gnomus

Thank you. Yes the repair bill was substantially reduced as a result of all the issues I'd had. I'm happy with the outcome as far as that is concerned. I'm just left with this slight uncertainty as to whether or not the thing will be working when I switch it on. Hopefully that will fade over time. :-)

Sorry for the delay in updating. The unit came back from E&M around 2 weeks ago and seems to have been working since. People might remember that during its last trip out E&M replaced two boards within the device, but that it came back with the same fault (no input signal). On this trip I was told that one of the boards that had been replaced had failed - presumably with the identical problem. Anyhow a(nother) new board was fitted. And so far, it seems to have been working well. (I was told that the unit consists of just the two boards plus the footswitches.) I should say that I did find the Line 6 support people quite helpful, and they did liaise with E&M about my issue. I don't know what failed on the old board (or on its replacement). But I'm happy that the unit is working again. I just hope that I haven't tempted fate by posting an update here!!!! Thanks all for the advice.

Interesting. The unit is currently back with E&M, so I cannot try this potential fix. On both occasions E&M have had the unit they have got it working again. But they would not, of course, play around with presets. We’ll see what, if anything, they come up with this time. If I get it back and it does it again, I’ll try this. I think that the Helix default is ‘Multi Input’, but I could try a similar process.

Thanks guys. I’ve already contacted Line 6 support, but no reply as yet. Unfortunately, the unit failed on Saturday. Monday is a holiday here in the UK, so I’ll contact E&M on Tuesday. I’ll keep you informed.

Another chap with a similar issue? https://line6.com/support/topic/50569-no-sound/

I thought folks might be amused to hear an update. The unit has been back to E&M. They had the unit another 2 weeks during which time they fitted a new PCB and DSP and did more soak testing. They sent it back to me and the unit lasted a little over 24 hours before the fault recurred. I had powered on and off maybe 3 times over that period. It either will or will not work after a power up. And once it has failed it seems to remain in the failed state no matter how many more power recycles I carry out. Most folk seem to have units that are reliable, My unit used to be reliable. But perhaps these boxes just have limited shelf lives.

Good idea datacommando. I've updated the original Line 6 Support ticket and will see what they have to say.

Thanks datacommando. It is a very odd problem (but I'm not the only one to have had it - for example https://line6.com/support/topic/27282-no-input-on-helix-lt-loses-all-sound/). I've never used E&M before. They seemed helpful enough on the telephone. Furthermore, as you say, the inspection fee would have come off any repair cost, but all that they did was do a factory reset - something I had already done. Sometimes with these electronics guys, one does get the impression that they start from an assumption that the problem is one of user-error. And I did get a slight feel of that on the phone - but perhaps I was just being a bit over-sensitive that day.

I’ve owned my Helix for a number of years and it has never given me any issues until I had the 3.01 update. I don’t know if the update is the cause of my problem - it could be entirely co-incidental. A couple of days after the update, I noticed that I was getting no sound out of the Helix. All my patches were there, I could connect to HX Edit and I could build new presets. But it seemed that there was no signal getting from my guitar into the Helix. I tried different leads (and different guitars) to no avail. I noted that when I put the unit into Tuner mode, that it was not receiving any signal either. I contacted Line 6 Support who suggested that I redo the firmware update using the updater software, rather than HX Edit. And lo and behold this worked. But, within a couple of days, it lost input again. Line 6 had already had me try different inputs like using a Return jack. But that didn’t work. I should also note that I did several resets. It seems that sometimes a reinstallation of firmware and a factory reset will bring it back online again, but this only lasts for a day or so. I’ve seen a couple of people report this problem before, but I don’t think I’ve seen it solved. One suggestion was that it might be a corrupted user preset. But, after the issue, I did not reload my old presets. I simply built a couple of new ones from scratch to test the unit. Line 6 eventually suggested that I sent the unit for servicing. I’m in the UK, so off it went to E&M in Milton Keynes. I had to pay a significant amount by way of an inspection fee. And, of course, it costs a chunk to send the unit. E&M had the unit for several days. I contacted them to check progress. I was told that they had done a factory reset and that the unit was functioning normally. I was a little sceptical since I had already performed a number of factory resets, but I was assured that the unit had been powered on and off several times and that no fault could be detected. I shipped the unit back. It worked for around 48 hours and now it is non-functional again, which is more than a little frustrating given that I am currently down the best part of £110. I assume that E&M will offer to take another look. But each return journey means £50 in shipping charges, so it won’t take too many trips for this to become uneconomic. So, before doing that, I thought I’d ask whether anyone here had any knowledge of this issue, or had any suggestions before I proceed. Thanks in anticipation of your assistance. Steve M