Bricked 1s?

[Dean White]

Hi there,

I fear I have a bricked 1s.

I connected my 1s to may MacBook pro in order to update a command (mute). Synced OK as far as I could tell. 

After that the 1s sends no commands to any devices: I just get a red ring on the control pad. 

I completely deleted the device and tried to start from scratch: same result. 

None of the devices are receiving any commands when I test from the remote OR when I test from within the app (using the "test device" function within the wizard: Devices "Edit Activity"). 

The red ring concerns me as it reminds me of the Red Ring Of Death from xbox days. 

Is there a "Master Reset" option anywhere? It seems the 1S is not sending any commands of any type. 

Thank you

Dean W

 

[clcorbin]

I think we are in the same boat.  I upgraded mine today (from 4.12.19) with a forced update as it wouldn't update on it's own, due to this thing sucking batteries dead VERY quickly.  

The procedure to force a firmware update worked, it said said all was well and everything was synced.  I disconnected the remote and TRIED to turn off my TV.  Fail.  Push "A", then try to turn off remote.  Fail.  Try every single button.  Fail to do ANYTHING.

So, reconnect remote and force it to sync again (Why does it only let me sync if it THINKS things are out of date???).  Still nothing.

I'm starting to think it is time to toss this in the trash and find something that actually works.  This thing has more bugs than Windows 11.0.0.0.0.0.0

[Dean White]

8 hours ago, clcorbin said:

I think we are in the same boat.  I upgraded mine today (from 4.12.19) with a forced update as it wouldn't update on it's own, due to this thing sucking batteries dead VERY quickly.  

The procedure to force a firmware update worked, it said said all was well and everything was synced.  I disconnected the remote and TRIED to turn off my TV.  Fail.  Push "A", then try to turn off remote.  Fail.  Try every single button.  Fail to do ANYTHING.

So, reconnect remote and force it to sync again (Why does it only let me sync if it THINKS things are out of date???).  Still nothing.

I'm starting to think it is time to toss this in the trash and find something that actually works.  This thing has more bugs than Windows 11.0.0.0.0.0.0

Sounds like it. Symptoms are the same. 

I received an initial response via email asking for current firmware details and circumstances leading up to the problem. I supplied those on 3 February: have heard nothing since, which indicates there may not be a straightforward solution.

I have a second Skip1s in another room that is working OK, but then I haven’t updated it for a long time. Think I’ll be leaving that one alone for the time being as I don’t trust the latest firmware. 
 

I see a sofabaton in my immediate future…..

[Ace0]

@jason can we get two things?

a) A pinned changelog thread. No one has time to read the entire forum to stay abreast of everything. Personally, I'd like to know when firmware key repeats actually work (the app already claims this functionality)

b) A (pinned or easily discoverable) page that lists how to force firmware updates. I'd like some confidence that if I flash bad firmware, there's a way to recover without ending up with an actual bricked device.

I realize it's challenging with limited resources but I think these would be minbar for customers to comfortably update and collaboratively iterate on versions without risk or too much of their own time investment.

[clcorbin]

5 hours ago, Ace0 said:

@jason can we get two things?

a) A pinned changelog thread. No one has time to read the entire forum to stay abreast of everything. Personally, I'd like to know when firmware key repeats actually work (the app already claims this functionality)

b) A (pinned or easily discoverable) page that lists how to force firmware updates. I'd like some confidence that if I flash bad firmware, there's a way to recover without ending up with an actual bricked device.

I realize it's challenging with limited resources but I think these would be minbar for customers to comfortably update and collaboratively iterate on versions without risk or too much of their own time investment.

And let's add a EASILY accessible firmware repository AND flashing software.  I've found several links to the software, but none of them allow access.  I wouldn't be so irritated if I could grab the old firmware's and keep trying them until I found one that worked ok.  As it is, I have a brick.

[Dean White]

+1 for all of these.
Given I haven’t received a response to my support enquiry or from flirc/jason here, at the very least some directions to precious firmware releases  and clear, non technical instructions for how to back-install them would be appreciated. At the moment I just have a dead 1s but I don’t even know if it’s the latest firmware update causing this. If I can install a previous firmware version I could at least recover to the point where it was working OK. 

