How can I resolve the firmware update failure for Parrot Minidrone?

I'm attempting to re-flash a parrot rolling spider drone using the Simulink support package for Parrot minidrones. The reflash fails after rebooting the drone. I'm using Matlab 2017b and the support package from the parrot minidrones hardware support webpage.

[Yanc Pan]

I have meet the same problem，have you slove the problem?

Answer 1

[Ankur Bose]

Hi Nicholas, What error are you observing while doing the setup? Can you post a snapshot or the error details? Some of the common reasons that firmware update might fail.

• The drone is not being detected back after reboot.
• Firmware update is failing

Workarounds:

• Disconnect the drone , restart it and start the setup process again.
• Try a different USB port and a different cable.

If these do not resolve your issues, let us know what error you are getting and we will help you out.

[Nicholas Notich]

Hi Ankur, attached below is a screenshot of the error we get when attempting the setup. We are doing this for a class project and have tried multiple drones, cables and PC's with the same outcome.

[Ankur Bose]

Hi Nicholas, Trying a different USB port should have resolved the issue. Please try updating the drone firmware to the latest Parrot shipped firmware. You can do this by following the steps in the below link.

https://community.parrot.com/t5/Rolling-Spider-Knowledge-Base/Software-Update-Process/ta-p/122999

If you are able to successfully update the firmware as mentioned in the above link, then you should be able to run our setup screens successfully. After you have followed the steps in the above link, start the setup screens. Try out a different USB port. In Update Firmware screen click on Write firmware. You can know the write was successful, when the LEDs blink YELLOW alternatively for 10-20 seconds. If that does not happen, then it means update most probably failed. In case of failure, disconnect the drone, reboot it and try again with a different port. Let me know if it helped in resolving your issues.

[Nicholas Notich]

Hello Ankur,

Our Parrot minidrone came installed with the latest shipped firmware so I could not update it. I attempted your setup screens with both of the other USB ports on my laptop and got the same hardware setup error both times.

[Nicholas Notich]

Ankur,

I was working on this again today and noted that the drone reboots and is successful with reconnecting to the computer. The error happens after the drone reboots and reconnects to the computer.

[Ankur Bose]

Hi Nicholas, I am trying to understand the issue you are facing. When the firmware for the Rolling Spider updates, the LEDs blink alternatively YELLOW for at least 15-20 seconds. If the update fails, in that case LEDs blink YELLOW just once before stabilizing to RED & GREEN. Successful firmware update takes at least 20-25 seconds while failure will be over 5 seconds. Which of these behaviors do you see ?

[V]

Hey Ankur,

I have the same issue. It is the latter behavior i.e. the LEDs blink YELLOW just once before stabilizing to RED & GREEN.

Observations:

1. Matlab copies rollingspider.edu.plf successfully to the root of the drone- approx. 11 MB file. However, when the drone reboots, it is unable to implement the firmware update.
2. It creates a debug file in the folder "root"\Debug\archive which is named debug_0.tar.gz - I dont know how to read its contents but feel that this file should possibly help us figure out the root of the problem. I've attached this file for you to checkout. (had to put in a zip since the forum does not allow for an attachment of this extension).

Note that my drone had shipped with old firmware and I upgraded to the most recent firmware for the drone successfully- v1.99.2 (using https://community.parrot.com/t5/Rolling-Spider-Knowledge-Base/Software-Update-Process/ta-p/122999).

On that firmware update I did see the LEDs blink alternatively YELLOW for at least 15-20 seconds.

Let me know what you think...

[Nikhil Tawakley]

Can anyone help with this? Matlab is not able to update the firmware...

[Jay Chuck]

I'm having the same issue with two refurbished Parrot Rolling Spiders bought from Amazon. Really need support's help on this.

[Ankur Bose]

Please see the answer by Ankur Bose on 29 January 2018 for resolution to the firmware update issue.

[Julio Cesar Martinez]

Hey Jay, regarding the refurbished Parrot Rolling Spiders I get the same error, but apparently it was only firewall restriction,just disable your firewall and works!

Answer 2

[Nikhil Tawakley]

Can anyone help with this? Matlab is not able to update the firmware as noted in V's post...

[Ankur Bose]

Please see the answer by Ankur Bose on 29 January 2018 below for resolution to the firmware update issue.

Answer 3

[Suze Zhang]

Hi Nicholas,

The following link gives several ways to update the software on Parrot Rolling Spider drone. There are steps on solving the update failure in this link as well:

https://community.parrot.com/t5/Rolling-Spider-Knowledge-Base/Software-Update-Process/ta-p/122999

[Ankur Bose]

I believe Nicholas is talking about flashing the drone during setup process of the support package. Please refer to my answer below.

Answer 4

[Jeremie Pilon]

Hi!

I am having the exact same problem. When I try to write the firmware via the hardware setup, it eventually fails. I have tried different cables and ports, but it still does not work. I have not been able to pass this point with two different rolling spider minidrones.

Please help!

Here are some additionnal tests I performed: I tried to use the hardware setup wizard after have updated the parrot rolling spider using the wifi method and the computer method suggested by parrot. I have tried the same thing after reinitializing the parrot (holding the power button for more than 10 seconds). Nothing works.

