Issues with R+ Play700 Phone app

Community Robotics Talk
1

I am having an issue with the Robotis Play 700 system. When I built the first model, the car, I used the R+ Play 700 app on my Samsung S22 Android phone to control it and it worked well. I then installed R+ Scratch and Scratch 2 as shown in the Play 700 manual. The drivers never ported over when loading the software from the robot car model. I used the shift key in Scratch to load the CM-50 drivers installed when I installed the Scratch software.
That all worked and I was able to program/control the car robot.

I then built the scorpion model and the R+ Play 700 app on my phone no longer works. The blue connect light on the robot lights up but then the screen just turns black with no controls of anything on the screen. Hitting the back button exit to the top picture menu, but none of them work.

I talked to a tech like a month ago and he thought the task code was overwritten. He was gonna send me updated task code and instructions to install it. Never heard anything…
Since then I continue to call with no response.

2

It has been a long time since I worked on a CM-50 and PLAY700 since I wrote this book “Learning Learning Robotics with ROBOTIS PLAY Systems” back in 2017.

https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Robotics-ROBOTIS-PLAY-Systems-ebook/dp/B075NQKY8S/

There is also a YouTube playlist that you can check out if you are so inclined:

The issue you posted about gave me the incentive to re-check the materials for my book again, and I found out the problems and a work-around solution for now:

  1. I am using a Samsung S6 Lite tablet on the latest Android update.
  2. The problem I found is with the PLAY700 App as it is installed on my S6 Lite. For some reasons, when the user wants to connect to R+m.TASK so that you can download the example code that came with PLAY700, i.e. PLAY700_TASK_EN.tskx (which is a TASK 2 code). The Android OS is now pulling up the TASK 3 App instead of the TASK 2 App. But then TASK 3 App can’t download this example code to the CM-50 even though it converted this TASK 2 code into an equivalent TASK 3 code. In short, it is like a dog chasing its own tail and going no where!
  1. But I did find a work-around solution for you.

First, I am assuming that you already had installed the TASK 2 Android App on your Samsung S22 OK.

The next step is for you to copy that PLAY700_TASK_EN.tskx file from the PLAY700 App folder to the TASK 2 App folder. If you have a Windows PC, you can just connect your Android device to a USB on the PC using the appropriate cable (probably a USB C cable for the Samsung S22?), and then you’ll see the Internal Storage of your android device via Windows Explorer.

The original file PLAY700_TASK_EN.tskx can be found in this folder:

This PC\ Your Android Device \Internal storage\Android\data\com.robotis.play700\files\Download\RoboPlus\Play700\System\example_01\Task\PLAY700_TASK_EN.tskx

Then, just copy that file onto the PC somewhere, then recopy it back into the TASK 2 App folder on the Android device which is located here:

This PC\ Your Android Device\Internal storage\Android\data\com.robotis.task2\filesRoboPlus

When you get back to your Samsung S22, start the TASK 2 App first and download PLAY700_TASK_EN.tskx to the CM-50 as normal. Then power on the CM-50 by pushing its Start Button the number of times needed to get to your wanted project.

Then switch to the PLAY700 App and make sure to reconnect your Bluetooth device (BT-210 or BT-410) back to the PLAY700 App, then just choose your project and it should work! If not reply to this post then. :grinning:

3

Symptoms have changed. Someone at Robotis sent me a new PLAY700_TASK_EN.tskx file and instructions as to how to install it using Task 3.0. It worked! (once) After installation as instructed, the phone app worked great. But then curiosity overcame me, and I wanted to find out when or how things changed to create the issue in the first place. (After all, I had the code to restore it, right?) I ran a thing called R+ Manager 2.0 which on the surface seems like a nice test app compatible with my device. However, once it is loaded, the phone ceased to malfunction as before (just a blank screen after program selection). So went to reinstall the code sent and had all kinds of issues. Errors in transmission, or Task 3.0 just simply wouldn’t connect. I finally got it to program. Now the phone app comes up with robot image selected and connects to the robot (the blue light) and then simply freezes up. The buttons do nothing. I have tried reinstalling many times and the answer is always the same. I used Task 2.0 last night and it actually installed with no errors and the robot rebooted upon completion of the transmission, However the result was (sadly) the same. So now the phone app comes up, lets you select your project, The interface and controls load up, the phone vibrates for a few seconds and the just locks up. Nothing works. All I can do is exit the app.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
-Bob

4

Are you sure that you managed to run the MANAGER 2.0 tool on your Android Phone? I have always used MANAGER on Windows PC only.

5

I never ran manager 2.0 on my android phone. Robotis people said to just load the program that they sent (Play700_Task_EN. tskx) and send it to the robot using Task 3.0 on my PC. (They’re theory was that the task code was overwritten), and it worked, once. I used Task 2.0 on my PC to send the code last time that it seemed to work.

I can try your recommendations specifically if ya think it may have a better outcome.
I thought the file they sent could be trusted…

-Bob

6

As you can use the MANAGER 2 on the CM-50 (using the PC I hope), let’s first try to recover the firmware of the CM-50, maybe it got corrupted somehow, see this link

Once that is done you can try to download the (Play700_Task_EN. tskx) to the CM-50 again and see. The TSKX file can be downloaded to the CM-50 via TASK 3 or TASK 2 from the PC. From my experience on my PC, I can only download this file PROPERLY via TASK 2. When I used TASK 3, the code started to download but it never finished properly, for some reasons.

Once this code is downloaded properly to the CM-50, at runtime it should connect to the Android App properly. If something does not work properly at this point, it is very likely having something to do with the BT connection. On my own Android Tablet, I had found that I have to make sure that the App was actually connected/paired to the BT on the CM-50 EVERY TIME that I used that APP. Sometimes, it was the Android OS that “forgot” about that BT connection (I am no expert on Android OS, so I don’t know why) - so I had to make Android re-search and re-pair with it again before using the PLAY700 App. Yeah, there is a chain of communications links that need to be all connected together properly before the App works OK with the CM-50.

Another simple thing to check out too. When the CM-50 batteries are low, its BT receiver is the first thing to flake out.

7

Well, that seems to have worked. All is once again working correctly with the phone app. I believe that recovering the firmware was the answer. Hopefully if this happens again, I will at least have the tools and knowledge as to how to use them. Thanks again for your help!
-Bob