Community: Message List - My POD HD500 malfunctioned after use with POD HD500 Edit.

Re: My POD HD500 malfunctioned after use with POD HD500 Edit. solved for while

support@line6.com — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 20:49:49 GMT

I managed to solve the problem, just holding two buttons."TAP footswitches" and "ENTER amp&fx on/off " buttons, he returned to the home screen with 1A: Son Of Plexi showing in LED POD HD500, but the engineers at Line 6 have to solve this problem with new FLASH i did the upgrade FLASH 1.22, and got the same problem, and i discovered that the problem is something related to the DSP,cuz i made a patch with the greatest effect possible to be with good sound synthesized, and when i turn on my FS2 and FS3 footswitches for example, it turns itself off the screen showing the LINE6 every 5 seconds, then again I did just holding two buttons."TAP footswitches" and "ENTER amp&fx on/off " buttons, he returned to the home screen with 1A: Son Of Plexi showing in LED POD HD500 solving the problem .. so, i have helped, i'm from Brazil my English is a little weak, but i hope you understand well

Eliezy Guittar

Re: My POD HD500 malfunctioned after use with POD HD500 Edit.

support@line6.com — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 16:19:53 GMT

Hey everyone! thanks for the feedback. Here's what i've got to say. Whatever Variax nonsense doesnt apply cos i dont use em or own em and the firmware instakll thingy doesnt work cos my POD HD500 doesnt get out of the "line 6" logo page even with me holding the right button down. So yeah, its eternally stuck i guess until that unit, which has been sent in for an exchange and is on the way to Line 6, gets one helluva beating (not literally... ) from those Line 6 wizards! im getting a replacement but itll come in like February... which kinda sucks but thats life. so anyway, i still love that POD HD500 but i aint ever gonna plug in my new one (when i get it) into my comp or anything at all. Just pure POD HD500. Thats that. Again a million thanks to you guys! Oh yeah The_Edge, I LOVE U2! as for you Line 6 fellas, I LOVE LINE 6! (seriously i do).

Re: My POD HD500 malfunctioned after use with POD HD500 Edit.

support@line6.com — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 21:25:14 GMT

Lol, does the name give away that im a fan? I should say that apart from the bugs, the Pod is top notch at that price. Don't want to come across too negative.

Re: My POD HD500 malfunctioned after use with POD HD500 Edit.

support@line6.com — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 21:10:47 GMT

The_Edge wrote:

What I haven't been impressed with is Line 6 support. There might be a small number of cases but I haven't seen anyone say they have had good tech support.

This forum is great for getting quick answers to questions, and it's tier 1. But should you have any problems where hardware is suspected in the future, I'd call Line6 support directly. Forget the web, use the phone. You'll get a direct line to the guys that would be answering the questions here, and they're really helpful and responsive.

Hope your unit continues to function well and please, if U2 comes anywhere near my town again, stop in and see me.

Re: My POD HD500 malfunctioned after use with POD HD500 Edit.

support@line6.com — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 20:59:54 GMT

They closed the ticket before I had got a replacement. The firmware response was what my dealer told me Line 6 had told him when he called them. I have a replacement now, touch wood I haven't had the same problems, few glitches here and there but **** happens. I actually wasn't really angry when it went wrong, these things happen. What I haven't been impressed with is Line 6 support. There might be a small number of cases but I haven't seen anyone say they have had good tech support.

Re: My POD HD500 malfunctioned after use with POD HD500 Edit.

support@line6.com — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 11:43:38 GMT

The_Edge wrote:

That's not the case mate, they marked it as answered and closed the support ticket, so they are well aware of this and still haven't responded. Also the guy who dealt with my exchange called them and all he got was make sure your running current firmware. That's not misunderstanding, that's ignoring a problem.

I'm sure you are really frustrated with all this, as I'm sure I would be too.

essentially, the closing of your forum thread (it being marked as answered) doesn't signify that line 6 think your issue is fixed... but it means they have flagged that part of the troubleshooting complete. as for the support ticket... that part should really stay open as long as you have the issue... So I think you mentioned somewhere in the old forum thread: http://line6.com/community/thread/49741 that you'd already sent your pod back for repair... so if the ticket is closed, does that mean you've got it back and it's working?

I'm not really sure what they guy was on about with the firmware thing, was he your dealer who just needed to tick a few boxes on a return sheet before sending it to line 6?? that's all I can think of.

anyway all that aside, is your pod back and working now?

