Anomaly encountered when loading identical Profiles, into two different ALP systems.

I have two cars, Car 1 and Car 2.
Both cars have ALP systems installed in 2014. They are both Quints, with GPS and HiFi.
Both systems have:
CPU H/W version 2
Firmware version 5.2.1
Control Set Firmware version 5.3
Control Set Hardware version 2
Both systems were recently upgraded with the latest releases from ALP:
config.alp (containing Profiles A, B, C)
Uxxxxxxx.bin
ucsthifi.bin
voicepck.alp

Yesterday, after much reading and thought, I decided that I wanted the three Profiles to be exactly the same on each car's ALP system. I selected the specific settings for each of the three Profiles (A,B,C) on the ALP Configuration web page. I then Saved the Configuration, then loaded it on to an 8GB Verbatim flash drive, which had been formatted to FAT32. The flash drive had been successfully used in the past.

I then took the flash drive and loaded the new Configuration into Car 1's ALP system. I went through each Profile, A,B,C in order to verify that my setting selections on each of the three Profiles were exactly what I had selected. They were. I then loaded a Statistics and Use file, from the ALP system, on to another flash drive, in order to have a print out of exactly what is contained in each Profile. OK, so far.

I then took the exact same flash drive, which I had used to load the new Profiles into Car 1's ALP system, and loaded the Profiles into Car 2's ALP system. The load was "successful", as far as I could tell, until I went through the various settings on the three Profiles. I was greatly surprised to see quite a few differences between what was loaded on Car 1's ALP system, and what was loaded on Car 2's ALP system. I inserted the USB flash drive two more times in an effort to load the Configuration Profiles. I also printed out a Statistics and Use form for each system after the new Configuration Profiles, with the new settings, were loaded into the two ALP systems. The Statistics and Use printouts confirm that incorrect settings were loaded into Car 2's ALP system.

Some differences are:

Profile A:
Car 1 Pro Mode Enabled (Correct) Car 2 Pro Mode Disabled (Not Correct)
Car 1 LID Time Unlimited (Correct) Car 2 LID Time 5 seconds (Not Correct)
Car 1 Menu Button Short Press - None (Correct) Car 2 Menu Button Short Press - Parking (Not Correct)

Profle B:
Car 1 Silent Power Up Enabled (Correct) Car 2 Silent Power Up Disabled (Not Correct)
Car 1 Menu Button Short Press - None (Correct) Car 2 Menu Button Short Press - Parking (Not Correct)

Profile C:
Car 1 Audio Volume of Laser Alerts - 5 (Correct) Car 2 Audio Volume of Laser Alerts - 4 (Not Correct)
Car 1 Audio Volume of Radar Alerts - 5 (Correct) Car 2 Audio Volume of Radar Alerts - 4 (Not Correct)

There are a couple of settings, such as VoicePack Mode - Detailed, which are not shown on the Statistics and Use printouts, and, therefore, due to the incorrect settings that were loaded into Car 2's ALP system, I cannot be sure exactly what Mode I will hear alerts, until I can be tested again.

Once again, the exact same flash drive with three Profiles, A,B.C, was loaded into Car 1's ALP system, then taken and loaded into Car 2's ALP system. The results are that the settings on the three Profiles are correct for Car 1's ALP system, but there are some settings in Car 2's ALP system that are different from the Configuration Profiles Settings.

How can this happen? Does anyone have any thoughts about this situation?

I have not yet performed any in depth troubleshooting. I am going to load two different flash drives with my Configuration Profile Selections, and see if I can get the settings in Car 2 to be identical to the Configuration Profile Selections in Car 1, which are correct.

Question: "If" I am able to go into the ALP's manual settings mode, and I change a specific setting on, for example, Profile A, will that be the only Profile that will change, or will the setting also change on Profiles B and C?

I welcome any thoughts, information, advice, suggestions, etc.

Thanks in advance.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by modsl55amg

I have two cars, Car 1 and Car 2.
Both cars have ALP systems installed in 2014. They are both Quints, with GPS and HiFi.
Both systems have:
CPU H/W version 2
Firmware version 5.2.1
Control Set Firmware version 5.3
Control Set Hardware version 2
Both systems were recently upgraded with the latest releases from ALP:
config.alp (containing Profiles A, B, C)
Uxxxxxxx.bin
ucsthifi.bin
voicepck.alp

Yesterday, after much reading and thought, I decided that I wanted the three Profiles to be exactly the same on each car's ALP system. I selected the specific settings for each of the three Profiles (A,B,C) on the ALP Configuration web page. I then Saved the Configuration, then loaded it on to an 8GB Verbatim flash drive, which had been formatted to FAT32. The flash drive had been successfully used in the past.

