Considering no response to emails or phone calls I guess you guys are off on July 5th huh?

Would be nice if its said something like that on your web-site....

Hi Adam,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you -- we should be with you today.  We did run a blog post but could have done a better job getting the word out.

This is an odd issue -- I see you've put in a ticket and I'll work on troubleshooting this with you there.  

I am having this exact same issue with small and large prints. Printing from a computer (Windows), the Makerbot Replicator just freezes, all parts stop dead in their tracks, platform and extruder remained heated, and ReplicatorG continues to report the machine is building. This is maybe the 4th time out of 30 prints, but pretty disruptive when it happens.

Hi all,

With what version of the firmware are you experiencing this issue? This should be fixed in version 5.5. 

Check out the update guide and give it a try if you're still on 5.2: http://www.makerbot.com/docs/software/june2012update/

updated firmware to 5.5, still happens when printing from sd card, but not from computer.

in our instances seems to be related to the sd card for some reason...

Hi, I'm having the similar problems. I'm using the latest of everything - Firmware 5.5, Replicator G 0037, Skeinforge 50. Printing from a new dedicated Windows 7 laptop (quad core 8GB Ram). The small objects print okay, but the larger ones freeze as described above. The differences occur after I wait about 20 minutes from  the freeze-up. The Y axis will shoot to the front of the printer, and the Z-axis will click at 4 second intervals, but will not move. The Z axis is no where near its maximum or minimum height, so this clicking noise with no movement is curious to say the least. Since this mainly happens on large builds, and I'm 14 hours into an 18 hour build when it freezes, I'm losing an entire day and a lot of wasted ABS. Finally have all my hardware issues resolved (thanks Gavin & Ethan!), but now this...

Thanks for the additional information. I'd like to send both of you some additional SD cards for testing (we do occasionally have problems with individual cards.)  I'll be in touch individually to set that up.

I've been having this problem frequently (1/4 or more often) while printing from SD - does not seem to happen with PC. Before posting this I tried updating the firmware but it did it again on the 2nd print. 1st print was the same file from the same SD card (which was not removed between first and second).

I took some photos (attached). Same symptoms. Will try a new SD....

Very frustrating as I am on a tight timeline to meet product demand :(

(davincisnightmare.com)

Our Replicator builds have also been quitting randomly. I rarely print from an SD card, almost always from a Windows-based computer, and I've updated my firmware to 5.5 and installed all the other recent updates too. We're printing PLA with the build platform set to 40 degrees Celsius and the extruders set to 190-200. I've only run into this problem when printing faulty, user submitted STL files though. When I run these files through Skeinforge I get repeated warnings that "there is a hole in the triangle mesh, each edge should have two faces". Then when I'm printing these faulty models--which do end up printing sooner or later--1 out of 4 times the print freezes around 30%. But for STL files that go through Skeinforge with no errors, I never experience this problem.

I have a file that quits at exactly 23% every time.   Other files quit randomly.  All printing from SD.  I had the same issue with printing from my mac mini.

If you're experiencing this issue while printing from SD, try re-formatting your card -- you'll need to format them as FAT16 and do a low-level format on the card for it to work.  It seems like these timeouts are caused mainly by read fails from the card; reformatting should mark and discard the problem areas.

Mike Groenendyk also has a point -- some .stl files can also cause a similar issue. 

I'm having the same problem, but always from the PC. It is accompanied by lots of other weird problems that have suddenly emerged, but the most prominent is when the printer just stalls. The heat stays on for the nozzle and bed, but it never moves again until i shut it down and start up again. This can happen at any point in the middle of any print, it seems -- last night the extruder nozzle sat idle at 220 in the middle of a heart gear for 6 hours.

Neither the time nor the percentage advances anymore, it's as if the print was paused, but cannot be unpaused.

Other weird problems that have cropped up, sometimes one of the axes will no longer move (X or Y). This happens at the start of a print -- the printer will still move along the Y axis, but not at all along the X, resulting in one line of plastic back and forth. Again, the only correction for this is to shut everything down and try again.

Other problems I can't quite put my finger on, but it seems like there is some electrical problem. Sometimes during normal operation I will notice the motors stall momentarily, and the LED display fades as if it is having trouble getting power -- but this usually goes away as quickly as it started.

Not sure if any of this is related, but I am worried that there will be some other issue, and it's a problem how many large prints are ruined by the pausing behavior.

