Lite On LVD-2002 Firmware 3.02 *NO MORE FUTURE FIRMWARE*WTF?

[wiggie]

People, I had exactly the same problem when tried to apply 301 beta on my 2002. I read that some people managed to do it before. But, I guess, they did it on a version older that 0229. So, as I think, 0229 migh have some implementation that wouldn't allow to update it at all.
Or, it doesn't accept firmware for 2001 anymore, and 2002 is messed up in the way that the player thinks it is for 2001.

Hey, I tried to use the 2001 firmwares (227, 301beta, 302) on the 2002, hoping that magic will happen. Unfortunately, I didn't have any luck, the same message pops up: "Cannot update firmware, current firmware is newer than update CD".

I emailed both Liteon in Taiwan and the US, so far I haven't got any definite answer to solve this problem! I'm telling ya, this player is NOT upgradable! I'm very pissed.

[fzero]

Those liteon ********, dont hold your breath on the email responses the chances of that happening are exactly 0%.

[wiggie]

Those liteon ********, dont hold your breath on the email responses the chances of that happening are exactly 0%.

Well, I just got a reply from the Taiwan division asking for my model's firmware version. But isn't it obvious my firmware is the latest version T2.29? I guess that's better than no response at all.

[boroda]

Interestingly enough, the LiteOn web site since yesterday has not been updated with any kind of a notice in regard to the non-working firmware. Knowing a bit about how the customer services around the world work, it's quite possible that the LiteOn's FW developers are not even aware that their latest FW is a total load of crap.

They probably tested the upgrade on a different in-house version of FW, and it's quite possible that last year they rushed the 2002 to the U.S. market with a broken version of FW, which is not upgradable at all (or upgradable only via a special trick). These guys seem to be working under a lot of pressure as they are coming out with a new product just about every week, so they could have thought they were all done with this one and moved on to some new projects...

Besides, the president of Taiwan has just survived an alleged assassination attempt, and those guys are having general elections this weekend, so chances are their minds are somewhere else at this moment. I doubt we will see any action from LiteOn before next week unless some major customer of theirs starts making very loud noises.

[fzero]

I dont care if their mothers died, I want my god damn firmware.

[boroda]

I dont care if their mothers died, I want my god damn formware.

I do too. That's why I called their Tech Support. If everyone who wants the firmware called the LiteOn Tech Support, and expressed their being pissed off, and asked for the customer service managers, and told them that their product sucks, maybe they would get their asses moving. Maybe.

[Goblin]

BTW, that is not the first time LiteOn releases a firmware which doesn't work.
I used to have their CD burner few years ago. Some users reported that either the firmware failed to update or it did and ruined the drive. I got off realy easy. Took me only a dozen restarts to bring my drive back to live.
Someone discovered a working firmware (obviously, never posted on the web-site). He set up a download web page but took it down the same day after LiteOn harrased him with a copyright lawsuit. I wasn't fortunate enough to d/l it, so I called tech support instead. Needless to say, they weren't even aware of the problem but promised to mail me a working version of the firmware. Few years later, I am still waiting for it, lol

That guy on the forum was kind enough to e-mail it to me.
LiteOn never posted a correct firmware, not to say they never posted a warning. Instead they abandoned support for the drive which wasn't even a year old. Sounds familiar, huh?

[fzero]

Yea so what youre saying is we are pretty much fucked?

[Goblin]

What I am saying is that their technical support is pretty much non-existent, and the best source to get any problem resolved turns out to be another fellow user like yourself
I hope this time it won't be a case, but I am not so sure now.

[wiggie]

SO is there ANYONE with a LVD-2002 who successfully flashed their player to 3.02? Please say so!

Another thing, my player is manufactured in Sept, 2003, with firmware 2.29 already installed. Does anybody know if there's a 2.27 for LVD-2002 before that?

[frit]

SO is there ANYONE with a LVD-2002 who successfully flashed their player to 3.02? Please say so!

O, how I wish I could...
But I am affraid to be just another lvd 2002 owner with same shit checking in, to share my frustration with all of you.
I've send my mails to them, but no answer so far.
I guess I will not be sorry if China invades them.

[junkmalle]

I have a 2002 with firmware version 2.29. The 3.02 update did not work for me. Same error as everyone else.

