Cobranet Firmware

Josh,

Can we include a decisive page dedicated to CN Firmware for our Products on the MM Website in future?(This of course may not be your issue, so forgive me, but this is a general enquiry).

Gerald, reading release notes the following are improvements from 2.9.12 to 2.9.16 in brief.

    Fixed two persistence related problems.
    Support Spansion and AMD flash memory devices.
    Fixed HMI interrupt timing for packet bridge receive.

Josh,

I find most of NION n3 are running with CM-1 2.9.12. They were ordered in 2008.
Does Peavey ship NION n3 to her clients with new firmware CM-1 2.9.16? Or clients need to upgrade Cobranet firmware to 2.9.16 by themselves?

In the past year, I find some scheduled messages sent by Q-Host are truncated in head sometimes when they are crossing VLANs. The current system consists of nine NION n3 with 3 clusters.

Here is the current (as of this writing) CobraNet Firmware revisions for each platform we support:

NION CM-1 rev 3: 2.9.16.3 (nion_2_9_16_3.bin)
NION CM-1 rev 4: 2.21.17.3 (nionp311_2_21_17_3.bin)
CAB 4n CM-1 rev 3: 2.9.11.2 (cab4n_2_9_11_2.bin)
CAB 4n CM-1 rev 4: 2.21.16.11 (cab4np311_2_21_16_11.bin)
CAB 4n CM-2: 2.11.6.4 (cab4n2_2_11_6_4.bin)
CAB 8i: 2.9.12 (cab8i_2_9_12.bin)
CAB 8o: 2.9.12 (cab8o_2_9_12.bin)
CAB 16d: 2.9.12 (cab16d_2_9_12.bin)
CAB 16i: 2.9.12 (cab16i_2_9_12.bin)
CAB 16o: 2.9.12 (cab16o_2_9_12.bin)
X-Bridge: 2.9.12 (xbridge_2_9_12.bin)
CobraNet DSP Card: 2.9.12 (cndsp_2_9_12.bin)
CobraNet DSP2 Card: 2.9.12 (dspcn2_2_9_12.bin)

These firmware versions are all available in a .zip file from the MediaMatrix website. You can get this file here:
http://mm.peavey.com/assets/software/Cu … 11_710.zip

As usual, it is a requirement to use CobraNet Discovery from Cirrus Logic to install these firmware updates into the CobraNet interfaces. We highly recommend downloading the latest version of CobraNet Discovery from the CobraNet web page: http://www.cobranet.info/. CobraNet Discovery should be used for these software updates with Advanced Features DISABLED to help insure that the wrong version of firmware does not get applied to the wrong hardware platform. If this were to inadvertently happen, the CobraNet module would require replacement as there is NO recovery option. The contents of the .zip file should be extracted and placed in the "firmware" directory under ...\Cirrus Logic\CobraNet Discovery\firmware.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks!
-Josh

Hi Phil,

That has to do with the hardware of the new card. Since this rev 4 card uses a different microprocessor on it (a significant upgrade from the old cards, I'm told) the code is completely different. Apparently the old cards all used the same platform so the firmware revisions would all work interchangably. Now, with a new microprocessor platform it is really a different card so they added that "p311" in the file name to let Disco know that it should use this file for the "rev 4" cards. You may note that when you install the latest version of Disco, the "database.ini" file in the firmware directory has been updated to include this new option.

Hi Phil, Cirrus Logic does have some release notes about what has changed between the various versions. Because there is proprietary information in these release notes that discusses specific details regarding the NIONs, we will not be publishing them. We have never published the release notes for CobraNet firmware updates in the past. Honestly, your next question is more to the point...

"Are you having a problem with CobraNet?" (Yes/No)
Yes = Update the firmware
No = Don't worry about it.

I have had a small handful of reports of issues from people who are using different versions of firmware on the same hardware. For example they are using NIONs and some NIONs have different versions of firmware than other NIONs. In all cases, once all the units were using the same version of firmware the issues were resolved. PLEASE NOTE: This does not mean that you have to use the same version of firmware for every device on the network, it just means that you should be using the same version for all similar devices.

The question "Are you having a problem with CobraNet?" can often be answered through the use of CobraNet Discovery (Disco) and monitoring the "errorCount" column. Remember, there are circumstances where errors will happen and the existence of any errors is not necessarily a bad thing. Understanding what errors are happening and why they are happening is always critical to maintaining a properly operating system.

Beat Flood errors while the system is just running? Very bad, must be fixed.
Beat Flood, Tx Dropout, or Rx Dropout errors when a unit is coming online and syncing to the network? Normal, no worries.

In short, if the "errorCount" column is constantly aggregating errors with no relief in sight, you've got a problem that needs to be fixed. If it clicks up an error or three when powering up or down a unit, that is normal. If it is aggregating errors, but does not have a role assigned and running in the NION, this is normal.