Hi everyone,

I got one of my Mojos back, it spent half a year on a film elsewhere in the country. They told me that it was behaving - but it's just not working any more. When you plug it in, lights cycle, DV appears for a couple of seconds, it boots, it shows "Avid Mojo" on the monitor I connected. But the Host light doesn't appear. And when I connect it to the Mac, nothing happens. I checked on the Mac side, in the System Profiler, and it says (in red!) that it cannot retrieve info from the Firewire bus. 

Doesn't sound good... It's probably the Firewire plug - or board - that died.

It's 2 years old, no longer under warranty. And the place that sold it to me no longer deals with Avid. Does Avid fix those? I guess I'll have to talk to another reseller - but before I try to get it fixed, anything else I could try? Getting it fixed could probably end up costing almost the price of a new one, no? And getting a new one is a simpler operation I guess...

Pierre, sometimes, reflashing the firmware on the mojo will bring it back. Unfortunately, that means installing it on a system with a lower version of the software (Like 5.0 or 4.8.x), letting the firmware update and then putting it back on your system and let the firmware update again. 

I guess just giving us a firmware updater app is too tough.

Exactly, that's the sort of thing you do on a unhappy Mac: a good ol' open firmware reset and it often clears the problem. But here, that's impossible. Also, the Mac doesn't see it, neither does the Avid. Guess I could try on a PC to be sure.

Right but, what if you put it on a Mac (or PC) running an older version of software? Or are you saying that the system profiler won't see it either?

The PC just won't see it at all, and on the Mac, the More Info shows a red message - see attachement, though it's in French - saying that it's impossible to gather info about the Firewire devices...

I think it's dead. But as you said, shame it can't be force-flashed to reload a clean firmware.

What are my options? Should I contact Avid here, directly? What is the normal procedure?

Yep, you need to contact Avid. I'll do some digging and see what I can find....

I just talked to support and they say you should call in to them and they have a repair program. It's out of warranty so there's a cost but it may be repairable.

Sorry I forgot to mention that I'm back in Paris and it's a French Mojo. Does it also apply to Avid France? I'll check tomorrow, but I'm not sure they handle repairs directly.

If you have any info that would be great because they're not always helpful here - I guess they haven't switched to the new thinking yet!

Can you call Tewksbury from there? You'd be better off getting an RMA number directly from them.

Why don't you send me your contact info (Phone Number) and I'll see if I can have someone contact you.

Use PMs please as my .mac email has been down for the last 7 days....

I'd try a different computer and FireWire cable.  See if you can get the host light to at least come on when you plug it in.  If you can, it might be the computer rather than the Mojo.

It may not even be a hardware issue, though.  I've had Mojos fail to work completely because they had the wrong firmware.  If they were using the Mojo on an older Xpress system, for example, it would have downgraded the firmware automatically.  There's no way to upgrade the firmware on a newer Mac, because the older firmware can't talk to the FireWire bus on the newer computer.  Even System Profiler reports an error similar to the one you're getting.  You'd have to install the newer software on an older computer, or try upgrading the firmware on a PC.

Did you try replacing the power supply? We had a mojo that stopped working but the lights still came on. Turns out the voltage on the power supply had dropped just enough that it wouldn't work (they seem to be very touchy). We bought a generic power adaptor from an electronics shop and it's back working again.

Thanks guys. I've tried all those now: different cable, different power supply, three different computers. And it's still the same: the Host light never comes up - only for a few seconds during the power on of the Mojo.

I've got quite a few playouts to do today, so I'll have plenty of time to try to get in touch with Avid here, or Tewks directly as Blkdog suggested.

Hi,

I'm in France to and had the very same issue with my mojo a year ago, I wasted time by contacting the french support witch is (or was at that time) completly useless, they emailed me a few times saying that they transmitted my support request to ireland.

I got tired of waiting and called directly twek, two days later a functional mojo was at my place, they didn't even made me wait until my shipment (the defective mojo) arrived to them. Great support from a woman called Cathy Devereux.

My mojo was still under warranty so I only had to pay for the shipment of the defective mojo. As asked I only shiped  them my mojo (no cables, stand or original box) and received a refurbished functional mojo in a "spare" box. That's the way it works.

I then asked this Cathy what would happen if a problem appeared when out of warranty, she told me that is the  same procedure but with a cost. Around 400 euros I remenber.

I could give you her email but I don't want to do this on the forums. I think you'll find it easely anyways.

Don't waste time with french support (witch by the accent of my contact didn't appear to be located in France at all), you'll get in what we call in french a "dialogue de sourd"...

Good luck.

nicov:

Don't waste time with french support (witch by the accent of my contact didn't appear to be located in France at all), you'll get in what we call in french a "dialogue de sourd"...

Thanks for your post. I called them before you wrote the above. And you're not far off the truth I'm afraid. The main thing I noticed is that they were nice (nicer than before it seems) on the phone.

But basically, I don't have many options: "We don't fix the Mojo because it's too much of a small piece of equipment. We just replace it." To which I replied: Ok, and how much does it cost? And you guessed the answer: it's the cost of a new Mojo.

So I might as well go and buy a new one, at least it will come with a warranty... I can't believe they don't offer something in between. As I said earlier, it looks like the New Thinking doesn't work on the old continent...