good news! We’ve found that pesky bug that was bothering the PR-S1PI and gave it a proper squashing. The Hotfix 2.10 Firmware Update is available now. The problem appears to have been a periodic collision between the MQTT server communication and the Power Metering Chip. This was caused by a change to the way we handle the network connectivity to speed up the reconnect process during a loss of network or a power reset. We were able to retain the benefits of the new more aggressive handling of the network while also squashing the bug in the process.

Ready to get back on track?

1.Log in to MAVBase.com or use the MAVBase app on iOS and Android
2.Navigate to the effected PR-S1PI.
a.If it shows “Offline” unplug it from the wall power
b.Wait 15 seconds
c.Plug it back in.
3.Click on “PDU Firmware”
4.Click “Apply Firmware”
5.Voilà! The PR-S1PI will download and apply the update and come back online automatically.
a.NOTE: The update will reset power to the Outlet.

Going forward, the no automatic updates that will reset the outlet(s) power will be applied to any product moving forward. If you are using the PR-R13PI, PR-V7PI or PR-W3PI, we will only automatically update the PDU firmware which does NOT reset power to the outlets.

On behalf of everyone involved at Etheral, MAVBase and Big Dog Power, I must thank you for your loyalty, patience and understanding while we called in the exterminators on these fleas.

If you have any questions or if you have any other problems, please feel free to contact me or our tech support team.

Tech Support
386-492-8584
[email protected]

For immediate assistance contact Adam Rogers directly:
386-202-6132
[email protected]



Adam Rogers
Product Manager
D: (386) 202-6132 RingMe
O: (386) 257-1186 ext 2352
Tech Support: (386) 492-8584
EtherealPRO.com

Funny (infuriating) story: One time I nearly knocked someone off of the hardtop of a large sportfishing yacht because the radar on the hardtop had a bug where it would start spinning up when you acknowledge the disclaimer messages on the control unit. It's only supposed to spin up when hitting the transmit button. So I contacted the manufacturer and they said, "oh yeah, we know all about that. We have a software fix on the way."

No tech bulletin, no email blast, nothing on their website. Meanwhile I could have killed that poor guy that was just trying to wash the hardtop. You never know what a technical issue with your product could cause.  So do what Brent does and get that info out there.

I value the kind of communication that you have provided. a great number of other brands make an effort to conceal their problems. Consequently, we are unable to go on with our plans, only to discover that the technical support team was aware of this problem but did not bother to warn its dealers.