OAK-D-W boot failure on depthai-core v2.21.2 - new batch incompatible?

MNS

Hello,

I have an application that integrates OAK-D-W cameras using depthai-core v2.21.2. A newly received OAK-D-W unit fails to boot with my software, while older units from a 2022 manufacturing batch work fine.

Working unit: Board DM9098, EEPROM v7, 2022 manufacturing batch - boots and operates normally.

New unit: Detected on USB as X_LINK_UNBOOTED, but firmware upload fails with X_LINK_DEVICE_NOT_FOUND. EEPROM cannot be read since the device never completes boot.

The new camera is electrically present on USB but the MyriadX VPU never completes the firmware boot sequence.

Questions:

Has anyone else seen boot failures with newer OAK-D-W batches on older depthai versions?
Were there bootloader or firmware changes in recent manufacturing runs that break backward compatibility with v2.21.2?
Is there a way to flash the new unit's bootloader to match an older batch?

Any guidance appreciated.

Thanks

OskarSonc

Hey MNS, I suggest testing the new camera with the latest DepthAI release (2.32.0). If it works there, I strongly recommend upgrading your app from v2.21.2 to the current version. The newer v2 releases are mostly compatibility and stability fixes, so this update should be low risk and is likely to resolve the boot issue on newer hardware batches.
Thanks,
Oskar

MNS

Thanks Oskar.

Upgrading depthai-core is not viable for us as our application is a released product deployed at multiple sites, and changing the depthai version would require a full release cycle with revalidation and redeployment.

We need the new camera to work with our existing software (v2.21.2). Is it possible to flash an older bootloader onto the new unit (using v2.21.2's flash_bootloader) to make it compatible?

jakaskerl

MNS
The device version is standard OAK-D W (not the 97 model)? There were changes in the EE, so it's difficult to say. The FW is bundled with the depthai version so there is no way to "flash older bootloader".

Even if we find the difference in how the FW changed between 21 and 32, there is no way to fix this other than to switch depthai version to the patched one.

Thanks,
Jaka