Brennan B2 Stuck with Red Green Flashing Lights

[Harinder Singh]

Hello,

I have a Brennan B2B 2TB Black that has got stuck on red and green flashing lights on power on.  The unit was ordered on the 1st of February 2021. Prior to the problem i had enabled DNLA on the unit and it had rebooted to green and red flashing lights and has since become stuck.  

Regards

Harinder

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Harinder,

Unfortunately if the B2 gets stuck at the red and green flashing lights, that means that either the microSD card inside the B2 has become dislodged or has become corrupted.

I see that the unit is only a couple of weeks old, so I think that the following options are available for you.

1.  Open the B2 up and try and reseat the microSD card and see if the B2 will power up fully again.  Below is a link to the webpage which shows how to do this.

      https://www.brennan.co.uk/itemcontent.php/content/Techy

2.  If step 1 doesn't fix the problem, then send a request to Brennan for a replacement microSD card which you can swap in.  Paul from Brennan Support will sort that out for you.

3.  An alternative to step 2 is to re-flash the microSD card yourself.  It's fairly quick to do and would probably be the quickest way to get back up and running.  See the link below for instructions.

       Go to the weblink above and scroll down to 'New SD Card' on the left hand side of the page.  We can also provide additional guidance on this if you wish to do this.

These actions should not affect the warranty, as far as I know (however I am not a Brennan employee).

4.  The other option is to return the B2 to Brennan for a warranty repair .

Let us know what you think.

Regards,

Peter.

[Harinder Singh]

Hi Peter,

Thank you for the response. I will attempt to reflash the MicroSDCard myself and post the results here.

Regards

Harinder

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Harinder,

Let us know how you get on.  Just shout here if you need any advice.

Regards,

Peter.

[Harinder Singh]

Hi Peter,

That was painless and worked a treat the unit is working as intended again :).

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Harinder,

That's great news!  Another suggestion, if you haven't already done it, is to update the B2's software to the latest release (Feb 14 2021) as the re-flash has probably taken the release to Sep 20.

Regards,

Peter.

[Harinder Singh]

Thank you will do Peter :) 

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Harinder,

Good stuff!  Good luck.

Regards,

Peter.

[Andy Snapper]

I got my Brennan 2B on Monday. Thankfully I came across the forum and the moderator let me in yesterday, because today, Thursday, I have just turned mine on and all I have is the red and green flashing lights. I see that Peter suggests that the SD card is dislodged - hard to understand since the box has just been sat all night where it was yesterday. Or that it has become corrupted, but I don't understand how if I followed the instructions to press Stop to save whatever was going on before turning it off. Ordinarily I would not expect equipment of this value to go so wrong so quickly and be expected to do the 'repair' myself. Is this going to be a regular thing?

Regards

Andrew 

[Daniel Taylor]

Fixing it yourself is not a requirement.  You could send it in to be repaired under warranty.  But that would take awhile.  The option to fix it yourself lets you get it back in service much more quickly.

[Andy Snapper]

Thanks Daniel for reminding me. 

I don't quite understand why, but taking the card out and reseating it and switching it back on has done the trick. A bit like turning the computer off and on when that doesn't work as it should - just two screws more effort.

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Andy,

The B2 may have been handled roughly during the delivery process and if it was dropped at some point the microSD card could have moved slightly in its socket.  The would cause the red and green flashing lights, and reseating the card would fix that.

Anyway, I'm glad that you are up and running quickly.  If you haven't done it already, run the  'Web Upgrade' function.  B2s, when delivered are not fully up to date.

If you use the front panel, go to 'Settings' --> 'Web Upgrade' and select this.  It only takes a minute or so and is worth doing!

Regards,

Peter.

[Andy Snapper]

Thanks Peter. I suppose that I have to be grateful that the B2 worked first time out of the box after delivery, as otherwise, I would have had to have sent it back. In that first flush of excitement I did also do the web upgrade as well and so for two days there has been no problem. So it is for me, not being techie, a curiosity as to why it did what it did.

Regards

Andy

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Andy,

I've got 2 B2s (one 4 years ago and one 7 months ago) and a BB1 (1 year 6 months ago) and have never had a problem with any of them.  I use wired Cat5 connections on the B2s and I am suspicious of the Brennan supplied WiFi dongle; I think that poor signal strength causes many of the problems reported on this forum.  I did buy an antenna based USB WiFi unit for doing some tests on the B2 and the signal strength improved dramatically.

Anyway, good luck and enjoy your B2!

Regards,

Peter.

[Andy Snapper]

Thank you Peter. It has taken a lot of inner debate to take the plunge and get a B2. There is a learning curve and so it is an absolute joy to have people like you on this forum willing to share their knowledge and enthusiasm to help people get the best out of their equipment. 

Now that my B2 is back up and running I am again ruminating on how best to label and organise my music, which will be predominantly 'classical' and where all the failings of many of the streaming services come home to roost because artist(s), orchestra, conductor, title of piece and composer, are all in the mix and I am not yet getting it straight in my head as to how best to use the fields available in the WUI. I daresay it has been covered somewhere but even learning how to work with the forum is all new.

Regards

Andy

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Andy,

The B2 is a great device all round!  My wife and I have found music that we haven't listened to in years.  Given that you are 'classical', I remembered a post from some time ago where one of our forum members, Iain Bell, did a number of posts regarding ways of naming classical albums, tracks, composers, etc.  He documented that, and has sent that documentation to other users upon request.  The link to that thread is below.  If you read this and contact him I'm sure that you could get a lot of good information to help you get started.

https://groups.google.com/g/brennanb2/c/nKy_sr-UH1U/m/tYTFtGqaAgAJ

Regards,

Peter.

[Andy Snapper]

Thanks again Peter. That will keep me quiet for a bit...

Regards

Andy

[PMB]

Hi Andy,

Glad to hear you have the B2 working again.

The Raspberry Pi computer board, used inside the B2, loads the operating software from the SD Card each time it's powered on. It may have just been a glitch and the software didn't load but do let us know of any reoccurrence.

Concerning organising Classical music, the B2 organises by Artist then Album then Tracks. If you like to search by composer you may want to edit the Artist name to add or to be the composer.

Paul

Brennan Support.

[flowe]

Powered up, hear the cd spin, red and green flashing, cd stops spinning and no screen comes on. Red and green continue to flash on and off.. I’ve opened and reseated the sd card a couple of times. So. . . Thoughts? I’m ok re-loading the SD card, but I don’t see the right link “below” of that first message on this thread. 

Thanks

Flowe

[Ray Dion]

    https://www.brennan.co.uk/itemcontent.php/content/Techy

[PMB]

Hi Flowe,

Follow the link provided by raysph... and look at the left hand column under New SD Card for the links to Etcher and the software.

This is not the most up to date version but will get  your B2 working again. You can then do a  Web Upgrade.

I have mentioned this before but will repeat here - the B2 may not respond well to an unexpected power off if it is busy doing something. So we recommend following this power procedure -

With the B2 paused and displaying the clock, press and hold the Play/Stop button until 'saving' is displayed, before releasing the button (2-3 seconds). Wait for the clock be be shown again (2-3 seconds) before powering off.

Paul

Brennan Support.