[theboomr]

I have a maybe-bricked remote as well, but strangely I'm not sure it's actually anything in the newer updates that caused it. I hadn't touched the app on my PC or updated the remote's firmware in like, maybe a year almost? And then suddenly a couple weeks ago, the remote just stopped working normally after a battery change. The behavior I'm seeing isn't quite "nothing", but it seems totally messed up and can't send commands to my Chromecast with Google TV anymore, it keeps switching itself back to the other activity that controls my LG TV. So I tried updating my Skip app to the latest release candidate, plugged in the remote, updated to newest available firmware, still was acting the same way...so then I tried "factory resetting" it in the app, then reloading my saved configuration, still no dice...last thing I tried was re-building my config from scratch in case somehow the old configuration file was corrupted or something? But STILL, doing the exact same behavior.

I am also looking at Sofabaton now...which is honestly a huge bummer as I was really enthusiastic about this remote back when it launched, and for quite a while afterward. While I still have a lot of sympathy for Jason and the tiny FLIRC team working on this remote and probably feeling constantly overwhelmed for the last several years (and I had significantly fewer issues in most daily usage compared to others here), now my product seems to have spontaneously broken itself in some way, and it seems like forum responses from the team have dried up almost entirely lately, with just a few replies in the thread for the latest version of the app. So I'm probably gonna be forced to try something else.

[Dean White]

7 hours ago, theboomr said:

I have a maybe-bricked remote as well, but strangely I'm not sure it's actually anything in the newer updates that caused it. I hadn't touched the app on my PC or updated the remote's firmware in like, maybe a year almost? And then suddenly a couple weeks ago, the remote just stopped working normally after a battery change. The behavior I'm seeing isn't quite "nothing", but it seems totally messed up and can't send commands to my Chromecast with Google TV anymore, it keeps switching itself back to the other activity that controls my LG TV. So I tried updating my Skip app to the latest release candidate, plugged in the remote, updated to newest available firmware, still was acting the same way...so then I tried "factory resetting" it in the app, then reloading my saved configuration, still no dice...last thing I tried was re-building my config from scratch in case somehow the old configuration file was corrupted or something? But STILL, doing the exact same behavior.

I am also looking at Sofabaton now...which is honestly a huge bummer as I was really enthusiastic about this remote back when it launched, and for quite a while afterward. While I still have a lot of sympathy for Jason and the tiny FLIRC team working on this remote and probably feeling constantly overwhelmed for the last several years (and I had significantly fewer issues in most daily usage compared to others here), now my product seems to have spontaneously broken itself in some way, and it seems like forum responses from the team have dried up almost entirely lately, with just a few replies in the thread for the latest version of the app. So I'm probably gonna be forced to try something else.

I tried a sofabaton and while it’s promising there were a some commands that wouldn’t work with my STB (pretty much 80% of my use-case) so I sent it back to Amazon for refund.

The dumb thing is the 1s was working fine, until I tried to check if the mute button was formatted correctly as it wasn’t working. Of course I noticed the firmware update and updated and now the 1s doesn’t do anything. If only there was some way to reliably roll back to former firmware or maybe even factory reset to see if I  could at least have the previous functionality back but despite my sending the required information to flirc I have had no solutions.

it sounds very much like there is no solution: once that firmware is updated some 1s units are not recoverable. Disappointing: I will NOT make the mistake of changing anything on the other 1s I have as that one is still working fine.!

Edited March 11 by Dean White

[CartesianJohn]

On 3/11/2025 at 12:52 AM, theboomr said:

I have a maybe-bricked remote as well, but strangely I'm not sure it's actually anything in the newer updates that caused it. I hadn't touched the app on my PC or updated the remote's firmware in like, maybe a year almost? And then suddenly a couple weeks ago, the remote just stopped working normally after a battery change. The behavior I'm seeing isn't quite "nothing", but it seems totally messed up and can't send commands to my Chromecast with Google TV anymore, it keeps switching itself back to the other activity that controls my LG TV. So I tried updating my Skip app to the latest release candidate, plugged in the remote, updated to newest available firmware, still was acting the same way...so then I tried "factory resetting" it in the app, then reloading my saved configuration, still no dice...last thing I tried was re-building my config from scratch in case somehow the old configuration file was corrupted or something? But STILL, doing the exact same behavior.

I am also looking at Sofabaton now...which is honestly a huge bummer as I was really enthusiastic about this remote back when it launched, and for quite a while afterward. While I still have a lot of sympathy for Jason and the tiny FLIRC team working on this remote and probably feeling constantly overwhelmed for the last several years (and I had significantly fewer issues in most daily usage compared to others here), now my product seems to have spontaneously broken itself in some way, and it seems like forum responses from the team have dried up almost entirely lately, with just a few replies in the thread for the latest version of the app. So I'm probably gonna be forced to try something else.