Re: My POD HD500 malfunctioned after use with POD HD500 Edit.

support@line6.com — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 10:48:00 GMT

I don't know if this is relevant to you or anyone else with this problem, but if you look back a day or so in this forum, another user experienced the same thing. He cured his own problem by unplugging his Variax VDI lead. This kind of makes sense as the Variax draws its power from the HD500 and therefore in his case at least, the guitar appears to have perhaps been drawing too much current/voltage to allow the HD500 to boot properly. Once booted the Variax could be reconnected. My initial thought is that perhaps the problem lies in the PSU rather than the HD500 itself. I sometimes see similar behaviour with computers that are three or four years old and the internal PSU is on the way out. A replacement PSU invariably cures the problem

I have seen my own Variax 700 prevent my X3 Live from booting now I come to remember and that was definitely a PSU issue and a lack of current - I did something really stupid to cause it: I was using my Digitech Harmony Man which has a 9v AC PSU also, but it only supplies something like 800mA and I simply mixed the two PSU cable ends up so no damage caused but the X3L needs the full 2000mA when a Variax is connected. Had I left it that way, the Digitech PSU would have overheated and burned out and maybe burned the house down too :-(

I haven't experienced the issue myself, but if I do I have a spare third party PSU which outputs 9v DC at up to 4A and this may prove or disprove the power supply as a possible cause

I believe Line 6 are aware of this issue as I see from other threads.

Tech support are not the design, software or hardware engineers. Their role is to support end users, resolve issues that can be resolved and where they can't immediately they need to try and reliably reproduce the issue based on the varied information supplied by end users. Once the problem has been verified, then a bug report can be submitted by Tech Support to the engineering team team for review and inclusion in a program of bug fixes. Tech Support can request that the bug is looked at and fixed urgently, but the final decision rests with the engineers.

Rowbi's outline of how the technical support guys see active threads is exactly 100% right, so it's important that if the original poster's question has not been answered, then the original poster needs to reply to the thread which then shows the question as still unanswered. Sometimes users don't come back within 48 hours and at that point the thread might be closed as answered or assumed answered by Tech Support

There do seem to be a few of you with this problem or something like it. The cause may or may not be the same in all cases. I suspect that there may be more than one root cause and whilst in itself identifying the causes doesn't necessarily immediately resolve the issue for users that are affected - (an exchange unit satisfies that immediate issue) the causes still need to be identified.

The numbers of users with this or similar issues does seem to be very small given the reports here against the numbers of units that must have been sold since 30 September. There may be one or two other users who have experienced similar and not reported it here. I wouldn't expect this apparent common issue to be very widespread to be honest, so if a unit develops this fault and is replaced I think it quite unlikely that users would see a repeat performance. However, that said it is important to find out what's actually causing the problem(s).

Nick

Re: My POD HD500 malfunctioned after use with POD HD500 Edit.

support@line6.com — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 06:23:51 GMT

That's not the case mate, they marked it as answered and closed the support ticket, so they are well aware of this and still haven't responded. Also the guy who dealt with my exchange called them and all he got was make sure your running current firmware. That's not misunderstanding, that's ignoring a problem.

Re: My POD HD500 malfunctioned after use with POD HD500 Edit.

support@line6.com — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 09:26:44 GMT

I couldn't agree more with The Edge. I have been using Line 6 gear from the first hour, I work in the music industry and certainly know how difficult things can be, ....but there is a certain pattern in the Line 6 culture that could well be damaging to their reputation in medium or long term. And with that I mean elements of slightly misleading or at least very unclear advertising, facts-avoiding manuals, how Line 6 responds to bugs and faults etc...

On the other hand I must admit that Line 6 still pulls the best products in terms of value for money out of their hats, they constantly come up with freebies for existing products in order to keep everybody happy and to be honest, I have never come across a company in this industry that handles returns and repairs like Line 6 does, they're superbly quick and even give you a courtesy call etc...

It's just this ever so slightly confusing mix of good and bad in the Line 6 culture that I don't understand, a bit Jekyll and Hyde.

Re: My POD HD500 malfunctioned after use with POD HD500 Edit.

support@line6.com — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 10:26:52 GMT

Okay, here is some help for the original poster as this thread is getting a bit off track... The OP said he wasn't sure how to install firmware, well line 6 has made a video showing you how to do it... How helpful :D http://line6.com/community/docs/DOC-2057 if that doesn't work, then the correct ways to get support straight away are to call line 6, or to contact your closest service center and arrange directly with them to service your pod. They will be able to advise you on the repair procedure, and lead times... Also they are not actually line 6, they are authorised service centres, but have to get all parts from line 6, so line 6 will obviously then have a record of what parts seem to be failing in their devices, and any that fail too often, will of course get looked into... To respond to no her comment from someone else... From what little I know, there are probably well over 1000 pod hd500 units sold so far, so if 6 have the same issue, that's only 0.6% fail rate, which is still good. I remember a few years ago, 33% of all Nokia phones were faulty within 1year... Those are the sort of figures that make you realise that when a few units fail, that doesn't mean the product is bad... After all, just take a look at the JtV website and see how much effort Rich Renken is putting into making sure the variax production runs are all good... That's what line 6 are like! I hope this info helps, and clears up some of the misunderstanding. Peace Rowbi