I then took the flash drive and loaded the new Configuration into Car 1's ALP system. I went through each Profile, A,B,C in order to verify that my setting selections on each of the three Profiles were exactly what I had selected. They were. I then loaded a Statistics and Use file, from the ALP system, on to another flash drive, in order to have a print out of exactly what is contained in each Profile. OK, so far.

I then took the exact same flash drive, which I had used to load the new Profiles into Car 1's ALP system, and loaded the Profiles into Car 2's ALP system. The load was "successful", as far as I could tell, until I went through the various settings on the three Profiles. I was greatly surprised to see quite a few differences between what was loaded on Car 1's ALP system, and what was loaded on Car 2's ALP system. I inserted the USB flash drive two more times in an effort to load the Configuration Profiles. I also printed out a Statistics and Use form for each system after the new Configuration Profiles, with the new settings, were loaded into the two ALP systems. The Statistics and Use printouts confirm that incorrect settings were loaded into Car 2's ALP system.

Some differences are:

Profile A:
Car 1 Pro Mode Enabled (Correct) Car 2 Pro Mode Disabled (Not Correct)
Car 1 LID Time Unlimited (Correct) Car 2 LID Time 5 seconds (Not Correct)
Car 1 Menu Button Short Press - None (Correct) Car 2 Menu Button Short Press - Parking (Not Correct)

Profle B:
Car 1 Silent Power Up Enabled (Correct) Car 2 Silent Power Up Disabled (Not Correct)
Car 1 Menu Button Short Press - None (Correct) Car 2 Menu Button Short Press - Parking (Not Correct)

Profile C:
Car 1 Audio Volume of Laser Alerts - 5 (Correct) Car 2 Audio Volume of Laser Alerts - 4 (Not Correct)
Car 1 Audio Volume of Radar Alerts - 5 (Correct) Car 2 Audio Volume of Radar Alerts - 4 (Not Correct)

There are a couple of settings, such as VoicePack Mode - Detailed, which are not shown on the Statistics and Use printouts, and, therefore, due to the incorrect settings that were loaded into Car 2's ALP system, I cannot be sure exactly what Mode I will hear alerts, until I can be tested again.

Once again, the exact same flash drive with three Profiles, A,B.C, was loaded into Car 1's ALP system, then taken and loaded into Car 2's ALP system. The results are that the settings on the three Profiles are correct for Car 1's ALP system, but there are some settings in Car 2's ALP system that are different from the Configuration Profiles Settings.

How can this happen? Does anyone have any thoughts about this situation?

I have not yet performed any in depth troubleshooting. I am going to load two different flash drives with my Configuration Profile Selections, and see if I can get the settings in Car 2 to be identical to the Configuration Profile Selections in Car 1, which are correct.

Question: "If" I am able to go into the ALP's manual settings mode, and I change a specific setting on, for example, Profile A, will that be the only Profile that will change, or will the setting also change on Profiles B and C?

I welcome any thoughts, information, advice, suggestions, etc.

Thanks in advance.

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You pulled a statistics file which creates a new Stats & Config file on the drive with the current settings. If you want to load the same config file just create a config file and load it on each system without doing anything else and reboot each system after the load.

I thought it writes out a separate STATS.ALP file now when you pull statistics? Does it overwrite the CONFIG.ALP as well? Even if it did, shouldn't the overwritten file contain the same settings (assuming you didn't change any settings manually on the unit)?

Anyway, I would try what BRD suggested. Copy a fresh config.alp to your USB and then put it into each unit without doing anything else, then check the settings afterward.

I'll try on mine later. I'll pull statistics onto an empty USB drive and see if it writes out a config.alp as well, and then compare to my original.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by radargeek

I thought it writes out a separate STATS.ALP file now when you pull statistics? Does it overwrite the CONFIG.ALP as well? Even if it did, shouldn't the overwritten file contain the same settings (assuming you didn't change any settings manually on the unit)?

Anyway, I would try what BRD suggested. Copy a fresh config.alp to your USB and then put it into each unit without doing anything else, then check the settings afterward.

I'll try on mine later. I'll pull statistics onto an empty USB drive and see if it writes out a config.alp as well, and then compare to my original.

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It writes both a Stats file and a Config file so we can get the Stats and also a copy of the loaded config file if needed for support.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BestRadarDetectors

You pulled a statistics file which creates a new Stats & Config file on the drive with the current settings. If you want to load the same config file just create a config file and load it on each system without doing anything else and reboot each system after the load.

