Laser stops firing mid-job, Glowforge cancels job itself 30s-1m later

Hi folks,

I’ve been browsing for a resolution to this for a while, but to no avail; our community college recently acquired a Glowforge Plus, and we’ve been dealing with a series of network issues and fixes over the last month that have had no significant results.

To summarize the problem, this is our process and the issue that arises:

  1. Run a few jobs without issue
    • Anywhere from 3 minutes up to 1 hour total time; jobs of varying length
  2. Suddenly, in the middle of a job (no particular file), the laser stops firing - movements continue, but no beam is produced. Light has not changed color.
  3. About 30 seconds to a minute later, the job cancels itself - the light changes purple to indicate the job has cancelled. The timer, however, continues as normal.
    • Cancelling the job leaves the software stuck at “Cancelling job…”
    • Letting the timer run to 0:00 “completes” the job, but starting another job produces no laser at all - just movements until it cancels itself
  4. Forced to reset
    • Power cycling: Glowforge behaves normally until a job is attempted again; once you hit Start, the movements start but the laser does not fire at all; again, 30 seconds later, the Glowforge cancels the job
    • Resetting network connection (going through Glowforge setup process) is the only method that works - until issues arise again
      Video link for reference. Thank you for any help!

We are a school running our Glowforge Plus on our wireless network - which does have occasional issues, but these problems seem to occur without other devices going down. I’m wondering if any other school labs or places with large-scale Wifi networks have the same or similar issues? If so, are there any known fixes?

1 Like

Hi,
Info that will help P&S team, and you, troubleshoot:
for 2/3, does the light turn any different color? Does any error message appear?

On the Wifi–do you have the GF on 2.4gHz network? You can’t run it on 5gHz or a “band steering” type of set up. And interferences that don’t affect other devices will affect the GF–it’s much more sensitive than computers or TVs to WiFi issues… I don’t know about institutions, but in my house, I have 2 networks, one for the GF with 2.4gHz, and a 5gHz for my other devices to connect to. I had to call my provider to turn off the “band steering” they started to default to when my router failed & it was replaced earlier this year.

2 Likes

Adding the time stamp (including zone) for the last time this happened (that it stopped mid-job) will help them narrow down where in your logs to see what’s up

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Unfortunately, it looks like your unit is experiencing an issue that we can’t resolve remotely. I want you to have a reliable unit, so I’m recommending we replace this one. I’ll be in touch via email to sort out the details. I’m so sorry about the bad news.