Could these reported issues stem from the same issue as reported here???

http://support.makerbot.com/entries/21534378-abs-quits-feeding-at-3...

I just had the Replicator freeze on that tardis STL from Thingiverse. I've already printed it out clean about twenty times before, for calibration purposes. No errors generating its GCode in Skeinforge, no errors in the STL file itself. This was a four hour print, the Replicator froze at about 60%, the extruder no longer moving but still remaining hot and extruding plastic--so plastic is still feeding though the stepstruder, the print head's just not moving anymore. Pausing and resuming the print doesn't help and ReplicatorG seems to have completely frozen up at a certain build line. Could this be a software issue? We keep all of our rods oiled, our machine is cleaned regularly, and I do not remember having prints freeze like this until I upgraded to the new version of ReplicatorG and the 5.5 firmware. This is definitely very disruptive and causing us to waste a lot of plastic. It seemed to me to happen only on faulty STLs, but I now think there's some other reason behind this. The problem seems to become more prevalent with larger print times too. 

Happened for first time here on my 12th print with new replicator -- connected via usb cable on Linux workstation - custom design - openscade generated STL with skeinforge showing no warnings - I suspect it is a software issue as both of the prior times I've seen extruder failures the print continued (never stalled).  If this is a rare occurance, I'm OK with it -- but it seems to be a safety hazard as the extruder stays heated without moving and located right next to the ABS plastic it just layed down....it had just finished putting down the first layer after the raft.

Just had this happen to me for the first time. Printed three items today and third just quit with nozzle oozing plastic but stepstruder not moving. Aaaarrgggg!

These were long print times since I had set 100% infill and 0.1mm layers. All on the new firmware.

I have had this problem 3 times, all on long prints, latest firmware, latest replicator G. This is on 2 different objects, so I don't think it is the STL.

Both objects froze about 1.5 hours in, but that could be coincidence.  Very frustrating, please help!

-JIM

I switched back to using Skeinforge 47 on Monday and, so far, I haven't had any builds freeze since then, compared to at least 3-4 a week before that. Right now I'm thinking this problem has something to do with the gcode generated through Skeinforge 50.

Thanks, I will give that a try!

-JIM

I've been having the same issues on my Replicator.  On longer prints (pretty much all my prints are in the 5-10 hour range) the print head would just randomly stall out with the head and platform heat staying on.  It would quit at different points in the build and every once in awhile it would finish properly.  I tried a few things to fix/diagnose the problem:

1.  Reflash firmware  -  still failed randomly
2.  Reformat SD card  -  still failed randomly
3.  Render the Gcode with different settings  -  still failed randomly
4.  Use Skeinforge 47  -  still failed randomly

Out of frustration, I gave up and downgraded the bot to firmware 5.2 and it's working perfectly again.  The prints are slower, but at least they're finishing.  It seems like it's clearly a firmware issue rather than a Skeinforge or RepG issue.   

I'll throw in my information here as well.   The ONLY thing that 1. stopped the freezing and 2. gave me back any sort of quality print and 3. stopped the gaps in my printing was downgrading to 5.2   Now it crawls, but the prints are great, and they FINISH!

Hi Andrew,

I also had the issue with unreliable amounts of plastic being extruded on 5.5, specifically with small details.  So sad because the acceleration really did wonders for my print times but I'll keep my fingers crossed for the next update.  

I am wondering about whether to downgrade both firmware (back to 5.2) AND SF47 or just SF47. Like Andrew I am seeing unreliable amounts of plastic being laid down since the upgrade and I have the build-freeze issue, both of which I didn;t have before.

If 5.5 has issues why isn't it being fixed?!  This upgrade dates back to early July.

Hello there,

Also experienced a build freeze problem like this, but the extruder had stopped and the X an Y axis moved very, very  slowly towards their calibration switches. This took about 15 minutes or so. After that it started to run the programm again, but there was no more extrusion because the nozzele got clogged. It happend at +/-  30% off the build.

Don.

I have had zero issues since I switched back to Skeinforge 47, even on prints that were consistently stopping. I had to regenerate the Gcode, of course, but after I did that everything worked well.

My replicator just froze 38 minutes into a 45 minute print job.  I was printing from OS X, with firmware version 5.5, Skeinforge 50, and ReplicatorG 0037.  I was not using acceleration for this print.  Has there been any additional responses from Makerbot regarding this issue?  SD card is not the issue here as I'm printing from the computer.