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BRD: What you have suggested that I do, is exactly what I did.
A properly formatted USB flash drive contained only the three new Profiles.
I inserted the flash drive into system of car 1, loaded the system, turned system off, then turned system on. All OK on that system.
I then inserted the exact same flash drive into car 2, a few minutes later, loaded the system, turned system off, then turned system on. Anomalies existed.
I then took another properly formatted flash drive and downloaded a Statistics and Use file from Car 1's system. All settings correct, per printout.
I then formatted that flash drive and downloaded a Statistics and Use file from Car 2's system. Anomalies were shown on the printout.
I compared the printout from Car 2, to the printout from Car 1, and from the printouts of the three Configuration Profiles that I had originally generated.
Printout from Car 1 was identical to printouts of the three original Profiles I selected.
Printout from Car 2 had anomalies from printout of Car 1 and the printout of the three original Profiles I selected.
Even without the printout from Car 2's system, I could see that there were discrepencies between the Profiles I generated and what was in Car 2's system.

BRD, I have not yet done so, but, if I manually change a setting in a particular Profile, say Profile A, does the manually changed setting only pertain to Profile A, or will the manual change also affect the same setting in Profile B and Profile C?

Thanks!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by radargeek

I thought it writes out a separate STATS.ALP file now when you pull statistics? Does it overwrite the CONFIG.ALP as well? Even if it did, shouldn't the overwritten file contain the same settings (assuming you didn't change any settings manually on the unit)?

Anyway, I would try what BRD suggested. Copy a fresh config.alp to your USB and then put it into each unit without doing anything else, then check the settings afterward.

I'll try on mine later. I'll pull statistics onto an empty USB drive and see if it writes out a config.alp as well, and then compare to my original.

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radargeek: Please take a look at my reply, above, to BRD. It may better explain the exact steps I took in performing the loading of new Profiles into the two ALP systems, as well as what I did to obtain a Statistics and Use printout for both systems after the new Profiles were loaded.

I have not manually reconfigured either one of the two ALP systems.

From what I remember seeing on my laptop after inserting the flash drive with the Statistics and Use files on it, which were obtained after I had loaded both systems, there were two files: a Statistics file which contained the three Profiles, the Device Information, and the Alerts by Source information. I printed this file out for each car.

The second file that was automatically loaded onto the flash drive was a Configuration file, which only contained the three Profiles, but no Alerts by Source information.

I used the exact same flash drive, which contained the three new Profiles, to load the systems on both cars, Car 1 first, then, a few minutes later, Car 2. Nothing else was/is on that flash drive. The flash drive I used to obtain the Statistics and Use information from the ALP system in each car was a different flash drive. I still have the flash drive with the original three new Profiles still on it. Nothing else has been placed on that flash drive.

I think I am going to generate a new file, containing the exact same Profiles and settings on another properly formatted flash drive. I will duplicate the exact settings and Profiles that I have on Car 1. I will download it into ALP system on Car 2, and see if the system correctly accepts all of the settings in all three Profiles. I'll write and advise what takes place after the load is complete.

Thanks for your reply!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by modsl55amg

BRD: What you have suggested that I do, is exactly what I did.
A properly formatted USB flash drive contained only the three new Profiles.
I inserted the flash drive into system of car 1, loaded the system, turned system off, then turned system on. All OK on that system.
I then inserted the exact same flash drive into car 2, a few minutes later, loaded the system, turned system off, then turned system on. Anomalies existed.
I then took another properly formatted flash drive and downloaded a Statistics and Use file from Car 1's system. All settings correct, per printout.
I then formatted that flash drive and downloaded a Statistics and Use file from Car 2's system. Anomalies were shown on the printout.
I compared the printout from Car 2, to the printout from Car 1, and from the printouts of the three Configuration Profiles that I had originally generated.
Printout from Car 1 was identical to printouts of the three original Profiles I selected.
Printout from Car 2 had anomalies from printout of Car 1 and the printout of the three original Profiles I selected.
Even without the printout from Car 2's system, I could see that there were discrepencies between the Profiles I generated and what was in Car 2's system.

BRD, I have not yet done so, but, if I manually change a setting in a particular Profile, say Profile A, does the manually changed setting only pertain to Profile A, or will the manual change also affect the same setting in Profile B and Profile C?

Thanks!

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Insert the config file let it load and then turn it off and back on and you will be fine.