[dewte]

wiggie,

I have the same exact model as you, manufactured in Sept/03 with 2.29 firmware and I wasn't able to upgrade to 3.02. I already called & emailed the U.S. tech support (as per my previous post) with no replies, but I'll now give the Taiwan office a piece of my mind too....What did they say in their email reply to you besides asking you what firmware you had? Did they mention anything about fixing the 3.02FW?

[Goblin]

wiggie,

IWhat did they say in their email reply to you besides asking you what firmware you had? Did they mention anything about fixing the 3.02FW?

I won't be surprised if next time they will ask you if you actually burn the firmware on a disk

[wiggie]

wiggie,

I have the same exact model as you, manufactured in Sept/03 with 2.29 firmware and I wasn't able to upgrade to 3.02. I already called & emailed the U.S. tech support (as per my previous post) with no replies, but I'll now give the Taiwan office a piece of my mind too....What did they say in their email reply to you besides asking you what firmware you had? Did they mention anything about fixing the 3.02FW?

Well, they just asked for my firmware and model number, here's what they sent me, but it doesn't really matter, it's a bullshit reply:

________

Dear Sir,

Would you please check the F/W version information in setup menu and feedback for us .
Such as LVD-2001 Release V0.T2.29 , adn also player's model name.
Awaiting for your further information.
Thanks!

BR!

DC CS TEAM
________

[boroda]

Well, you are dealing with a typical Customer Service. Those are the guys who read the FAQs and try to make sense out of them. It's going to take them a few days/weeks/months before one of them is not embarrassed to send an email to the developers and tell them that there really seems to be a problem with the damn firmware. I just hope the stupid T2.29 really can be upgraded, and there is not some idiotic reason why it got itself somehow locked into some strange non-upgradable mode.

Let's think why could this "current newer than new" thing could be happening.

(1) It's possible that the upgrade manager in the player is actually checking the dates of the files we are trying to install. Now, there is no way to change the actual time/date in the player via a user interface as far as I know. So, if for some weird reason the clock in the player was set to way ahead of its time when the original firmware was installed, the new firmware has to be even "newer". If there was a way to log into the Linux system running in the player, we could either change the dates of the files, or find out what the dates are supposed to be on the firmware to load.

(2) Another possibility, albeit slim, is that the upgrade manager thinks for some reason that T2.29 >= T3.02. Maybe it tries to convert the whole string into integer, or it only uses the last portion of the release number. This wouldn't be too bad since in this case we might be able to simply change the version number in the flash.fuf to, say, T2.31, and this might just work.

(3) Basically, we may want to play with the settings in the flash.fuf and hopefully something would work. There is only 7 entries there:

  @Version   V0.T3.02    # Perhaps should be V0.T2.31
  @Date      2004-03-10  # Perhaps should be 03-10-2004 or 2008-03-10
  @Player    LVD-2002

  @Reset     0           # Perhaps should be something else
  @Settings  011
  @VendorID  0
  @Confirm   0          # Perhaps should be 1

That's pretty much all the ideas I've got so far. I don't have any CDRWs around and I am not in a mood to waste a bunch of CDRs for my experiments. Maybe someone would try some possibilities, and let us all know if one of them actually worked...

[Goblin]

Anyway, I've been playing with the FW for some time. There are some conclusions I came to:

1) You can't repatch 229 with the same FW
2) Wrong date is out of the question: I changed the attribute of 3.02 to 2099 (the latest year supported by Win XP). Didn't help. As someone explained to me, the bin roms have no files inside, the entire bin carries the programming information. So, whatever bin date is it is final, you can't change anything else inside.
3) It could be some lock inside of the FW. Some FW versions of KiSS player have had similar thing, but you couldn't downgrade unless you wanted to downgrade to a specific older version which the current FW didn't have restrictions against. In our case, that "lock" works in both ways. I am not really sure what checks what during the upgrade process: either it the older version checking the new one or the newest FW checking whatever has been previously installed. If it is latter, then I can assume that 3.02 has the same type of lock as 229. In that case, 3.02 code must be rewritten to remove this check instruction. If we have the first case, then, from my inderstanding, the source code for 3.02 should have an instruction to ignore a check from 229.

