Octatrack MkII not booting

Johnson · 2023-11-25T00:51:15.310Z

Doesnt boot at all. Contacted Elektron Support and sent photos of the pins and they are all good. Test mode freezes. Have test a different power also.

Can anyone offer any assistance?

Next option is contact Australia distro service lines otherwise.

drive.google.com

PXL_20231119_005512547.TS.mp4

Google Drive file.

sezare56 · 2023-11-25T01:05:10.255Z

Sorry for you.
Tested without card ?

Johnson · 2023-11-25T01:18:29.264Z

yep. same results.

Johnson · 2024-01-29T10:52:49.762Z

This is happening again after getting to work after a firmware update. Last time I dont know how but it started working. Same result as the above video.

Have tried the following with and without the CF card inserted:

Booting - Blank screen
Test Mode - Hangs on "USB ULPI: " stage
Empty Reset - Blank Screen
MIDI Upgrade - see below

Running OS1.40B. Using the CF Card that came with the unit.

Have tried running the firmware update through Sysex and I get “CHKSUM ERROR” & “TRANSF ERROR”

This is a massive pain while I am trying to prepare for shows. Previously Elektron have not helped or given any guidance when I submitted a ticket which is very disappointing.

I have 2 questions:

What is the cause of this type of issue?
Can anyone offer any assistance/help?

Answers to questions asked:

Unit has not been damaged or abused
Ribbons connecting boards have been checked and were healthy
Card reader pins are all straight

infekted · 2024-01-29T11:03:29.417Z

Apart from the obvious suspicion that something went really bad with your machine I would try checking the internal connections (ribbons), coin battery and maybe checking the card reader for damage (bent pins). Not really convinced if the above will help but possibly worth trying to rule out the basics. Has the unit been dropped or physically abused (eg transportation etc)?

Johnson · 2024-01-29T11:09:17.495Z

Thanks for the reply.

Card reader pins are all good.
Ribbons I had checked recently and were good.

Re: Coin Battery. is there a watch battery or something in there?

There has been no damage or abuse to the unit.

shigginpit · 2024-01-29T11:30:44.675Z

You mentioned the included CF card, I’ve seen some posts regarding some of the factory CF cards having a problem which causes boot issues or other weirdness. I think this thread mentions several cases of it, maybe check there for a clue. You may have to read down a bit though, someone mentions the graphic image printed on some of the “known problematic” cards so you may be able to compare that against your own.

Anyone else had issues with the new Octacard CF card shipped with Octatrack? Octatrack

Hi all, I just purchased an Octatrack a few days ago and had a great few days of using it. It helps that I’ve had a Digitakt before but I really felt like I picked up the workflow quickly and had found a tool I wanted to make a lot of music with. This morning I turned it on and it immediately froze after the splash screen. Tried restarting it, unplugging all the cables (just midi and audio, USB was not connected) and eventually tried removing the CF card. It would then boot into demo mode and …

A checksum error (as a general statement aside from OT) usually has to do with the BIOS being corrupt or some other error in communication between cmos and bios, but in this case if I’m guessing it’s likely some indication of corrupt or incorrectly configured bios.

There’s no question that it shouldn’t be like that, but as to the reason? Can you try a different CF card? Maybe see if you can buy one secondhand or on Amazon with a return policy? Just don’t want you to spend a bunch of money trying things based on a hunch. Anyhow, see if that thread has anything useful, sorry though I probably don’t have any other guesses.

I did read that you previously tried it without the card and still had issues, I’m not ignoring that, just saying that since the problem went away and came back and the card is a common factor for you it might be worth looking into.

infekted · 2024-01-29T12:03:36.691Z

Johnson:

Re: Coin Battery. is there a watch battery or something in there?

I would imagine so. OT MkI definitely has it. It may actually cause what has been mentioned in the post above. It is a long shot though.