Ryan, I am going back to SF47 today and will be running tests tomorrow and weekend. I have some serious commercial projects I need to print and I am also frustrated that my long builds have frozen like yours. What is truly worrying is that this issue has been known it seems since early July and there is no fix or upgrade. I also think there are issues with firmware 5.5 since my extrusion quality seems lower (I have other posts on dropout issues). But I will hold off on downgrading the firmware until I've checked out SF47 results. I am also not using acceleration, as much as I'd love to.

Cheers

John

I've tried a few builds this weekend with SF47 and so far no freezing. BUT...I'm still getting instances of crappy extrusion (blobbing) and I think this is probaly firmware 5.5 since others have commented on it. I dont know enough to play around with extraction/retraction distances etc. Increasing extrusion temp to 230 or 240 has helped a little and i've covered the sides with clear acetate film to keep temp inside as constant as possible. Printing off the SD card is imperative I reckon - at least with the PC and Win7 version I have it is. I've also noticed that the second nozzle tends to collide with my builds and I think that also creates blobs since it bumps up the previous layer. Some layers go down really well and others seems blobby. I think it is worse in the X-axis but haven't proved this yet.

Based on Gavin's (Makerbot support) advice I stayed with SF50 and firmware 5.5 but with two changes to nozzle parameters (onboard settings). Initially I got one of the best prints I've made so far (attached pic background object) and then yday I tried to print another one off the same SD card, file, settings etc. I started the build at 11AM and when I left at about 10PM it was at around 28%. WHen I got in this morning the build had built around 30% (see attached pic foreground object) and stopped. What's different this time is that the Bot thought it was finished since the BP was back down and extruders in home position and cold. So sometime after I left this either continued to print without extruding plastic (the last layer is blobby if you look closeup which seems like an extrusion issue), or somehow the Bot reset itself. The Bot runs off my UPS so there are no power issues or glitches involved here.

My problem is that most of my builds need to be 0.1mm layer height and therefore take up to 24 hours per print. It is impossible to watch the entire print run and I need the output on commercial projects that pay the rent. Hugely frustrating and I wish Makerbot would do something about these complaints. Fix it!

I've noted the following when if and when my print "freezes" (printing from computer);

1. My computer falls asleep and/ or goes into power saving mode.  I disable these options.  Note, that I have dedicated my own personal laptop for printing.  I have a desktop for my CAD modeling and other work.
2. The USB cord becomes unplug.  A frustrating error but due to user error. 

My prints are on the small side, at about 2 hours max.  But, I do feel the pain of others of frozen prints.  My part is pratically worthless half done.

MB, is there any solution/ fix to restart a print?

Just wanted to chime in, I've experienced this problem a lot in the past (not using an SD, printing from an OSX machine), but haven't seen it at all since I started printing strictly from SD. I'm back to printing from my Mac today, and it's happened to me twice! Just stops randomly at 12% once, 47% the next. Hmm...

I have this happening to me before. I wondered what went wrong.

But later I found out that my USB port on my laptop was disconnecting intermittently. After I have that replaced, no printing error so far.

System Spec:

i7-2630QM 2.0GHz

8g ram

64 bit Windows &

I have this problem every time when printing from SD card.  Reformatting the SD card did not solve it.  It always stops around 99%.  Really tiny models seem to be lower, as low as 94%. 

All things considered, it doesn't make any sense, but since upgrading my Replicator with the Minimalistic Mk8 replacement (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:28241), I haven't had a print stop early even once. It's been over a month since installing it. 

I tried using different STLs, cleaning an STL up in Netfab properly before creating gcode. Tried using a different computer, different OS, bought a new USB cable, bought a new SD card. Tried unreeling the filament as to make sure it wasn't snagging itself on the spool. Leveled and releveled and releveled again. Spent way too many weekends stressing about it, wrote way too many angry emails to MakerBot support.

Again, it makes no sense that the MK8 replacement would solve the problem if prints are stopping at specific intervals consistently, but this has been my experience.

I can endorse Craigs comment. I posted several posts above about builds quitting and the extruder moving without extruding etc. I have built the Minimalist Mk8 and changed over to the Jetty firmware and RegG39-Sailfish and no more issues. I can now print even my most complex parts at 100mm/sec extrusion rates and at 0.1mm layer height - perfectly. Jetty requires a little tuning but you wont look back and their support on Google Groups is great.

