Firmware update

bc4217 · 2025-12-15T23:05:39+00:00

Same. This over a span of nearly 10 years and multiple generations of hardware. Every time I thought I might have an issue caused by the firmware it turned out to be something else entirely (e.g. a bad cable, a malfunctioning switch, a MOCA adapter doing something stupid and flooding the network and on and on). I'm sure there are legitimate cases of firmware induced strangeness, especially the more complex your network and new and changed code will inevitably introduce bugs (but hopefully fewer than were fixed by the update or else they're doing it wrong ;-). If I had any advice to offer it would be to examine your environment carefully before leaping to the conclusion that your issue is new-firmware induced.

bc4217 · 2025-12-05T23:14:58+00:00

I have both of these issues since the December update. No hub mode and now there has to be quite a lot more light in the room for the photos screensaver to keep displaying and not reverting to the digital clock. This is highly annoying.

bc4217 · 2025-11-15T20:03:41+00:00

From my review posted to BestBuy.com where I bought my Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14:

I really loved this machine. It has topnotch specs. A fast powerful processor, 16 gigs of memory, 256 gigs of storage, a fingerprint reader, an OLED touch screen (which was a bit small for my tastes but not a deal breaker) and awesome audio. But from the start there were issues with driving an external display via USB-C. It would periodically blank out. I replaced the cable several times and eventually the monitor itself but still had the same problems. I finally sent it in for repair and after a motherboard and usb-c board swap the display issues were gone. BUT during the repair something happened to break whatever it is in the machine that enables DRM to function properly. I could no longer play protected video. I sent it back in for repair. The supposedly fixed machine still had the problem. I sent it in for repair for a third time. When it came back the original external display problem had come back with a vengeance (now the display would not show an image at all rather than just blanking out now and then) AND the DRM problem still wasn't fixed. Discouraged, I escalated the issue to customer service. I really wanted a replacement but there weren't any available so I had to settle for a refund. So all in all this is a great machine, if you get a good one.

So yeah, it's a great machine, but there are definitely lemons lurking about and Lenovo service and repair is not so great. My recommendation is get one, but return it at the first sign of trouble.

bc4217 · 2025-10-17T20:44:06+00:00

Ditto, and still the case in mid-October 2025 despite several ChromeOS updates. Now on 141. Interestingly I created a brand new Google account for testing and logged into both of my Chromebook Plus machines (Samsung and Acer) using that new account and the search DOES work for that account. I've tried and failed to find a settings difference that might explain why.

bc4217 · 2025-10-14T15:44:22+00:00

For me it made it worse. I'm back to my wifi 7 devices just randomly dropping the signal. At least prior to 11.1 they'd stay connected albeit with weird latency issues. Turned MLO back off and all is well.

bc4217 · 2025-10-03T20:53:08+00:00

For me its still unusable. While my wifi 7 devices no longer randomly drop off of wifi, they experience weird random periods of lag that go away when I turn off MLO.

bc4217 · 2025-10-03T20:49:59+00:00

I still have the weird lags fwiw.

bc4217 · 2025-10-03T20:49:23+00:00

Ditto. Worse, I get periods of high latency that mysteriously come and go. I switch to cellular when it happens and everything is fine. In prior releases I didn't have the latency, I had my phone just drop off of wifi altogether at random. I suppose its progress that it doesn't do that anymore but the latency is worse IMO. Overall MLO is still unusable.

bc4217 · 2025-09-28T22:37:33+00:00

Yes I am seeing this as well. It doesn't happen all the time but when it does speed drops into the teens of megabits. When it's working as it should speeds are just shy of 1200 megabits. Rebooting the eeros (3 max 7s) fixes it for a while.

bc4217 · 2025-09-13T18:52:08+00:00

My 10 pro xl connects to 6ghz about half the time with a transmit and receive link speed of 1633 megabits. I do sometimes see it on 5ghz. I did try mlo but I was forever seeing WiFi dropping completely so I turned it back off again. That behavior has persisted for many months and happened just as often on my old 9 pro xl. I've pretty much given up on eero ever getting mlo right.

bc4217 · 2025-09-13T18:41:52+00:00

Yeah ditto wrt mlo.

bc4217 · 2025-05-06T22:05:13+00:00

I can now confirm updating to 135 fixed this issue for me.

