SuzanneMonette

Hi Everyone,

Has anyone ever had the loca date on their Leica 500 go wonky. We went to set up a base station today to do some RTK work and though our two Leica 500s can see the satellites it won't lock on any of them; whereas our Leica 1200 will. We've noticed that the local date for the Leica 500s has somehow flipped to 1992 and nothing we've tried allows us to change it to the current date. We are using a current almanac and have tried everything in the manuals - including wiping and restarting the system -that we can but haven't found anything that describes this type of problem

If anyone has any ideas on how to fix this or has experienced this problem it would be great to hear from you!

Thanks

Sue

slcassociates

Hi, you're not alone. My receivers did exactly the same thing today. I managed to get someone into our offices and switch on the other receivers and guess what, yep, they all did exactly the same. Now we don't have any functioning System 500 receivers - Just great !! So I too would be very interested to find out how to resolve this issue so that I can resume work tomorrow. One lost day is enough.

RBGeomatics

I have also had the same problem using a set of System 500 recievers supplied by a client. I agree one day lost is one too many, any advice on a solution would be greatly appreciated.

SuzanneMonette

RBGeomatics - was your problem today too?

slcassociates - We're wondering if maybe it's a firmware issue? Something with this date in particular.

One day lost is a pain for sure. We were lucky though that it was today. We're on Sable Island off of Nova Scotia. It took us 3 weeks to find a weather window to fly out here and yesterday we had our first weather window to fly our LiDAR/Air Photo mission. We were the ground crew and have been doing transects for a week now. Lucky it worked yesterday as we needed that base station up and running for the LiDAR. If this had happened in the middle of the day yesterday we'd have lost our LiDAR survey and those things aren't cheap!

If anyone finds or knows a solution please do post it here.

Sue

RBGeomatics

Sue,

Yes the problem did only start today (16/08/09), my thoughts were also along the lines of a firmware glitch. The kit I am using is running ver. 4.20 on an SR530 setup.

Rob

krisby

It is a firmware issue, we've been onto Leica and apparently they are working on a new version. We have v.4.3 and same thing, seeing 16 satellites, connected to 8 but can't get lock as the units date is set to 31/12/1992.

Issue started at 12pm 16/8/2009 local time (NZ), so about midnight 16/8 GMT.

I would advise contact your Leica agent and they will be able to provide updated firmware when available.

MSURVltd

Hello,

We are still having problems with our system 500s. Rang Leica at 8 and they said they would get back to us but still no luck, guessing they must be inundated.

Have any of you had any joy from Leica?

SuzanneMonette

Wow - this is quite something. I suspect Leica is not having a good day today - as are many of us that can't do any surveys.

I sent Leica an e-mail but no response yet. Our sat phone isn't stable enough to let us get through but we're working on letting someone back in our main office know.

If anyone hears any word back from Leica it would be great to know.

Sue

slcassociates

Yep,second day without kit and I'm starting to get really p****d off. Tomorrow is my last day here on Fair Isle before I have to fly out. If they don't fix it before lunchtime tomorrow, I'm screwed.
I've neen ringing Leica UK every two hours today but they're not able to do anything as its Switzerland that's fixing the problem. Anyone know how many System 500 receivers were sold by Leica that now don't work ?

krisby

Nope, still nothing here either, but I'm not expecting anything until today anyway, at the earliest, or tomorrow more realistically, or even Friday.

I wouldn't get my hopes up people, I've dealt with Leica Tech support before, and they are not fast to resolve issues.

Also, we run 3 GS50s, 2 with V5.0 firmware and 1 with 4.3, all 3 are affected. I think its safe to assume all GS50s and similar products are effected, I would say it would be thousands of units causing a non elective survey stoppage, perhaps a good time to strike?

slcassociates

Simple fact, if they don't sort it out and I end up having to return to Fair Isle at my own expense, I will never buy another Leica product as long as I live.

krisby

Just bill them, and non payment will result in your above statement being enforced.

I've just found out that this also affects the SR20s as well. One of my clients has about 10 branches and I process their GPS data. They too are miffed they can't do any work at the moment.

We are about to set up our GS900 to see if that is affected also, as it seems to be more systems than Leica initially admitted.

Incidentally, what software do you people use to play dot to dot with? Anyone still using the old DOS SDRMAP or did you move on to 12D?

slcassociates

We use SCC by Atlas Computers in Ireland to process data and then final finishing is done in AutoCAD as always. Nothing is perfect but it beats the heck out of Leica's Liscad

Wildtronics

Spoken to Leica support. Only GPS 500 and GS/SR20 affected by the date going back to 31/12/1992. They assured me that they will have a new firmware version to sort this out by Wednesday.

slcassociates

Apparently, this roll over date is big issue. Its predictable with 16 bit systems, they run out of bytes to store the date. Someone must have known that this was going to happen and either forgot to tell us or chose not to, which is bordering on the negligent. I'm sure we'll see some pretty fancy compensation claims flying back and forth.

ERROsoft

Our SR530's jumped back to 01-01-1993 at 01:59 where timezone is set to GMT +2.
I 'm sure hoping for a quick solution. 6 GPS's not functioning.

WHWoods

I received a call today from our Leica rep and he said that all 500 series are useless until Leica develops a fix. This affects all 500 series worldwide. Bottom line is we all have expensive paperweights until the date situation is fixed by Leica. Sorry

krisby

Our agent here in NZ has said Leica are not expecting to have a firmware update before next week.

