Betaflight-configurator: BFC 10.6 RC1 cannot flash in Chrome version, however ok in win32 version

[RipperDrone]

Win 10 x64, Chrome 77.0.3865.90 (Official Build) (64-Bit), BF versions tried: Nightly 9/27, 4.0.0, 4.0.6, 4.1.0RC5. FC: OMNINXT7

Sequence:

1. Install BFC 10.6RC1 Chrome install version
2. Connect USB (tried both with BOOT button pressed or not pressed)
3. Update Firmware - choose version
4. Load Firmware - Flash

Result: Contact bootloader - times out, doesn't start erasing / flashing.

Identical settings in win32 install version --> flashes no problem

[IvoFPV]

1655 This has been reported by several users now, however I can't reproduce it.

[RipperDrone]

@IvoFPV - yes just found the referenced issue and your reply. Hm, what else can I share as far as setup / hardware... to help you reproduce?

[RipperDrone]

The way I installed BFC in Chrome is:

1. Download + Unzip BFC Chrome version into a temporary directory
2. Start Chrome / Show extensions
3. Activate Developer Mode
4. Load app package from temporary directory
5. Launch BFC

Win10 x64 Build 1907

[IvoFPV]

I run windows build 1903. I will check on another PC with 1907. That's the only thing different from what you are describing here.

[RipperDrone]

sounds like timing issues with USB port? Configuring the FC is no problem, it only seems to happen when in DFU mode...?

I tried various UART speed settings 256000, 115k, 19.2k etc. - nope

[RipperDrone]

@IvoFPV - no need trying a different Win version - my memory served me bad. On the failing computer I have 1903 running like you. Seems rather related to serial protocoll drivers / timings ...

[IvoFPV]

Not sure... Do you put it into DFU before you click Flash Firmware? Or do you let it go into DFU itself?

[RipperDrone]

U mean by typing 'BL' in CLI or by pressing Boot button while connecting to USB? Tried both, doesn't matter. Neither letting itself go into DFU mode (which it does as per header info in BFC!)

[IvoFPV]

Never mind, just reproduced it. Definitely only Chrome app version doesn't work. Going to look into it more...

[RipperDrone]

Great, getting closer! :-) What made it reproducible on your computer?

[IvoFPV]

Seems to break here. @mikeller Any thoughts on this?
https://github.com/betaflight/betaflight-configurator/blob/074bb46f788e15a552a2267f433e3f21707c7f64/src/js/protocols/stm32usbdfu.js#L218

[mikeller]

@RipperDrone: You should be using the version that is recommended for your platform.

Closing this as a duplicate of #1655.

[RipperDrone]

@mikeller would love to, but now both are somewhat flawed:

• Chrome version cannot flash, but has clear, readible fonts
• win32 version can flash, but fonts are dithered / washed out sometimes / almost unreadible

Choose hell or devil! 🤔😅

[RipperDrone]

BTW: Can't see why it has been tagged as 'user error' if everything worked till BFC (Chrome version ) 10.5.1 and is broken from 10.6. Must be something in the code itself...?

[mikeller]

@RipperDrone:

win32 version can flash, but fonts are dithered / washed out sometimes / almost unreadible

This should be fixable. If a uninstall / reinstall of the app does not fix it then this normally means that the local application data is corrupted - try uninstalling the application, then deleting the C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\betaflight-configurator directory.

Chrome version cannot flash, but has clear, readible fonts

The problem with this is that running Chrome web apps outside of Chromebooks is living on borrowed time - Google has announced that they are dropping support for this about 2 years ago, and every new Chrome release could see them make this announcement a reality - so relying on this to keep working, or putting effort into making it work, seems to be a waste of time - sooner or later this will just stop working without any way around it.

[RipperDrone]

@mikeller makes sense, thank you for explaining. Is there another way to participate in Nightly code testing without having to build the app myself? This was the beauty of chrome versions, they are auto-built by Travis- full win32 builds are available at RC/release level only ... 🤔

[mikeller]

@RipperDrone: At the moment there isn't - the Chrome web app was a convenient way to do this, but it's entirely dependent on Google supporting this in Chrome.
One thing I want to look into is making it possible to provide pre-built nightlies for the configurator (and Blackbox log viewer), like we are doing for firmware.
One potential avenue to get this will be to leverage azure, which is work that was started in #1386 - but unfortunately I have not found the time to drive this to a point where it can be made available to all users.

