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Helm restore hell

2020.12.29—Hanna

Hi, my Helm went offline while I was away. Came back and it had a solid white light but showed offline. Restarted it. It went through the file system check, but has been flashing white-dim white for about an hour and still shows offline. My domain is hannagoodbar.me. How can I help with additional troubleshooting?

2020.12.30—Phil at Helm

Hi Hanna,

I checked with our engineering team about your Helm’s state. it’s a rare situation we’ve seen before but of which we have not identified root cause. We know we can’t get it to upload logs in this state, so we can’t investigate what’s happening internally. We have two potential remedies to suggest, and neither works, we’ll need to talk about a replacement Heml:

  1. It’s possible that the power supply is bad. That’s an easy replacement, and we sell them for $30 delivered, but of course, you’d be waiting on delivery (from Seattle area, gound shipment unless you opt to pay for upgrade to 2-day or overnight). Alternatively, you might have one that would work for testing. The Helm needs a USB-C power supply with Power Delivery (“USB PD”) capable of supplying 20 volts at at least 2.2 amps (45-watt). Some new laptops use a power supply like this. Phones do not.
  2. A factory reset might help, though we estimate low probability. I can give you the specific steps, but in short, you’d initiate it via long press on a hidden butten on the Helm, make your phone forget the Helm, uninstall and reinstall the mobile app, then start an automated restoration from backup in the mobile app.

2020.12.31—Hanna

Hi Phil, I borrowe3d a USB power supply (Apple 60 watt). The Helm went through the same steps as before. Currently flashing white-dim white. Can I get the steps for the reset process.

Also, is there any other way to access email?

2020.12.31—Phil at Helm

Hi Hanna,

There’s no way to access email messages on the Helm, though most desktop email client software caches messages locally, so if you’ve been using a laptop or desktop machine with your Helm email, it’s likely all there up until the last successful connection to retrieve new mail. And the Helm automatically creates offsite backups nightly. The mobile app will show you when that last happened, so after you reset your Helm, or if you get a replacement, you can use the automated process to restore everything up to that last successful backup.

Below are the full steps to factory reset your Helm and restore from backup:

  1. Factory reset your Helm. To do so, insert a paper clip or similar item in the pinhole located to the right of the power supply input. Press it for about 20 seconds to initiate the reset. The LED will flash white and red to indicate a Factory Reset is being performed.
  2. Go into your phone’s Bluetooth manager and have it “forget” the Helm. Settings >> Bluetooth >> info button next to your Helm >> Forget This Device.
  3. Open the Helm app. Go to Settings >> Helm >> Restore. Pair with the Helm as was done during setup.
  4. Once paired, the domain for the account that’s being restored will show. Tap Continue.
  5. During the restore process, the LED will flash green and white. Once complete, it will be solid white.

I misspoke earlier when I mentioned uninstalling and reinstalling the mobile app. You would do that if you were going to start over from scratch, without restore the backup.

2020.12.31—Hanna

Hi Phil, thanks for advising on the email and providing the reset procedure. Unfortunately, I was unable to get the Helm to start the factory reset. From power on, it went through a few cycles of white-dim white and green-dim green, before settling on white-dim white.

Unless there’s anything else I can try, can we talk about replacing the unit?

2020.12.31—Phil at Helm

Hi Hanna,

The green/dim-green is a filesystem check/repair, and you’re seeing it after bootloader, RAM test, and kernel initialization. I don’t know specifically what the reversion to white/dim-white afterword indicates. Based on what I was told earlier and reported to you, this seems to indicate a failure that necessitates hardware replacement.

I’ll ask if the additional report about LED code detail changes the diagnosis, find out what your replacement options are, and get back to you as I know more.

Thanks for your patience.

2021.01.01—Phil at Helm

Hi Hanna,

Happy new year!

We believe your Helm is beyond remedy. And its 12-month warranty ran out in June.

I can offer you a refurbished Helm for $199 delivered. with a $199 credit toward a Helm v2 when they become available (current estimate: end of Q1 2021). That would get you back in action right away and hopefully avoid any concern about putting money into a v1 with the new and more capable hardware just around the corner. In case you’re not up on our development of a successor to the Helm that went out of production last spring, you can take a look here: https://www.thehelm.com/post/helm-v2-product-update and also in several recent posts by our founders to our community forum at community.thehelm.com.

We’re on reduced support capacity for the holiday weekend, but I’m keeping an eye out for emergencies and will do what I can do to help expedite things since your Helm is completely down at this point.

Later…

I went ahead and ordered the refurbished Helm v1 and was running a couple of weeks later.