[boroda]

I remember in one previous thread a guy who upgraded his LVD-2002 to a version from a Japanese web site mentioned that all the "magic" happened in the FLUSH.FUF. Which is why I am pretty sure that there is some way the FLASH.FUF can be tweaked to force the firmware load. I just wish I knew how to tweak it. Maybe someone with more experience with this kind of a system could shed some light?

[wiggie]

(2) Another possibility, albeit slim, is that the upgrade manager thinks for some reason that T2.29 >= T3.02. Maybe it tries to convert the whole string into integer, or it only uses the last portion of the release number. This wouldn't be too bad since in this case we might be able to simply change the version number in the flash.fuf to, say, T2.31, and this might just work.

(3) Basically, we may want to play with the settings in the flash.fuf and hopefully something would work. There is only 7 entries there:

  @Version   V0.T3.02    # Perhaps should be V0.T2.31
  @Date      2004-03-10  # Perhaps should be 03-10-2004 or 2008-03-10
  @Player    LVD-2002

  @Reset     0           # Perhaps should be something else
  @Settings  011
  @VendorID  0
  @Confirm   0          # Perhaps should be 1

That's pretty much all the ideas I've got so far. I don't have any CDRWs around and I am not in a mood to waste a bunch of CDRs for my experiments. Maybe someone would try some possibilities, and let us all know if one of them actually worked...

Hi boroda,

I tried the same method!! But it didn't work.

[Goblin]

I discovered the web-site of that Japanese player. It looks exactly like 2002. Even the firmware is identical (filenames). However, there is no way for me to d/l it. It is in Japan and requires some sort of registration.
If any japanese speaker could help, that would be really nice of him/her.

Here is a link to the registration page. The player name is DVX-200.

https://direct.nagase.co.jp/scripts/dvdirect/dvd/hardwaremember.asp

[Goblin]

I tried the same method!! But it didn't work.

I second that. Tried different possible combinations, date change, version # etc to no avail.
Interesting, I even tried to remove flash.fuf from the image. CD didn't boot in the player. However, it doesn't prove that flash.fuf IS the magic file. It serves similarly to inf or bat files with a list of command or files to be executed. Therefore, it is quite possible that the problem is laying in a source code of the firmware files.
And it brings me back to the point I started

Unfortunately, I am not familiar with Linux programming but some knowledge of how progams work makes me conclude that we are pretty much f@#$% up at this point. I am still holding my breath, it is one of the rare times I wish I would be wrong

[Goblin]

News update:

Just got off the phone with a LiteOn support guy. He said that now they are aware of the poblem. There is a major bug in the firmware they are currently fixng. He said that the new one will be released next week.

Well, at least something.

[fzero]

Liteon's definition of next week = a few months. Just so everyone knows.

[EHG]

I sent the following email on 03/19/04 to LiteON's U.S. subsidiary at both the marketing: marketing_us@litonit.com and support departments: us_service@litonit.com. As of the time of this post there has been no response.

I certainly would not discourage anyone else having difficulties from also contacting them - perhaps it might help.
------------------------------------------------
Dear Sir,

I am sending the following email to your support personnel for obvious reasons. However because of the content I truly believe that it is and should be of concern to your marketing staff and therefore am making a copy available to your department. Whatever action or inaction you decide is appropriate is certainly up to you. I just suggest that you contemplate what I have endeavored to communicate which is substantially more then just a single upset customer over a single LiteOn product.

The following is a verbatim copy of the email sent to your support team at: service_us@litonit.com.

You have recently released a new firmware upgrade (v0.T3.02) to your LVD-2002 stand alone player but it will not upgrade from the previous
v0.T2.29.

The error message I am getting is "Cannot update firmware. Current firmware version is newer than Update CD". However this is not the case, since this is your newest and FINAL firmware release for the LVD-2002 as your website states:

http://www.liteonit.com/DC/english/download/2002.htm

I am not alone in experiencing this problem. By reading these 2 threads in the DVDRhelp.com forums you will see that there are many owners of the LVD-2002 that are unable to upgrade to this new firmware:

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=190398&start=280
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=211966&start=0

In addition you will also find disappointed customers who have the same problem with their 2002 LiteOn units complaining in the DivX Hardware forums at:

http://forums.divx.com/viewtopic.php?topic=57954&forum=21

Truthfully, I find myself incredulous that your company after a substantial delay would release a firmware update, apparently without testing it's viability and efficacy on a consumer version of the product it is suppose to upgrade. If they had done so they certainly would have been aware that this upgrade will not install or least will not install with the information made available to those attempting to do so and would have avoided alienating many customers.