Not trying to hijack the thread, but while on the subject of anomalies, I turned on the car the other day - ALP went through its boot up process, but the light stayed green for a good 30 -60 seconds before turning blue. Is this normal? I don't ever recall it taking so long for the LED to turn blue. Could it be the cold weather? First time it happened, I was ready to put in the USB, because it was green for so long, and as I was ready to put it in, it turned blue.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LI2624

Not trying to hijack the thread, but while on the subject of anomalies, I turned on the car the other day - ALP went through its boot up process, but the light stayed green for a good 30 -60 seconds before turning blue. Is this normal? I don't ever recall it taking so long for the LED to turn blue. Could it be the cold weather? First time it happened, I was ready to put in the USB, because it was green for so long, and as I was ready to put it in, it turned blue.

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The default if you do not have the Skip First Warm-up option enabled is a 60 second warm-up period before it goes into defense mode.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BestRadarDetectors

Insert the config file let it load and then turn it off and back on and you will be fine.

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BRD: OK, I'll give it a try, as you advise, and see what happens.

Thanks BRD - that was it

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BestRadarDetectors

The default if you do not have the Skip First Warm-up option enabled is a 60 second warm-up period before it goes into defense mode.

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I hope that AL website is updated so that we can load in an old CONFIG.ALP file and it will set all of the parameters to their old values, and any new parameters can either be set to a default value or flagged so that the user can choose, then can successfully generate a new file. When I tried this in the past, it could load in an old file, but once it had done so, if the file was NOT in the same format (was of a previous revision), it wouldn't successfully generate a new file. This is especially important now that we have 3 profiles per file. With so many parameters to set, it's extremely easy to overlook something and the only way I can ensure that everything is set properly is to open two browser tabs and click back and forth to make sure everything is exactly the same. As you can imagine, doing this 3 times for 3 profiles leaves a lot of room to screw something up.

All you need to do is set one profile with all your options and copy that to the other profiles with the copy button on the top right of the page and then just make your additional customizations to the additional profiles.

Sent from my SM-G928T using Tapatalk

Quote:

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Originally Posted by awj223

I hope that AL website is updated so that we can load in an old CONFIG.ALP file and it will set all of the parameters to their old values, and any new parameters can either be set to a default value or flagged so that the user can choose, then can successfully generate a new file. When I tried this in the past, it could load in an old file, but once it had done so, if the file was NOT in the same format (was of a previous revision), it wouldn't successfully generate a new file. This is especially important now that we have 3 profiles per file. With so many parameters to set, it's extremely easy to overlook something and the only way I can ensure that everything is set properly is to open two browser tabs and click back and forth to make sure everything is exactly the same. As you can imagine, doing this 3 times for 3 profiles leaves a lot of room to screw something up.

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I've been able to load old setup.alp files to the website and they loaded successfully. By default they get loaded to profile A, but you can then copy it to B and/or C from the website, tweak them to your liking and then download a new config.alp file.

If you're not using profiles, you can just upload a setup.alp and then download a new config.alp, easy as pie!

Of course, if you upload a config.alp with profiles to the website, all the profiles will be loaded on the page so you can edit them and create a new file.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BestRadarDetectors

All you need to do is set one profile with all your options and copy that to the other profiles with the copy button on the top right of the page and then just make your additional customizations to the additional profiles.

Sent from my SM-G928T using Tapatalk

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Hmm...somehow I missed that Options button.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by radargeek

I've been able to load old setup.alp files to the website and they loaded successfully. By default they get loaded to profile A, but you can then copy it to B and/or C from the website, tweak them to your liking and then download a new config.alp file.

If you're not using profiles, you can just upload a setup.alp and then download a new config.alp, easy as pie!

Of course, if you upload a config.alp with profiles to the website, all the profiles will be loaded on the page so you can edit them and create a new file.

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Yes, I've done this in the past. Loaded successfully. However, when I then tried to generate a new file after having loaded an old one of a previous (not current) format, it would not generate a new file properly.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by awj223

Hmm...somehow I missed that Options button.

Yes, I've done this in the past. Loaded successfully. However, when I then tried to generate a new file after having loaded an old one of a previous (not current) format, it would not generate a new file properly.

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Depends if features are changed. If there are new features and options you will need to create a new file.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BestRadarDetectors

Depends if features are changed. If there are new features and options you will need to create a new file.

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That's the problem. I should be able to load an old file and have it use all of the old configurations, and either set the new ones to default values or mark them as "must choose" before generating, similar to "make oldconfig" when building the Linux kernel. If, every time a feature was added to the kernel, people had to recreate the entire .config file from scratch, they'd go crazy.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BestRadarDetectors

Insert the config file let it load and then turn it off and back on and you will be fine.

