40-150 f2.8 bricked by EM1mkii

Photo Pete wrote:

Mark Thornton wrote:

I note that Panasonic bodies do perform the update from the SD card and will also update Olympus lenses in this way. So if you want to use the SD card approach, get a (cheap) Panasonic body.

Good to know.

Nikon also perform updates from SD cards. Not sure about other manufacturers as I've not used them... but I'd be interested to know if anyone other than Olympus uses the stupid approach that requires uninterrupted connectivity to the computer during the update process itself.

As a software developer, I'm surprised that it's even possible for this to happen.  What theyshould be doing, and what it appears like given the appearance of the update process, is:

1. Download update file from to PC
2. Verify checksum/signature of firmware file on PC
3. Copy update file to camera
4. Verify checksum/signature of firmware file on camera
5. Erase existing firmware
6. Apply new firmware from file

If this is how it worked, then the only failure case should be if power is removed after step 5 completes and before step 6 completes. If the initial download from the internet doesn't get a complete file, or the camera doesn't get a complete file from the PC, it is trivial to detect this. And certainly the camera shouldn't erase anything before it knows it has a valid update file.

Of course, I've never verified that these are in fact the steps that the Olympus update does take. But it certainly looks like it goes through a download, copy to camera, then flash step. Maybe they're not properly looking at signatures/checksums? This is fairly basic stuff, though. It shouldn't be hard to make it mostly bullet-proof (aside from potential loss of power to the camera).