[RipperDrone]

ok, I'll have to try btw the 2 options then. Here is the result from deleting the bfc directory you referred me and then reinstalling:

• still dithered fonts (see example below), gets even more blurry sometimes when resizing app window and/or moving BFC window on Win10 canvas. Never happens in Chrome version. Have tried different graphics card settings (Anti Aliasing etc.), clearView on/off - no luck.
• installation takes 5+ minutes (!). Seems to stall at 90%, then crawls to finishing line super-slowly. Could be my SSD (which is fast but all SSDs have access time limitations when a large number of small files is written to them). Seems there are more than 1,000 files written in the Win32 install...

Thus, unfortunately the easy-breezy part of trying and testing BFC on Win10 is over, things are getting a bit messy...

[mikeller]

@RipperDrone:

still dithered fonts

Not sure there is much we can do - this is something that comes from NW.js - we'll be looking into updating to a newer version after 10.6.0 has been released, hopefully this should fix it.

installation takes 5+ minutes

This is a known issue - the problem here is that the virus scanner is taking a very long time to analyse all of the 1000s of files that are copied during the current install. We'll look into installing the app in compressed form and see if this now works as it should, again, after 10.6.0 has been released.

[Docteh]

@RipperDrone download a build from https://nwjs.io/ and unzip it somewhere (Folder on the Desktop!) and then grab a ChromeOS zip from https://ci.betaflight.tech/job/BetaFlight_Configurator/ and unzip that into the same folder.

I'd try whatever is newest, but maybe the latest version has that USB issue. If that is the case, try https://dl.nwjs.io/v0.40.1/nwjs-sdk-v0.40.1-win-ia32.zip as that is the exact build I've been using occasionally. Just ignore the devtools :p

run nw.exe and see what happens.

Ask me if I forgot anything.

[RipperDrone]

@Docteh - good input, thanks. Results as follows:

step 1 - latest nwjs and bf chrome version dumped into same folder --> no success still:

[RipperDrone]

step 2 - nwjs extract from https://dl.nwjs.io/v0.40.1/nwjs-sdk-v0.40.1-win-ia32.zip, bf chrome version extract into same folder - invoke nw.exe

--> success!

So yes, seems js version dependent :-(

[RipperDrone]

Despite the USB flashing being successful, here is the catch: Dithered fonts (delayed screen updating?). Hope this video explains well what it looks like (when overlying the BFC app window with e.g. a progress bar, the fonts in BFC even start dancing / shivering permantently... :-)

Doesn't happen with BFC chromium install, though does happen with both win32 install and your new recommendation via nw.exe

Video:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1in94zpjIYu9tOUXHDo-GqLpKve8LZdlO

[RipperDrone]

One more insight: When the USB port is connected, the screen refresh seems to NOT happen at all, window content remains like this:

When USB is connected, it seems there is a refresh every 0.5-1 seconds, re-sharpening the fonts display. Strange... 🤔

[frozenskys]

@RipperDrone: At the moment there isn't - the Chrome web app was a convenient way to do this, but it's entirely dependent on Google supporting this in Chrome.
One thing I want to look into is making it possible to provide pre-built nightlies for the configurator (and Blackbox log viewer), like we are doing for firmware.
One potential avenue to get this will be to leverage azure, which is work that was started in #1386 - but unfortunately I have not found the time to drive this to a point where it can be made available to all users.

@mikeller I have a working version of this building the Mac and Windows builds in an azure pipeline and pushing them to github - is there anything I can do to help?

[mikeller]

@frozenskys: It's just a matter of sharing the link for the repository around then. If I remember correctly, your solution uses a dedicated repository to release the nightly binaries?

[jcutcher01]

I have been out of the hobby since BF 4.0.3. Today I installed Configurator 10.6.0-RC1 using the CHROMEOS installer for Chrome. I did this because I could not get the MacOS DMG installer to work. When trying to flash my DALRC722DUAL the board goes into DFU but after that nothing happens. I tried several times. In the past the ChromeOS version always worked flawlessly on my MAC.

My work-around for now is to flash with Configurator 10.5.1 native MacOS install.

[mikeller]

@jcutcher01: What version of MacOS are you using?

[jcutcher01]

I am running the latest... Mojave 10.14.6