In addition the abbreviated documentation as to this upgrade that is available on your site is anything but informative as to exactly what has been accomplished with the 3.02 firmware upgrade from the previous 0.2.29 firmware.

Having once been in the ACE (Advanced Consumer Electronics) business I fully understand how quickly one product is replaced with another. Nonetheless it is extremely disappointing to find out that you shall no longer support this product when it has been so recently promoted and sold in various retail outlets which carry LiteOn products. I purchased my LVD2002 less than 3 months ago from PC Club. Now I find out that should there be any updates to the various Codecs / Formats that the 2002 supports, no firmware updates will be made available, the only alternative would be to purchase a newer model.

That may be the case but I can assure you that since you apparently believe you can ignore your CUSTOMER BASE and simply discontinue supporting your products within so short a time frame, it will not be a LiteOn product that I replace my 2002 with. Needless to say that although I have been impressed with the quality and price of some of your optical drives I will not be foolish enough to purchase any LiteOn product in the future as long as you maintain this cavalier attitude towards those that purchase your product.

I believe if you take the time to read the comments in the various forums above you will find that is the overwhelming sentiment of what once could have been a secure and ultimately a financially rewarding customer base.

I would strongly suggest that you create some interaction between your Marketing Personnel and your Technical Support Teams. Perhaps they may both learn some lessons. Would it not be a wise thing to coordinate such things as firmware upgrades between your U.S. Company and the Parent Company? Comments in the forums indicated above by those that have contacted representatives in your U.S. operation, indicate that your U.S. subsidiary was not even aware of the firmware upgrade until they received complaints from customers!

Alienate enough customers, destroy any goodwill you have built up and you may find that regardless of price point or promotions you have shelf's of unsold products. Retail outlets do not want the aggravation nor the bother of hearing THEIR customers complaints and they certainly will not be willing to risk THEIR customers good will by carrying the product of any manufacturer that alienates the carefully cultivated goodwill of their customers.

In today's competitive electronic marketplace you have little time to learn your lessons LiteON for if you don't there shall be no such entity.

Recently I left an honest but for the most part GOOD review of the LVD2002 on the DivX Hardware forum to the point of chastising the DivX organization for certifying the inferior Polaroid product while claiming that they are attempting to have you pull the DivX certification from your obviously superior product (when compared to the Polaroid). In addition I also was going to recommend your product line to friends looking for a DivX capable home player. I no longer feel I am able to do so.

I would like to be advised when a FIXED version of v0.T3.02 firmware for the LVD-2002 will be available. Certainly should you change any of your policies about product support I would then be willing to reexamine my attitude towards LiteOn Products.

I wish you success in your companies endeavors and hope that you do not end up in the near future wondering what could have been, if you had done certain things differently.

Sincerely,
my name
my return email address

[Roundabout]

Here is the reply I received from LiteOn - as you can see, he didn't even bother to read the e-mail from his own staff, or he would have known that the problem was not me. I already answered with a not-too-friendly e-mail stating pretty much the same things that EHG said, that I have bought the last LiteOn product that I will be buying, forever.

I also told him I was insulted that he thought I couldn't figure out how to burn a NRG file.

Jesus, these people in tech support are morons. I don't even know where he got the idea that I burned the file improperly! You can also see that the US subsidiary of the company wasn't aware that there was even new firmware out at all!!!
Left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing...

Here's the e-mail, unedited except my name and personal info:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

From : <DCUS_Service@liteonit.com>
Sent : Friday, March 19, 2004 2:20 PM
To : xxxxxx@hotmail.com
CC : LoiQA@tech-mail.com
Subject : Re: SAI - Technical Issue: LVD-2002

| | | Inbox

Hi R,
In order to run this update you must have nero install. you cant just burn the file onto a cd.

Thank you for contacting Lite-On Tech Support. If you reply please include all previous emails.

