WB850F New Firmware 06/06/12

Intellistudio fails, but one would assume all you have to do is put all the files in the Samsung provided .zip at the root of the SDcard, and update. Has anyone tried this? This seems to be what Intellistudio tries to do, but only about half of the files actually gets extracted.

successfully upgraded the firmware by just copying all the files in the .zip to my sd card, switching off the camera and restarting it in playback mode. Firmware upgrade completed after which the camera turns off. Once i turned it on again it commenced with a seperate firmware upgrade for the gps (believe this addreses the battery issue). Feeling positive that all issues are now sorted out. Loving the camera btw. highly recommended, would love to know what dpreview thinks. Never owned a camera that did not receive a Gold award from them. Hopefully the streak continues.

ssshadow wrote:

Intellistudio fails, but one would assume all you have to do is put all the files in the Samsung provided .zip at the root of the SDcard, and update. Has anyone tried this? This seems to be what Intellistudio tries to do, but only about half of the files actually gets extracted.

Good to hear. I did the same thing, and it worked. The second update, for the GPS, had some issues since the update information was simply printed on top of the normal stuff you would see when the camera is turned on. It also took a longer time to finish than the first update.

In any case, here is hoping the battery issue is finally fixed.

JuanJ wrote:

successfully upgraded the firmware by just copying all the files in the .zip to my sd card, switching off the camera and restarting it in playback mode. Firmware upgrade completed after which the camera turns off. Once i turned it on again it commenced with a seperate firmware upgrade for the gps (believe this addreses the battery issue). Feeling positive that all issues are now sorted out. Loving the camera btw. highly recommended, would love to know what dpreview thinks. Never owned a camera that did not receive a Gold award from them. Hopefully the streak continues.

ssshadow wrote:

Intellistudio fails, but one would assume all you have to do is put all the files in the Samsung provided .zip at the root of the SDcard, and update. Has anyone tried this? This seems to be what Intellistudio tries to do, but only about half of the files actually gets extracted.

I saw that bug in the second update, seems to only be artificial though. Still wish Samsung would be more specific with regards to what exactly their firmware updates fix. Release notes would be appreciated.

ssshadow wrote:

Good to hear. I did the same thing, and it worked. The second update, for the GPS, had some issues since the update information was simply printed on top of the normal stuff you would see when the camera is turned on. It also took a longer time to finish than the first update.

In any case, here is hoping the battery issue is finally fixed.

When I put the firmware update files in the root directory of the SD card and power up I don't see the update message. Instead, after a few seconds, I get two beeps and then two messages appear. The first message, in yellow text, is in the top left quadrant of the camera display and it says "Script command ng" . The second message is in blue text and is in the lower left corner of the display and it says "[NG] Production Mode Fail".

The camera appears to work OK except for these persistent messages on the display. If I delete all the firmware update files from the SD card, the messages disappear from the camera display and the camera continues to function on the old firmware, v 20406d (I checked the version with Intelli-Studio). I have tried two different SD cards and downloaded the firmware update (v 20526) from two different Samsung sites with the same result. The files that I unzip (without error) are: FWUP, partialImage.o.map, WB850-FW-SR-205256.bin, wb850f_adj.txt. There is also a folder GPS_FW which contains the files: BASEBAND_FW_Flash.mbin, BASEBAND_FW_Ram.mbin, Config.BIN, flashBurner.mbin.

Any attempt to update using Intelli-Studio fails with an error message about being unable to unzip some files.

Any thoughts or ideas? I've only had the camera 2 days so I can still take it back to where I purchased it. But i would like to be sure I am doing the manual update correctly.

Thanks

Hi Brian,

I don't get any errors when I unzip the files. I have downloaded them from the US site, the Canadian site and the UK site and all produce the same result. The error messages suggest to me that the camera is complaining that one of the script files is no good. Not sure which one though.

I've been reading about some of these WB850F cameras having issues with the battery running down when the camera is turned off. Have you had any experience with that?

Ross

rawj wrote:

When I put the firmware update files in the root directory of the SD card and power up I don't see the update message. Instead, after a few seconds, I get two beeps and then two messages appear. The first message, in yellow text, is in the top left quadrant of the camera display and it says "Script command ng" . The second message is in blue text and is in the lower left corner of the display and it says "[NG] Production Mode Fail".

The camera appears to work OK except for these persistent messages on the display. If I delete all the firmware update files from the SD card, the messages disappear from the camera display and the camera continues to function on the old firmware, v 20406d (I checked the version with Intelli-Studio). I have tried two different SD cards and downloaded the firmware update (v 20526) from two different Samsung sites with the same result. The files that I unzip (without error) are: FWUP, partialImage.o.map, WB850-FW-SR-205256.bin, wb850f_adj.txt. There is also a folder GPS_FW which contains the files: BASEBAND_FW_Flash.mbin, BASEBAND_FW_Ram.mbin, Config.BIN, flashBurner.mbin.

Any attempt to update using Intelli-Studio fails with an error message about being unable to unzip some files.

Any thoughts or ideas? I've only had the camera 2 days so I can still take it back to where I purchased it. But i would like to be sure I am doing the manual update correctly.

Thanks

Very strange, the same thing happened when intellistudio failed to unzip, and when some of the files were missing.