I've just landed on a Skip 1s after a miserable time with Sofabaton. I've had 3 replacement Sofabaton U2's from Amazon in just over a year, and finally convinced them to give my my money back (zero support or response to warranty claims from Sofabaton, used to justify case for refund from Amazon). Functionality wise it was "ok", crappy app but worked ok once it was programmed. Hardware/build-quality seems to be terrible, all 3 gradually developed squishy/less responsive buttons over a few months and the scroll wheel on all 3 very quickly developed an issue where it'd just randomly jump around the device list instead of scrolling. I don't think I'm a particularly heavy user (evening TV viewing), but it's very evident that the buttons have a very limited "click-life" with the most used buttons becoming completely unusable within 2-3 months. :(

Edited March 13 by CartesianJohn

[jason]

On 3/11/2025 at 1:23 AM, Dean White said:

I tried a sofabaton and while it’s promising there were a some commands that wouldn’t work with my STB (pretty much 80% of my use-case) so I sent it back to Amazon for refund.

The dumb thing is the 1s was working fine, until I tried to check if the mute button was formatted correctly as it wasn’t working. Of course I noticed the firmware update and updated and now the 1s doesn’t do anything. If only there was some way to reliably roll back to former firmware or maybe even factory reset to see if I  could at least have the previous functionality back but despite my sending the required information to flirc I have had no solutions.

it sounds very much like there is no solution: once that firmware is updated some 1s units are not recoverable. Disappointing: I will NOT make the mistake of changing anything on the other 1s I have as that one is still working fine.!

No, it's not bricked. I don't understand why it wouldn't work. When you hit buttons on your remote, does the red light blink 3 times? I'm on my own now with support. Nate's no longer with me. 

Sorry for this falling off my plate. I'll help recovery. Can you guys let me know what GUI version you are on? There had been a point where an unreleased alpha would sync a broken config, but that was never officially released. Only if you had gone on to our nightly channel, or reselected the new alpha release. It lines up with these dates though.

[Dean White]

10 hours ago, jason said:

No, it's not bricked. I don't understand why it wouldn't work. When you hit buttons on your remote, does the red light blink 3 times? I'm on my own now with support. Nate's no longer with me. 

Sorry for this falling off my plate. I'll help recovery. Can you guys let me know what GUI version you are on? There had been a point where an unreleased alpha would sync a broken config, but that was never officially released. Only if you had gone on to our nightly channel, or reselected the new alpha release. It lines up with these dates though.

Thanks for your response.

Ok well this is most confusing. I tried logging in again to record the information you requested, but this time it (mostly) worked AFTER the most recent app update. 

There is one curious artefact though: where before I was just seeing the red ring for any instruction, now the process is:

When Powering ON
-Press power...see RED RING (solid, not blinking), no devices power on
-Red ring fades, press power again, all items power on as normal (with multicolour central ring).

When powering OFF
-Press power...see RED RING (solid, not blinking), no devices power off
-Red ring fades, press power again, all devices power off as normal. 

As with last time, this is unexpected behaviour, but at least I can now use the remote again. If I can just correct this new anomaly I'll be happy.  This new behaviour is reminiscent of the issue I had before, but at least now the remote is usable: before the red ring would appear no matter how many times I tried to power on. 

I have attached a youtube video showing the behaviour I am talking about.

https://youtube.com/shorts/DPt7fzP-f_4?feature=share

If by GUI version you mean SkipApp the version I am operating with now is Version 0.9.994.9494 (0.9.994.9494)
Firmware version 4.13.11-0-gd4238fe

Look forward to hearing from you as I suspect we are just...about...there.

Cheers

Dean W

Edited March 14 by Dean White

[jason]

I suspect it's because in your power toggle, there is nothing assigned to the off side. Just make sure you duplicate the functionality of the on side there, or populate it with what you need. 

 

 

[theboomr]

I'm only just now seeing your latest reply in here, @jason. Sorry to hear that Nate's no longer here, that's rough :( My remote has been sitting unused since my issues started happening and I haven't tried troubleshooting since my earlier post in this thread, just been using the native remotes for my devices in the meantime. Hopefully sometime this week I can take a look again in the evening after work; I'm still confused about my issues though since they suddenly started happening literally when nothing had changed except replacing the batteries.