For the past several months FlightBox has been shipping with a copy of Stratux v0.8r2. After several months of testing we’re happy to announce that an update to Stratux v1.0r1 is now available. 1.0 fixes a number of minor issues. Updates to the software include:
- Fixed erroneous ownship altitude values
- Fixed occasional crashes caused by malformed ADS-B data
- Enhanced logging / debugging tools
- Updated web interface with traffic distance / heading
- Added ownship traffic suppression (beta)
- Added tail number decoding for N and C registered aircraft
- Performance improvements
- Stability improvements
All together these make for a more stable and powerful system. The Stratux community has been using v1.0 since mid-July with no major issues reported. I’ve put about 20 flight hours and over 500 bench hours on the FlightBox 1.0 build with no complaints.
Please see the Update Tutorial page for a link to the update file and for installation instructions. (Or just use our new iOS app to install the update.)
As always, a big thank you to Chris Young and the Stratux community for all the work that went into 1.0!
Warning! Check the update file name!
When we launched the last update a few months ago we had a number of users complain that after installing the update their system stopped working – the dreaded “bricking”. To get everything back up and running they had to re-image the SD card (or send it in for us to re-image). It took a bit of digging but I finally figured out what was happening.
When you download the firmware file you wind up with something that looks like this:
update-stratux-flightbox-v0.8r2a-db130aab76.sh
If you happen to download it again, you wind up with this:
update-stratux-flightbox-v0.8r2a-db130aab76 (1).sh
It’s exactly the same file, but the download manager adds ” (1)” to the file name. The space you see between the end of the build ID and the open parenthesis is the culprit: it causes the installation to fail – and it also causes the delete command that should remove the .sh file from completing. So every time the system boots up it finds the update file, tries to apply it, fails, and reboots. Instant “bricked” system.
If you update manually (i.e. not using the new iOS app) be absolutely certain that the filename does not have a space in it. If it does, you will wind up bricking your system and will need to re-image, send your card in for update ($3), or order a new card from the web store ($13).
A fix that eliminates this potential pitfall will be included in (embrace the irony…) an upcoming update.