The MD5 checksum of the .zip I downloaded, which works, is 85642cab04ebf773fdccfce4715e6fa0, although if there was some kind of data corruption going on you would probably get some errors during extraction.

Intellistudio only extracts the first part of the firmware update, and not the GPS related stuff (which acts like a completely separate update, executed after the first one). This is why it gives a generic "failed to unzip", and why the camera will show the script errors when everything is prepared by this program. I personally fixed it by not using Intellistudio, and manually copy the files from the .zip. An updated version of this program does not seem to be available.

brianj wrote:

rawj wrote:

Hi Brian,

I don't get any errors when I unzip the files. I have downloaded them from the US site, the Canadian site and the UK site and all produce the same result. The error messages suggest to me that the camera is complaining that one of the script files is no good. Not sure which one though.

I've been reading about some of these WB850F cameras having issues with the battery running down when the camera is turned off. Have you had any experience with that?

I don't own one, I just thought the FW might be corrupt if intelli-studio is complaining. Do you have the latest version of Intelli-studio?

Brian

Yeah, I have the latest version of Intelli-Studio (it updated itself as soon as I loaded it). i may have to look at some of those update files. Three of the files are text files (scripts): FWUP, partialImage.o.map and wb850f_adj.txt.

FWUP just says "update all" so I think that it is fine.

wb850f_adj.txt looks like it is a sequencing script that calls other routines and cleans up after the upgrades are complete.

My guess is that there is something funny in the partialImage.o.map file which is 36.4 MBytes long! It is some kind of object file map and compiler script for the embedded ARM device that runs the WB850F. The header in that file identifies it as complied by Wind River DLD V5.6.0.0.

Oh well, I am too old to try and reverse engineer object code for ARM.

Ross

Interesting how the update seems to have been pulled off all the Samsung sites. Perhaps they are looking into the issues with Intellistudio. In that case, this could take a while. In the meantime, here is a mirror. I could successfully update with this file by extracting it to the root of the SD-card.

http://www.mediafire.com/?9arwr3d1mnbyvu1

Hey thanks for the file ssshadow.

I checked the Samsung US and Canadian sites and they still have the update on the site with a date of June 5, 2012. The UK site update seems to be missing though. Which site did you get your file from originally?

Thanks,

Ross

rawj wrote:

Hey thanks for the file ssshadow.

I checked the Samsung US and Canadian sites and they still have the update on the site with a date of June 5, 2012. The UK site update seems to be missing though. Which site did you get your file from originally?

Thanks,

Ross

The Swedish one. Although it seems to be back now.

ssshadow wrote:

rawj wrote:

Which site did you get your file from originally?

Thanks,

Ross

The Swedish one. Although it seems to be back now.

OK, I tried the update with the files that you sent and -hooray- they worked. I checked with Intelli-Studio and it says no update is necessary now, which must mean that I am at v 205256. I wonder why Samsung doesn't have a menu item to let you check your firmware version?

Anyway, thanks again ssshadow. I am liking this little camera very much. It was bought to replace my Panasonic DMC-ZS5, which I also liked very much, but it had poor low light performance and persistent white balance issues, specifically indoors, that I needed to correct. The WB850F with its fast lens (for a compact camera) and GPS tagging and WiFi and good low light performance looks like a real winner.

Cheers,

Ross

rawj wrote:

ssshadow wrote:

rawj wrote:

Which site did you get your file from originally?

Thanks,

Ross

The Swedish one. Although it seems to be back now.

OK, I tried the update with the files that you sent and -hooray- they worked. I checked with Intelli-Studio and it says no update is necessary now, which must mean that I am at v 205256. I wonder why Samsung doesn't have a menu item to let you check your firmware version?

Anyway, thanks again ssshadow. I am liking this little camera very much. It was bought to replace my Panasonic DMC-ZS5, which I also liked very much, but it had poor low light performance and persistent white balance issues, specifically indoors, that I needed to correct. The WB850F with its fast lens (for a compact camera) and GPS tagging and WiFi and good low light performance looks like a real winner.

Cheers,

Ross

The question that remains is if this update has fixed the battery issues or not. The camera has been turned off for a while now, and tomorrow I will start it and see if it actually turns on with a nearly full charge, or if it has completely drained the same way it would before.

Yet new FW 07/06/12 US site
As FW WB850_DSP_F205256 (06/06/12) - file PartialImage.o.map (Objet File)
http://www.samsung.com/us/support/owners/product/EC-WB850FBPBUS?
UK site = no firmware !!!!!
http://www.samsung.com/uk/support/model/EC-WB850FBPBGB-downloads

camomille wrote:

Yet new FW 07/06/12 US site
As FW WB850_DSP_F205256 (06/06/12) - file PartialImage.o.map (Objet File)
http://www.samsung.com/us/support/owners/product/EC-WB850FBPBUS?
UK site = no firmware !!!!!
http://www.samsung.com/uk/support/model/EC-WB850FBPBGB-downloads

Since the rest of the files are identical, the inclusion of PartialImage.o.map was probably a mistake. Also, the descrition of the 2012.06.07 update (at least on the Swedish site) states that they will soon also update Intelistudio to allow updating that way.

BTW, I can now confirm that the latest firmware, 205256, has fixed the battery problems.

ssshadow wrote:

BTW, I can now confirm that the latest firmware, 205256, has fixed the battery problems.

Well that is good news. I guess I should test this as well.

Ross