New Form 3 freezing/locked up/not booting

Support & Troubleshooting Form 3/3+
1

Hi,

I purchased a pro plan but I’m waiting until tomorrow so I can call. For now, I was wondering if anyone had encountered the same issue I’m having.

I followed all of the Form 3 Quick Start instructions, but when I power it on, the touchscreen never gets past the FormLabs logo with a bar filling up. The bar freezes, and remains there, even after waiting hours.

I’ve tried the following:

  1. Power cycling, many times, allowing at least 30 seconds each time.
  2. Plugging in the network cable and looking for the printer in Preform. The printer shows up as “daguerre” on my network but doesn’t respond when I attempt to add its IP in Preform.
  3. Plugging in the USB cable. On three separate computers (two windows, one mac), it goes into a loop of detecting the Form 3, then losing connection. One of the computers had no prior versions of Preform. At one point Preform saw the Form 3 after a fresh reboot of both the computer and Form 3, and said that the printer is in use by another instance of Preform.
  4. All of the above with varying combinations of tray/platform/cartridge.
  5. Using Zadig to reinstall the driver. The Zadig log shows the following:

libwdi:debug [wdi_create_list] Hardware ID: USB\VID_16D0&PID_0EBD&REV_0409
libwdi:debug [wdi_create_list] Compatible ID: USB\MS_COMP_WINUSB
libwdi:debug [wdi_create_list] Driver version: 6.1.7600.16385
libwdi:debug [wdi_create_list] WinUSB USB device (1): USB\VID_16D0&PID_0EBD\DAGUERRE
libwdi:debug [wdi_create_list] Device description: ‘Form 3’

I’m guessing it’s bricked. The fact that the network name is daguerre (the Form 3’s code name) instead of its serial name, some grimy finger prints inside the machine, and scuffs on the top outside lead me to wonder if I accidentally got a dev unit. I also found an ssh server running on it, but I’m not going to bother prying further into it. Hopefully support can do something with it if I forward port 22 to the public internet.

I mostly just want to get to work. Is anyone aware of a rescue mode, or some way of forcing the Form 3 to remain connected long enough to update the firmware?

I appreciate any input, and I’ll share the outcome if I end up needing to exchange this unit. I live in MA so I’ll try to just drop it off in person if they do that kind of thing.

2

Hi Steve,
My name is Jake, I lead the Quality and Sustaining Engineering team here at Formlabs. We definitely want to make sure you’re up and running as soon as possible. I apologize for your unboxing experience, this is definitely not what we would expect.

PSP will get back to you tomorrow, but in the meantime can you pm me the name of the printer (on the back label)? I would like to make sure that, in the event this printer was not ship prepped properly, we get that feedback to the manufacturing line as soon as possible.

The Services team will have the best tools to get you up and running, once you’re in touch.

1 Like
3

Hi there,

we’re facing the same issue. We unpacked the Form3 printer a few minutes ago and the printer never leaves the boot up screen.

What was the solution for this issues?

Looking forward for your help.