kornea Posted October 30, 2021 Share Posted October 30, 2021 Hello, Today I bought a Helix Floor from a music shop that they had ordered for me. I plug it in and I see that the firmware installed is version... 2.30 !!! I can't believe it! 2.30... Seriously, Line6? A brand new thing ordered directly from Yamaha and delivered with a firmware that is what? 2 years old? 3 years old? no idea really! it's a bit too much... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rd2rk Posted October 30, 2021 Share Posted October 30, 2021 Odds are your music store ordered that (or it was shipped to them from) a distributor. No telling how long it's been on their shelves. 15 minutes is about how long it takes to update your Helix. IF YOU READ AND FOLLOW THE UPDATE INSTRUCTIONS! Failure to do so is the #1 cause of failed updates. Take a deep breath, perform the update and get to Rocking! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
datacommando Posted October 30, 2021 Share Posted October 30, 2021 On 10/30/2021 at 5:43 PM, kornea said: it's a bit too much... Really? It’s only software that needs to be updated - the hardware performs just the same. There are probably lots of things that you have bought that have been in a warehouse for quite a while. Your warranty is not affected. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waymda Posted October 30, 2021 Share Posted October 30, 2021 Send it back and insist in a fresh one - they go off after a few weeks as thewy made of highly perishable materials (cheese I think) - and the firmware it comes with is what you're stuck with forever. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruisinon2 Posted October 31, 2021 Share Posted October 31, 2021 9 hours ago, kornea said: Hello, Today I bought a Helix Floor from a music shop that they had ordered for me. I plug it in and I see that the firmware installed is version... 2.30 !!! I can't believe it! 2.30... Seriously, Line6? A brand new thing ordered directly from Yamaha and delivered with a firmware that is what? 2 years old? 3 years old? no idea really! it's a bit too much... Oh my God! I can't believe it! What a travesty! Line 6 clearly doesn't care about their customers! Whew! That felt good didn't it? Now allow me to introduce you to reality... no matter whom you're purchasing from, stuff can rot on shelves and in warehouses for extended periods before it ends up in the hands of a customer. Once a unit leaves the factory, it's in the hands of any one of a thousand middle-men, for indeterminate periods of time, before you open the box. That's how commerce works... for everything from your socks, to a Chevy. Exactly what do you propose that L6 or Yamaha do about that? Or you could quit looking for things to whine about, and take 11 minutes out of your busy schedule to update the friggjn' firmware... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PierM Posted October 31, 2021 Share Posted October 31, 2021 2.30 is from November 2017, but that has been valid until Feb 2018, when they released 2.50. This means your unit probably has been produced in between these dates, or even later (new firmware aren't instantly installed on new units), but since the helix floor is made of the same hardware as day one in 2015, doesn't matter anything for you, as I guess Yamaha doesn't store their stocks in a basement with wine and cheese, so 4 years or 4 weeks, makes no difference. Anyway, Line 6 won't read your complain over here, so if for you is a big deal, you should contact Yamaha directly, or your distributor/reseller. (Im sure you have already installed 3.11 and having fun with it) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anderton Posted October 31, 2021 Share Posted October 31, 2021 FWIW when I get a unit for review from any manufacturer, the first thing I do is check whether there are any hardware or software updates. Most of the time, there are. As background, the "just in time" inventory strategy is designed to keep inventory to a minimum and prevent capital from being tied up. This results in all inventory being recent. But the Achilles Heel is obvious - we're having worldwide shortages. If you can't get component X just in time, then you can't build unit Y just in time. A variation is to use JIT to keep excess inventory to a minimum. As PierM points out the Helix hardware remains valid, so it behooves Line 6 to take full advantage of economies of scale, build lots of Helixes, and keep inventory on hand, because they know they're going to sell them. So it's not excess inventory. Toyota stockpiles a supply of chips for the same reasons, which is why it's easier to buy a Toyota right now than other cars. Once something is packed up and in a warehouse, a company isn't going to take it off the shelf, unpack it, update it, then go through the whole packing and QC dance all over again. Anyway, I thought this might explain not just what's happening when you buy a Helix that's a couple years old, but why you can't buy some things at all. Probably boring as hell, right? :) I'll go back to playing with Helix now... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guitarnstuff Posted October 31, 2021 Share Posted October 31, 2021 That is horrible! I’m so sorry you’ve been triggered. Ship it to me and I’ll make sure that you never need to look at it again. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MGW-Alberta Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 The sky is falling. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kornea Posted November 1, 2021 Author Share Posted November 1, 2021 OK, OK... Super funny (really)! Thanks for explaining how a warehouse works during a manufacturing process, really, I learned a lot from it. Thank you also for confirming that there is no perishable material in a Helix (I had a doubt, moreover, I thought I had maybe bought it out of season)... Thank you also for advising me to upgrade, I wasn't sure... But a 4 years old firmware, I wasn't ready anyway! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
datacommando Posted November 1, 2021 Share Posted November 1, 2021 5 hours ago, kornea said: But a 4 years old firmware, I wasn't ready anyway! imagine the horror - if you had plugged it in and it was empty! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
superficialt Posted November 3, 2021 Share Posted November 3, 2021 Even though we might think of electronics being bombproof, things do expand/contract/bend due to thermal conditions causing soldered connections to work loose, and things corrode due to changing humidity etc. Obviously actually using the product increases the rate of those things, but there will be a certain amount of ageing. So, all other things being equal, I'd rather have a unit that was manufactured more recently. That said, it's probably a non-issue for 99% of units, and the Helix that's most useful is the one in front of you now. I'm definitely in the camp of "it doesn't matter", but I can see why it might bother some people. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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