SOLVED: Problems after changing battery

solo-act

Fractal Fanatic
Not sure if anyone can help but all hell seemed to break loose after changing the battery.

I replaced the energizer cr 2450 with the same battery as a proactive move (rig has worked flawlessly, no issues).
On power up, a few things happen
  • It powers up but when I rotate the value knob the unit restarts a couple times then goes blank with LEDs on and stays that way, like it's stuck in boot up phase.
  • If at this point I power down and power back up, it seems to be ok, and if I rotate left, it counts down from higher presets, seems to be ok
  • If at this point I use utility to restore user bank, it goes through the motions of restore, but when I attempt to rotate value knob, value knob freezes, screen goes blank and it stays blank. This time the input LEDs don't come on - nothing happens
  • No cables are connected at all, just the power cable
Any ideas?

I have a critical gig in 2 days. I gig for a living and have barely surviving the pandemic.
This is a critical situation for me.
I'll post more as I dive deeper into troubleshooting.
 
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are you certain it was the right battery and that it was seated properly? i might contact support for something this critical.
 
Since the issue seems to have started after replacing the battery, have you tried another battery? I’ve bought brand new Energizer batteries from Walmart, for my key fob and they stopped working within a week. They checked out fine with a volt meter but that’s a no load reading.

You mentioned you were being proactive, which would imply the original battery was fine. Try putting the original back in.
 
Since the issue seems to have started after replacing the battery, have you tried another battery? I’ve bought brand new Energizer batteries from Walmart, for my key fob and they stopped working within a week. They checked out fine with a volt meter but that’s a no load reading.

You mentioned you were being proactive, which would imply the original battery was fine. Try putting the original back in.
Yep - I replaced old battery with exact same battery, and when it acted up with the new battery, I put the old battery back in. Same problem. Very perplexing.

I’ll buy & try another energizer cr 2450, but it doesn’t look promising.

No clue what is going on. I powered it down, pulled all cables, pulled the cover, used a plastic wedge to carefully lift the battery enough to slide it out. Plugged in fan, put on cover, plugged only the power cable in.
 
I’ve always had a backup spare power supply and backup eeprom. I have those on hand if needed, but the unit has been a rock, absolutely reliable So I’ve never needed them.
 
Is it a Mark I or II?

Mark I/II: CR 2450
XL / XL+: CR 2032.
 
I'd check the ribbon cables like they said.

So there's a battery inside my AxeFx XL+? For what? How often does this need replacing? Sometimes my axe sits for weeks of not months at a time without use will the battery leak all that crusty grime like AA's do if they are left in for too long?
 
Mark Day replied to support email, and I did all the recommended ribbon cable checks, etc., in the advised sequence...no change
I did more troubleshooting and I might have tracked down the problem:
  • I think it was the System file. I backed it up before battery change.
  • After battery change, I loaded preset banks followed by system file.
  • In the chaos after battery change, troubleshooting, swapping batteries, etc., the loaded system file vanished, or maybe I hallucinated that I'd loaded it in the first place.
  • With my specific system file, the Axe-Fx froze on my presets (as if they were corrupt). Only factory default bank played well with the post-battery-change system file.
  • Once I loaded my system file from a backup, loaded my backed up preset banks, and powered down/up, it stopped freezing and behaved normally.
In my system file I slave the Axe-Fx to the clock of a rack mounted Metric Halo 3D mixing board/interface. For some reason my presets were incompatible with whatever the system file became right after the battery change, and all described problems ensued. The default presets were happy with that system file. For some reason mine were not, but once the accompanying system file was loaded, functionality returned.

Without the master-clock mixing board connected, the unit does the "no input clock" alert, which is normal. Once I switched that to "auto" (for standalone operation) everything was happy. And I'm sure it'll be happy once I connect the board set axe-fx to be clocked by it again.

I'll test & verify tomorrow, but at least there's one less thing to lose sleep over tonight.
 
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