Our GS50s are totally useless, our clients that use SR/GS20s are intermittent, some can't get lock at all, some can get lock.

One guy went out surveying yesterday as he was not aware of the problem, obviously did not notice the date either, when I tried processing it this morning apparently he surveyed the farm on 2/1/1990.

I think the consensus could well be numerous compensation claims, its certainly costing us considerable work, and is quite an unbelievable story when I have to tell clients why I can't do any surveying until further notice.

Fortunately Trimble are going to loan us a comparable unit to trial on Friday.

N.Robinson

Just wasted two days reformatting and reloading the firmware but to no avail and now I find it's Leica's problem with the 500 series. I hope they come up with a fix soon.

geads

Thanks for this site , i thought i'm a lone user got into this... wooow what a pressure!! but thank God it's Leica's concern. Pls. keep us posted Guys.. i'll be 24/7 hoping for a solution. I hope a man from Leica will give their input and update on this site. MORE GPS POWER!!

Terragraphic

Hello from Georgia!!! As I see everyone has same problem so we hope Leica will fix this issue soon, but one thing I don’t understand is how could they missed that this going to happen, do this means that they don`t give a damn to their clients?

fastelder

Hello from Baltimore, MD!

I just sent a rather snarky comment on Leica's website blasting them not just for failing to catch this, but more importantly, NOT posting anything on their site. I can only imagine (and have read here) how many users spent the last few days, as we did, trying to figure out what THEY did wrong to their equipment. In support of this notion, this is the only site I found even mentioning this problem.

I don't think Leica treats their Sales reps any worse than their customers. They treat them with the same disregard! Why didn't Leica send out an emergency bulletin to them as soon as they found out? Most people I know had to have their reps track it down. I suppose it's our own fault for not upgrading every time they roll out a new product. Shame on us for trying to make a profit on older, still functioning equipement. From what I hear of Leica, we should be happy they're even dealing with the problem. My Rep told me initially that he would let me know when or IF they fix the issue!

We are a multi discipline surveying firm, so even with the economy tight, we have a bit of conventional work we can do, but my heart really goes out to those whose business depends on this and are now dead in the water. The fix is evidently due out Friday, but even if that happens, it will still take a while for this to filter down.

TOPODOC

Hello from Gimont, France.

Using 3 GPS 530 and waiting a response from leica france...
We just called them a few minutes ago : they say that Leica.ch was knowing the problem before it happened, but that leica france was not knowing that...
They also told us that we may have a new firmware on friday.
Wait and see !
Whatever, we cannot understand their way of doing; Every one is loosing a lot of money with that and they really have no commercial strategy for that !

WHWoods

I wonder if we could find an attorney to represent all 500 series owners in a class-action lawsuit? It is one thing if it were an honest mistake but it is my understanding that, with Leica's software programming expertise, they knew that it would happen.

JoeyQuickkey

Well I gather I am just one of oh so many who have been left in the same situation, amazing as it is, it definitely does not promote sales, my question is I wonder if Leice even bothered to let the sales reps know this was coming? Oh if only you could get a straight answer to that question.

fastelder

I do have official confirmation after talking to Leica as of an hour ago, that a patch is being tested, and pending testing it will be distibuted Friday. They may however, hold off until Monday to make sure it works beyond a new GPS week.

I will say the person I spoke with contacted me directly in response to my aforesaid "snarky" communication left on the contact page. He was very apologetic and understanding and certainly conveyed a personal interest the their main site is lacking IMHO.

So for now, we'll sit back, continue to grind our teeth and wait for the update. FWIW, they also found that the device would do this again in five years and have fixed that as well.

Clear skies, a good mask angle, and no canopy to all of you!

Cansurveyor

I just talked to a Leica Rep and confirmed they are testing a beta version of firmware now and he thinks it will be released later today or tomorrow. The sooner the better.

Zargetti

I have system 500 base stations and system 1200 rovers. I have gone from 5 systems to 2 systems (converted two 1200 rovers to base stations). So I am running 2 systems when I need 5. This doesnt affect just surveyors, it affects the clients who depend on us. Clients who are building pipelines or roads or buildings or whatever, that depend on us to set the stakes or asbuilt the pipeline so they can bury it, etc etc etc. If Leica did not know this was going to happen, they should have. Why dont they send out a firmware upgrade right this second and if it doesnt work next week, send one out again, the second they realize it didnt work. In the mean time, we are doing our jobs and keeping our clients happy and our stress level down to its normal stressed out stage. I hope Leica realizes that this isnt forcing us to upgrade our hardware with Leica, it is forcing us to upgrade to Topcon or Trimble. If this forces me to buy more equipment, it most certainly wont be Leica equipment I buy. Thanks for this site, without which there would be nothing for us to go on at all. I think the Leica reps are hiding in a hole somewhere.

Ockham

The same situation from Colombia. We were running six receivers Leica 500 for photogrammetric ground control and, I hope by now, all of them are "kaput".

After this, perhaps the best choice between Leica receivers is a non Leica receiver.

Thanks for all your messages.

julian

C.R.KENNEDY IN AUSTRALIA HAVE JUST RELEASE A PRELIMINARY FIX