So...it seems that my previous prints were all done at 230C, 0.1mm layer height, 100% infill and SLOWLY (no acceleration). Seems the slowness of my builds is what caused the filament to heat up in the tube and stop extruding properly, to the point of stripping the filament and "blocking" the nozzle. Don't have these issues anymore since I'm extruding real quick now.

Not sure what William is seeing with prints stopping using an SD card, unless the models need fixing. But SD card is a must.

I contacted Makerbot support and they told me to upgrade to the 6.2 firmware.  That resolved the problem for me.  Also, the 6.2 is a significant improvement over 5.5.

Related discussion: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/makerbot/uVe5vo...

I had this happen on the 6.2 firmware when printing thing 23624 on Thingiverse.  I have switched to printing from my computer and I have had no problems.

I see that a bunch of people "re-formated the card" I'm having tough time re-formatting the sd card to fat 16. Did you use OSX or PC? (OSX did you use terminal or Disk Utility?)

Chris

I did it from Windows, I probably used the command line.  Looks like FORMAT /FS:FAT will do FAT16.

My Replicator has frozen 3 times in the past week and it seems to have started just after I replaced the Mighty Board with a new one (replacement was due to other unrelated problem).                                   The 3 freezes seem to have occurred randomly and the 30 (or so) other print jobs worked fine.  For example, I printed the same print job 6 times, and it only froze one time, which was about 90% through the 4th time print job.  It then ran the same job successfully two more times.  It has frozen 2 more times since... no error messages... heat still on.... it just stopped mid-build.  My computer is running Windows 7 and had gone into power save or blanked the screen, and it was still monitoring the temperature and the build.  The motherboard came new with Firmware 6.2 installed.  It froze twice while building with MakerWare and once with Replicator G.

I have attached a "collage" of 3 pictures showing the Replicator, computer screen, and blown up image of the Replicator screen (sorry about the quality (or rather the lack of it))

Is this blog still monitored?

I have not seen any solutions shown here from Makerbot, but it would be helpful to see what Makerbot has found to resolve the problems.

Scott

My Makerbot stopped at random, when I touched it. I also got a shock. I mean literally a shock. In the cold desert air there is plenty of static electricity to go around. I grounded my maker bot to a metal table leg. The building when further than before but stopped because the filament kinked.

Im having this issue too, specifically when printing from a computer. My builds randomly quit/hang and never in the same place. I just  had a four hour print quit at 85%  (and thats a lot of plastic), and this has happened many times now. Ive gone through a whole roll of black filament trying to print the same 4 hour print (Ive gotten two good parts).  RepG says im still building, and my Rep thinks its still going as well, but its just hanging. Sometimes it will stutter- think about printing- and then continue printing, and other times it will just stop. 

Also, since this issue has happened my left side extruder went N/A, Im not sure if this is related to this problem at all, but it sure does stink.

Same with me using a Mac, get no response from Makerbot, they have no customer service. sent a shit load of photos, had the thing for 3 days and can't get shit done with it.

I love how all these people have the same issue (including me) and not one person from support cares to answer. I had to call and the person I talked to made the situation worse by making my printer inactive. Then two days later he got it to at least run the start up script like before and thought I should be happy. He must have forgot why I called in the first place. I feel your frustrations just try to keep patient as I am and now going on week 3 with a printer that does not work. Come on Makerbot support, you can do it!

Hey Chris Chambers, what kind of machine are you using? If Replicator 1, any chance you've printed and installed emmett's mk8 extruder upgrade? http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:28241

There have been several variants since he put that up 8 months ago, but after I got that set up I no longer had this problem. Havent read this thread is a long time so I'm sorry if it was already addressed. 

I believe the problem may be power supply noise!

I have an air filter (Holmes HAP2400B) in the room wiht my Replicator.  If I turn the filter into the highest setting, my Replicator will immediately freeze-up.  I originally thought that the sudden airflow caused a temperature drop, which triggered some bug.  But it happens even now that I enclosed the printer, and even with the air not pointed at it!  The obvious explanation is power supply noise.  I can duplicate this problem at will.

If you are having this problem, I recommend checking what else is on the same circuit, and perhaps investing in a high-end power strip or a UPS.  If anyone else gets this consistently, can you try this and post if it helps?

@ cantremember I saw that item and have downloaded it. However, again I cant print anything except maybe half of it.

@ William thanks for the tip. Again I am fielding any and all suggestions but that is definitely not it. It is alone on the circuit in I have build a acrylic box for it to keep it enclosed.