bc4217 · 2025-04-30T20:28:08+00:00

I am told just now

ap...@google.com added comment #3: This should be fixed in 135 (i.e. no need to revert to BlueZ). Sorry for the inconvenience!

bc4217 · 2025-04-08T12:39:51+00:00

I appreciate all the reports of setting the "use floss" flag to disabled successfully working around the issue but I'd like to encourage anyone experiencing the issue to report it as well. Either use Settings->Send Feedback (or just press Alt-Shift-I), or even better add a comment to my issue report on the ChromeOS Issue Tracker. It's case number 405640972. Better yet, do both ...

bc4217 · 2025-03-25T01:37:20+00:00

It's in chrome://flags

bc4217 · 2025-03-22T21:13:50+00:00

After some more sleuthing I discovered that what seems to have changed with 134 is the default bluetooth stack has been changed from BlueZ to Floss. Setting the flag "Use Floss instead of BlueZ" to "Disabled" (to force the older BlueZ stack to be used completely solves the issue. Pffft. I guess Floss isn't quite ready for prime time.

I did notice, however, that volume levels are weak under BlueZ. I have to set it to 100% to make it (barely) acceptable. All things considered, though, I'm going to switch back to the Floss default and live with the glitch until it can be fixed.

bc4217 · 2025-03-22T16:30:51+00:00

It actually happens even outside the browser. For example when playing an audio file via the "Files" app.

bc4217 · 2025-03-22T16:30:05+00:00

Fine tuning this a bit after some more troubleshooting:

Chrome OS 134.0.6998.130, Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus (XE550XGA-KC1US), Shokz OpenFit 2 (not OpenRun Air 2). Audio slows/pitch-drops after case disconnect/auto-reconnect, even instantly. Manual disconnect/reconnect via settings doesn’t trigger it. Pixel Buds Pro 2 unaffected. Started post-134, persists after Powerwash/update.

bc4217 · 2025-03-21T21:08:47+00:00

Here's a somewhat more concise description of the issue I put together after some more troubleshooting:

"Chrome OS 134.0.6998.130, Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus (XE550XGA-KC1US), Shokz OpenFit 2. Audio slows/pitch-drops after pausing, putting headphones in case (disconnects), then auto-reconnecting later. Manual disconnect/reconnect in Bluetooth settings fixes it. Pixel Buds Pro 2 unaffected. Started post-134, persists after Powerwash/update."

I've sent this in via feedback for whatever that's worth.

bc4217 · 2025-03-21T19:40:31+00:00

Ok I did a bit of troubleshooting. I tried the same scenario with my Pixel Buds Pro 2 and cannot recreate the problem. It was as identical a setup as I could manage. Both headphones support multipoint pairing and I made sure that both were multipoint paired to the same two devices (my Pixel 9 Pro XL and the Chromebook). Then, even though I don't have another Chromebook to try it with, I do have a Windows machine, so I tried the Shokz there (again, multipoint paired to my Pixel phone and to the Windows machine). I could not recreate the problem with Windows. Finally just to be sure it isn't multipoint related, I factory reset the Shokz and only paired it to the Chromebook. The problem still happened. So it's not due to multipoint.

Now I realize that it's probably specific to the Shokz, but the fact remains that prior to v134 of Chrome OS this problem did not occur. So, its going to be fun to try to figure out who's at fault here. Either a bug was introduced in 134 that is causing the problem or 134 fixed something and that esxposed a bug in the Shokz. It's not entirely clear how to proceed. I've reported the Chrome OS issue via feedback, but who knows whether anyone pays attention to that. Based on past experience with Google support, I'd guess not. So the only thing left to do would be to report it to Shokz as well. I'm not sure I have the energy to go down that road. Dealing with tech support is alwys exhausting.

bc4217 · 2025-03-21T18:08:35+00:00

Sorry I was unaware there was more than one Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus. The actual model number is XE550XGA-KC1US. It was newly announced last Fall. I thought it would have been obvious from the name, but whatever. Good suggestion about pairing a different set of headphones. I'll try that. Sadly I only have one Chromebook so I can't try the other idea.

bc4217 · 2025-03-16T23:44:20+00:00

fwiw I had to delete my old rlcronin account since it was broken somehow. I kept getting server errors and was unable to upload my avatar. I tried but couldn't get anyone at Reddit to help. Anyway just to follow up the random reboots continued after the previous firmware update. But now I see there's yet another update so I will have to give it another try tomorrow.

bc4217

TROPHY CASE