Best Regards,
Eliseo Alvarez


Lite-On (USA) Tech Support, http://www.liteonamericas.com

This is the internal e-mail from Tammy in tech support to their people (apparently sent by mistake along with the response to me):

From<tsullivan@tech-mail.com> ToCUS_service@liteonit.com>
cc:
3/17/2004
Subject: SAI - Technical Issue:LVD-2002
11:32AM
DATE: 3/17/04 10:50:09
CONTACT:
PHONE: x
ADDRESS1:
ADDRESS2:
CITY:
STATE:
ZIP:
EMAIL: xxxxxx@hotmail.com
PRODUCT: LVD-2002
PART NO:
SERIAL:
SYSTEM MAKE:
SYSTEM MODEL:
OS:

PROBLEM CODE: CE4502

PROBLEM: Customer is trying to update the firmware and went to the litonit.com website and downloaded the latest update and when he tries to update gets a message that the current firmware version is newer than the one he is trying to install and then it spits out the cd. Customer is very upset!!!! He went to the forum and says several other users are very upset and are experiencing the same problem. They are mad that they just bought this unit and it is already discontinued. He said Liteon used to take better care of the customer than that and was wondering why?
--------------------------
RESOLUTION CODE: Update Firmware
RESOLUTION: I advised that I would have to esclate for further firmware information. The firmware he got is not available on the Liteonamericas.com website. I saw it on Liteonit.com and confirmed
that is the one he downloaded. Looking for information on this firmware update, is it new?

[wiggie]

I also told him I was insulted that he thought I couldn't figure out how to burn a NRG file.

Haha, I'm not surprised they gave you such a retarded answer! We probably know more than those part time tech support people. To Liteon, Eliseo Alvarez should be fired immediately!!

[valenz]

I try the followings firmwares On the LVD-2002

2001-02.29
2001-03.31
2001-03.32
2002-03.29
2002-03.32

The error message I am getting is the same "Cannot update firmware.
Current firmware version is newer than Update CD"

Iisonic II2002 Firmware for a clone one don't give the error but do not upgrade


You can find firmwares of the LVD 2002 and clones

* RANSGEAR DVX-200 Japanese clone of the lvd-2002
* Iisonic II2002 Another clone

In this french site

http://liteonteam.free.fr/pages/firmwares.php

Or if you prefer a translation to english
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/urltrurl?lp=fr_en&url=http%3A%2F%2Fliteonteam...es_lvd2002.php

[Heppa Filter123]

Guys, guys, I think you have been trying to install a firmware update intended for Europeon models. It won't install on a North American Lvd-2002 model.

The North American website providing firmware updates is here:

http://www.liteonit.com/DC/english/csd.htm

As you can see, the latest update available for North American machines is the firmware 229.

I sure don't have the same complaints as you all seem to.

My machine works perfectly on over 90% of my divx cd's.
I love it!
Anytime I get a divx3.X video file now, I convert it first, myself, to divx5.X /mp3audio -before burning it,.. and it works perfectly every time.

If you're having trouble with audio on old files, make sure you have 'pcm audio' enabled in the menu.

I am looking forward to the promised ogg support though (if it ever comes), although it's not really a big deal to me. I hate those files anyway, I don't know why people use them to rip, nothin but trouble imho.

[wiggie]

Iisonic II2002 Firmware for a clone one don't give the error but do not upgrade


You can find firmwares of the LVD 2002 and clones

* RANSGEAR DVX-200 Japanese clone of the lvd-2002
* Iisonic II2002 Another clone

In this french site

http://liteonteam.free.fr/pages/firmwares.php

Or if you prefer a translation to english
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/urltrurl?lp=fr_en&url=http%3A%2F%2Fliteonteam...es_lvd2002.php

Nice find, valenz! Do you know if the firmware is in English? If so, I'll try it!

UPDATE: OK IT WORKS!!! I burned the whole NRG with nero, track at once, finalize CD. I popped in the disk, the update will proceed as follows. "update cd" -> "reading" -> II SONIC 2002 screen -> "update", "flash" count from 000 to 100, "done"!!!! Thanks valenz for finding the site!

[Goblin]

Wiggie, I guess it did update, please see my post in another LiteOn topic in whcih I gave all the detailes.