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BRD: I again attempted to update my Car 2's ALP system, using the exact same USB flash drive with the three Profiles. I turned the system off, inserted the flash drive, turned the system on, there were two blue lights but NO voice stating something like "download successful" or whatever the voice usually says, then turned the system off, then withdrew the flash drive from the USB port, then turned the system back on. The Profile selections that were correct yesterday were still correct today. The Profile selections that were not correct yesterday, per the selections I had on the flash drive, were still not correct today. This is the same flash drive and Profile selections that were successfully installed in Car 1 yesterday. Nothing has been added to, or deleted from, the flash drive. I am going to save the flash drive, with the three Profiles on it, in case it is ever needed for further investigation in the future.

I then turned the system on, inserted the flash drive, there were two blue lights but NO voice, I withdrew the flash drive. I checked the Profile selections. The selections that were not correct yesterday are still not correct today. I then turned the system off, waited a couple of minutes, then turned the system on. The Profile selections that were correct yesterday are still correct today. The Profile selections that were not correct yesterday are still not correct today.

I will now use another properly formated USB flash drive, which I have used in the past to successfully load files into the ALP systems, and generate Profiles A, B, and C, selection by selection, that are exact duplicates of the three Profiles I successfully loaded into Car 1's ALP system yesterday. (I have hard copy printouts of the three Profiles A/B/C, on which I have checked each selection from the ALP website's specific Profile A/B/C selections, and placed a check mark on each selection on each of the Profile A/B/C hard copy printouts) I will then load the new Profiles into Car 2's ALP system, and see if they then are exact duplicates of the Profiles I successfully loaded into Car 1's ALP system yesterday.

I will advise of the results after attempting the download to Car 2.

That last attempt seems like either the ALP didn't find the config.alp file on the flash drive (make sure your browser didn't rename it something like config(1).alp). The other possibility is the ALP thinks the config.alp on the drive is the same as the one currently loaded. Did you re-create the config or is this the same config that loaded incorrectly prior?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by radargeek

That last attempt seems like either the ALP didn't find the config.alp file on the flash drive (make sure your browser didn't rename it something like config(1).alp). The other possibility is the ALP thinks the config.alp on the drive is the same as the one currently loaded. Did you re-create the config or is this the same config that loaded incorrectly prior?

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Also make sure you did in fact update the firmware on both units to 5.2.1, Config files do not load on older firmware.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by radargeek

That last attempt seems like either the ALP didn't find the config.alp file on the flash drive (make sure your browser didn't rename it something like config(1).alp). The other possibility is the ALP thinks the config.alp on the drive is the same as the one currently loaded. Did you re-create the config or is this the same config that loaded incorrectly prior?

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Hi radargeek: If your advice is for me, this is the situation as concise as I can explain it: I configured a properly formatted flash drive with three new Profiles, A/B/C. Nothing else on flash drive. Took flash drive and inserted it into Car1's ALP system USB port. The three new Profiles A/B/C successfully loaded.

I then walked three feet to Car 2, inserted the flash drive into the ALP system. Almost all of the three Profiles A/B/C successfully loaded, but there were some selections on the Profiles A/B/C that did not load correctly. I attempted to load them again another two or three times, without success. The same incorrect settings on Profiles A/B/C were still present.

Car 1's ALP system loaded successfully with all three Profiles A/B/C.
Immediately walked to Car 2 on other side of garage.
Car 2's ALP system did not load all of the correct settings from the three Profiles A/B/C.
Nothing was done to the flash drive in the three feet walk to the other side of the garage.
So, Car 2's ALP system is either not accepting certain selections which are on the flash drive, or the flash drive was somehow corrupted (?) during the loading process to Car 1 or Car 2?

I will Configure another flash drive with exactly the same selections that are in Car 1's ALP system, and try loading it into Car 2's ALP system.
I will advise of the results.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BestRadarDetectors

Also make sure you did in fact update the firmware on both units to 5.2.1, Config files do not load on older firmware.

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BRD: Both ALP systems were previously upgraded to firmware version 5.2.1. All of the device information is described at the beginning of my original post.

Problem resolved.

I generated a new Configuration file, with the three Profiles, and loaded it on to a properly formatted USB flash drive. Inserted flash drive in Car 2's ALP USB port, and load was successful. (Car 2 is the one I had problems with a few days ago). I then took the flash drive and inserted it into Car 1's ALP USB port, and load was successful (I changed a couple of selections from what was already in the system). I then downloaded a Statistics file from each system on to two different and properly formatted USB flash drives, printed hard copies, and compared them with each other. I also compared them with a hard copy printout of the Configuration file with the three Profile's selections. All selections on the three Profiles in the Configuration file matched the Statistics print outs.

I do not know what caused the original problem, but I now know that I can load a Configuration file with the three Profiles on to a flash drive and successfully load the file on to both ALP systems.

Thank you to everyone who posted advice and suggestions. I appreciate your help.