Hello everyone who have updated the V5.2 already,

after the FW release we have noticed some bugs in EDID and Audio buffer control sections, so we came up with hotfix FW V5.2.1 ([url=https://audiopraise.com/projects/internal/vanitypro/resources/]link[/url]). Please update your units with this version we released today.

Our apologies for the inconvenience.

Regards,
Milan

I'm having the same problem. I'm stuck at:

> Status: NOK
> SW version: -
> DFU version: -

I've tried a Windows 11 PC first, then a Windows 10 laptop. The HDMI side appears to have power (i can see a green light inside). I've installed all the USB drivers and everything appears to be working fine but after repeated attempts I can't get the HDMI flashed to a point where the Firmware will install. Would appreciate some help!

Have tried 3 different computers (one Windows 11, and two Windows 10) and two different usb cables. I also swapped the PSUs between HDMI and Audio sides. No success. I've attached pictures. Is there a way to recover back to an earlier version so i can get things working again? I tried using HDMIV35 (instead of V35A), but had the same result of "NOK" even though the computers report success each time.

Hi Jimrod,
Sorry to hear about your troubles updating the VanityPRO. I believe my colleague Milan is talking to you via PM to help you with the issue. Once resolved, we will share the conclusion here.

As a general observation, if the HDMI update process has not finished successfully, you should be able to load the previous version of the firmware 5.1 from the firmware archive you can find on the bottom of the Resources page. We have seen this HDMI update issue happening a few times on Windows11 only and we are testing a few things to identify what variables could affect the process, such as different version of the Visual C++ libraries. We are also working on a new version of the Loader tool which should work flawlessly across all platforms.

Best Regards,
Pavel

Thanks, Pavel. Milan has been very responsive so i certainly appreciate the great customer support. And I've had success! At Milan's prompting, I double checked i had installed Visual Studio 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2022, and I had because it offered only to "repair" the install (it seems to do that when detected as already installed). I proceeded with that "repair" and it then prompted me to reboot. That may have been the critical step - rebooting after the Visual Studio install, although I do seem to remember rebooting when i initially installed it the first time. The only other potential variable was that i used a different USB cable (I'd tried two other USB cables earlier that I know are reliable in other applications). Those are the only potential changes i can pinpoint from all the earlier attempts, but it suddenly worked so i'm happily up and running again! Many thanks.

Hi Jimrod,
That is great news! I am glad you managed to get it working with Milan's assistance. The Visual C++ libraries may be sometimes non-trivial to manage. Anyway, thanks for the positive feedback!
Best Regards,
Pavel

I started getting regular audio dropouts so I looked up and saw new firmware might be able to solve this. It was not a DAC locking to my knowledge as Vanity showed regular loss of connection.

Oh boy, I'm in a mess of trouble.All my PCs have been updated to Win 11, so I do not have a win 10 computer available. I actually didn't read the part of this thread showing that there are problems with 11, so I just played and played and things just got worse and worse.

Device manager shows Vanity USB properly as a DFU device.

I (apparently) already had Visual C++ installed on this laptop.

I ran the firmware updater with version 35 (the hdmi updater) three times, and each time Vanity shows NOK in red letters. But I was daring and tried version 5.1. This was successful in the firmware update but Vanity shows an HDMI error so obviously the problem is v35 never updated. Next thing I tried was to uninstall and reinstall Visual Studio. Things only got worse there, as the firmware updater reports that MFC140.dll is missing. But I know we have it as I can find it in \system32. Hope this is enough information to help me get out of this mess. Thanks. Please email bobkatz@digido.com in case I miss the response. So sad, I've lost my Vanity Pro

Some good news (I think). I was able to update the firmware, both v 35 (HDMI) and v5.1 with my iMac running Parallels, which has Windows 10. After I did that I still got those audio dropouts, so now I'm changing some cables, we shall see. I'm feeding the Vanity with an 18 Gbps Matrix switch and some of the cables were regular HDMI. I doubt that an 18 Gbps cable is needed but we shall see. The droppouts show up as a loss in the HDMI input panel when they occur, so it's not the DAC.

Hi Bob,
What an adventure! I am glad to hear that you eventually managed to get the unit updated. It is quite interesting you started getting HDMI input dropouts. Did they start suddenly out of blue or could you relate them to some change in the HDMI setup? I guess it could be EDID or HDMI link re-init if there is an intermittent HDMI device before or after the VanityPRO. Or does it happen only with 4k video, which could point at the cables quality?

In the latest firmware we have added EDID options to enable or disable bitstream support and also stereo and multichannel capabilities. That is version 5.2.1. maybe you could try and see if you can simplify the HDMI chain a little. Anyway, please keep us posted.

Best Regards,
Pavel

Hi, Pavel. Changing to the very best HDMI (18 Gbps or higher) cables at every juncture seems to have cleaned up the dropouts! I've actually bypassed all the EDID issues by using a Simplified Manufacturing RM42C matrix switch, which can feed a consistent (even custom) EDID back to my sources: The Apple TV, a Mac computer, and two Blu Ray players. One output of the matrix switch feeds the video monitor and the other output feeds the Vanity. So the HDMI output of the Vanity goes nowhere. That has proved to be the best solution to the EDID problem for me and I recommend it to everyone. It's best not to rely on the EDID of the Vanity unless you can find a way to load a custom one.

For example, to create a custom ID, I used an EDID reader app called "MonInfo" on my PC to extract the EDID of my video monitor to the computer. I then used a free EDID editor from "Analog Way" to remove all references to Atmos, AC3, DTS from the audio data block. I left just one audio data block, for 8 channels at 44.1 kHz through 192 kHz. Saved that as a custom EDID and saved that into the matrix switch. Now all my sources think that the receiving video monitor wants 8 channel linear PCM!

Thus, Apple TV uses its internal DTS or Dolby or whatever converter to output linear PCM. Same for all the other sources. Works great, and it's very stable.