Matlab is never able to correctly install its firware onto the parrot.

Jérémie Pilon

[Srijith Vijay]

Hi Jeremie,

Could you log into the drone via telnet and check if there exists a version.txt file in the root directory?

1. Connect the drone over USB to the computer and wait till the drone LEDs stabilize to red and green
2. Open the command prompt and execute "telnet 192.168.2.1"
3. Once you have logged into the drone, execute command "ls" to list all the files and directories
4. Check if "version.txt" file exists

[Ankur Bose]

Please see the answer by Ankur Bose on 29 January 2018 below for resolution to the firmware update issue.

Answer 5

[Ankur Bose]

Hi All,

We have contacted Parrot regarding this issue and they have provided us a workaround to resolve this issue. The fix has already been published in R2017b in the support package version 17.2.3. Please upgrade your support package version to 17.2.3 in R2017b and perform the hardware setup for Parrot Rolling Spider once more.

If you do not wish to upgrade your support package, you can follow the below steps to resolve this issue.

1. Connect the Parrot Rolling Spider drone to PC. Wait for the LEDs to stabilize to RED and GREEN.
2. If you are working in Windows PC, install RNDIS as mentioned in this link. Please note that drone has a timeout period of approx 60 seconds after which it automatically disconnects from PC. Hence please complete the RNDIS installation as fast as possible.
3. Open Windows command prompt. Execute the below command in the command prompt as shown in the snapshot.

telnet 192.168.2.1

If you get an error 'telnet' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file, you need to enable telnet in your Windows PC. Follow the instructions in this MATLAB answer to enable telnet in your PC.

If the command prompt displays the message Connecting to 192.168.2.1...... for a long time and then it fails, it might be that the drone has timed out or the RNDIS installation has not gone through.

Reconnect the drone and repeat Step 3. If you still get same error, you need to install RNDIS on the host computer again as mentioned in Step 2. Complete the RNDIS installation as fast as possible.

On successful execution of the command you should see a command prompt window as shown in the snapshot.

1. On the Delos prompt in the command window, execute the below command

echo "1.99.2" > /version.txt

This would create the missing version.txt in the root folder of the drone, that is required for the firmware update to be successful.

If you get any write permission error while executing this command, try rebooting the drone and repeat the above steps.

After successful execution of the above command, complete the hardware setup screens in MATLAB. They should go through without any issue.

Answer 6

[Jay Chuck]

Even with the new 17.2.3, it is still not going past the update firmware stage. It is going farther than previously but it still fails with this new error. Any guidance MATLAB guys?

[Ankur Bose]

Hi Jay,

The firmware for your Parrot Rolling Spider is successfully updated. However, in your case, the support package upgrade to version to 17.2.3 has not gone through properly. That is the reason you are getting this error.

You can try the below steps:

1. Restart MATLAB and restart your drone.
2. Perform hardware setup screens again .
3. If you get any similar error like above that says "unable to find message key", exit the hardware setup screens. Uninstall the currently installed support package. Clear the support package download folder.For Windows, the download folder is typically located at for ex- C:\Users\abose\Downloads\MathWorks\SupportPackages\

Clear the parrot support package installation folder (if it exists). The installation folder is typically located at for ex- C:\ProgramData\MATLAB\SupportPackages\R2017b\toolbox\target\supportpackages\parrot .

Delete the parrot folder in below location (if it exists). C:\ProgramData\MATLAB\SupportPackages\R2017b\resources\parrot

Open MATLAB and install the support package for Parrot Minidrone again. Restart your MATLAB once after installation and perform the hardware setup.

[Jay Chuck]

Ankur,

1. I can confirm that my firmware update now finished successfully. 2. I did a clean reinstall of MATLAB and the support package.

Thanks for your help on this.

J.

Answer 7

[Massimo Satler]

I am experiencing Bluetooth connection problem with my rolling spider. The Firmware update process was successfully done, then I tried to connect the rolling spider by BLE but it fails with the following error message "Unable to create a Bluetooth network interface. Ensure that relevant drivers are installed for the Bluetooth adapter and click Next to proceed." (More over the terminal shell used to launch matlab reports >> sh: 1: pand: not found )

Looking for a solution I found the instruction for the manual procedure but it recommends to use the "pand" command which is deprecated (if I am not wrong) on Ubuntu. How can I solve the problem?

Answer 8

[Massimo Satler]

I solve with: bt-network -c < minidrone MAC address > gn

[Ankur Bose]

I guess you are using Ubuntu 16.04 version or later. In these version's we do not yet have support for rolling spider. The 'pand' APIs have been deprecated after 14.04 LTS. The bt-network API is shaky and might not work for some cases.

If you have managed to get your drone connected using bt-network , then you also need to set the IP of the created interface so that you can deploy code from Simulink.

Hence after successful connection of the drone, do 'ifconfig'. You should see a network interface 'bnep0'. Set the IP of the this interface to 192.168.3.2

 sudo ifconfig bnep0 192.168.3.2 up

ping the drone to make sure the connection is successful.

ping -S 192.168.3.2 192.168.3.5