Bugs with 5.3.0 Firmware?

Hi all -
 
I updated to the 5.3.0 firmware about 2 weeks ago and since then had (2) strange issues.
 
1. After about a week with the new firmware, my Elk M1G in the afternoon for no reason rebooted itself.  I only knew this because I heard the main water shutoff valve do it's thing.  First I thought there was a water leak, but as there were no such alerts about it, when check the control logs, only I saw a notification that the CONTROL STARTED.
 
2. Last night I was woken up twice, 1:19am about a water alert for a SAW wireless transmitter and there was no water issue.  I already know the SAW transmitters are not compatible with my older GE receiver (M1XRF2G), but never had issues until now (it's been 5 years).  Then while investigating, the control rebooted itself.  Then at 3:52am, same thing, but from a water sensor downstairs.
 
At this point, I don't want to be woken up again for no reason, so I just downgraded the firmware back to 5.2.10 which was working fine.  I'll keep an eye on it and report back, but curious if anyone else has seen any issues?

I have had about six restarts since the upgrade to 5.3.0. Each time I lose the "on" status of my virtual outputs that are set. I also see no reason for the restarts...nothing special going on.
 
I have also reverted back to 5.2.10.

Thanks Daveh for this feedback!  I'm glad to know it's not just me! 

Hopefully ELK is monitoring this thread.  I'm assuming this will go over like a lead balloon since they have 5.3.0 as UL listed firmware.  Honestly, this is the first time I've seen buggy firmware from ELK for the main control in the whole time I've been using their product.

I started a thread elsewhere because I had 3 reboots.  Since that time I have had none.
 
I added a rule to send email on restart so I would be sure not to miss future reboots.
 
I never found any cause, and since it's not happening I just left the new version in.

The reboots themselves aren't so alarming (haha) to me, but it's the fact that it triggered the water alerts that is just unacceptable in my situation.  I don't have time for false positives.

I had a spontaneous reboot, I happened to be onsite when it occurred.

OK, so maybe I'm not going nuts. In the process of trying to get the control to send ascii text commands to a foscam camera, I went ahead and upgraded all device firmware prior to starting threads on here as well as the Elk forum. Since that time I had one notification of my garage motion being bypassed, which is part of a rule and occurred a couple of days ago. Tonight I had another incident of my garage door being bypassed and opened, which is part of an entry rule that is initiated by our key fobs. Now THAT is a real problem.
  Additionally when doing some rules programing after a reboot of the XEP and save on RP, I would get notice of differences on reconnection which I was writing off to me forgetting to save the changes, but now I'm not so sure.
 
So where can I get the older firmware to fall back on? I was unable to locate it on the elk site, and have since updated my computer leaving my old copies behind.
 
Edit: I was able to find 5.2.10 so hopefully the ghosts will be exorcised with the rollback.

blmxm said:

OK, so maybe I'm not going nuts. In the process of trying to get the control to send ascii text commands to a foscam camera, I went ahead and upgraded all device firmware prior to starting threads on here as well as the Elk forum. Since that time I had one notification of my garage motion being bypassed, which is part of a rule and occurred a couple of days ago. Tonight I had another incident of my garage door being bypassed and opened, which is part of an entry rule that is initiated by our key fobs. Now THAT is a real problem.
  Additionally when doing some rules programing after a reboot of the XEP and save on RP, I would get notice of differences on reconnection which I was writing off to me forgetting to save the changes, but now I'm not so sure.
 
So where can I get the older firmware to fall back on? I was unable to locate it on the elk site, and have since updated my computer leaving my old copies behind.

Click to expand...

 
You can download the older M1 firmware versions from the Elk download web page.  The 5.3.0 download file contains the previous versions of 5.x (e.g. 5.2.10).  The 4.6.8 download contains the earlier 4.6.x versions.

Thanks for the pointer. I was looking for a separate download for each version.

It would be nice if Elk made it more clear that the download file also contained previous versions.

I am also experiencing this same reboot problems with 5.3   Rebooted about once per day which caused all of my smoke to send a restore to my alarm company.   They weren't happy.   Reverted back to 5.2.10 and now everything is fine.
 
Will call Elk tech support monday.   I suggest everyone else here do the same.

As Elk always says in the large bolded words (not to mention almost every other security product I deal with) FIRMWARE UPDATES SHOULD ALWAYS BE DONE AS AN "AS NEEDED" BASIS.

Hi DEL -
 
Yes, I think we are all aware of this, but it's also expected that a fair amount of testing is completed before release.  For many users to see random resets of the controller, that's just bad and unacceptable.  I can understand their wording as it relates to "it might break some custom or special stuff you are doing, etc", but this is basic stuff (controller restart) affecting multiple installations amongst many people.  The other thing is the firmware updates also include new features and it's just unacceptable that if you need to deploy newer firmware to support such things, your controller is going to be randomly restarting, etc.  Obviously there's some bad coding in 5.3.0 that needs to get investigated/resolved.

Yes, however the testing cannot account for all and custom programming variables....how many people have the XT clapper beaming feature running on their monkey PC veriable controller? Unfortunately, until the cause is discovered, it is what it is. The system is most likely stable in a bootstrap or default configuration, but there may be a "normal" programming option that is causing what is being experienced.
 
Yes, complaining may be in order, but in the realm, it is what it is and we're not talking huge issues with SPAR's...no? If it was a completely bad firmware then everyone would be reporting the issue, not just the few here.
 
And I know I'm playing devil's advocate here, but I deal with this stuff on much larger systems and components on a daily basis....and we have items that when reported to tech or engineers illicit the response of "first we've heard of this"

And when dealing with any other issue with them one of the first questions / requests are, "are you running the latest firmware." I experienced my issues with a very basic setup (anything interfaced is through a standard ELK product and their firmware.) and it was no big deal for me to roll back the firmware. Additionally on any update I pay attention to the systems stability for a period thereafter. More than anything a heads up to others and elk 'cause the garage bypassing and opening itself just isn't cool....
Brad, Amy and everyone I have worked with have always been very helpful and gone the extra mile. While it may be only a handful reporting issues here, and on elk's board, it starts the process of getting things addressed. I have had no further issues since rolling back the firmware, and you can bet that without changes, that's where I'll stay.