RopieeeXL setup questions

Audio Gear Talk RoPieee
1

Just getting into the RPi/RopieeeXL world. So far, its been a good experience and I’m excited about what I can do with my new toy.

To this point, I’ve build my RPi 4 box using the Flirc case and got through the creation of the initial Ropieee card. I brought the RPi up on my network accessed the web UI, added XL and performed the OS update(s) (I’m now running on version 3.088) and started with using it as a RAAT endpoint (via a USB attached DAC). All of that went generally went fine. Next, I added Spotify connect support. That also went well and is working with a few small intermittent glitches that I am still chasing to see if I can find the pattern for recreating them.

My current question: I noticed on the Ropieee XL information tab that I have an older USB firmware level (000137ad). When I went to hit update, it threw out a message that basically said I could brick the box if I didn’t know what I was doing. Is the Ropieee firmware update function reliable/safe to use or should I be looking to use a different process? If different, can someone point me to some info on how to do the firmware update.

2

The Raspberry Pi 4 introduces onboard upgradeable firmware located on an EEPROM – previously this was all on the SD card. My guess is Ropieee uses rpi-eeprom-update which is also shipped with Raspberry Pi OS.

The possibility of bricking the Pi is a downside of upgradeable firmware. There is a bootloader recovery tool available on the Raspbberry Pi website.

3

Thanks, that helps. I’m just trying to figure out if people are using the Ropieee firmware update successfully and/or if its stable. The message spooked me that it wasn’t that stable of a function. I’m fine with fixing things if I break them but would rather that be the exception and not a common occurrence.

4

It has nothing to do with Ropieee being unstable, it just that updating the EEPROM comes with risk. However, the risk is the same whether you use Ropieee or Raspberry Pi OS.

5

Ok, went through the update and everything worked so no problems. Thanks for the comments and link!

1 Like
6

I really, really, reaaallly make that message a little bit less scary :wink: