Yesterday I was remminded why I quit using Easel. Forced to move to HTTPS version

Yesterday for kicks and giggles I used Easel to re carve an old project I had saved there.

well it cost me $50.00 Vbit and a $20 piece of material

Well with no warning easel decided to move my account to the HTTPS version of itself. It copied my projects but none of my GRBL settings over. It asks me run through machine setup as if I’m a new user. I have a heavily modified xcarve as many on here do, so machine setup is a useless step for me (thankfully I had my gcode saved in notepad).

I run through machine setup, then I copy and paste my real grbl settings in. I look in status and it says it’s updated the grbl.

funny thing it didn’t, I start to run my carve and the Bit slams into my material and tries to run the toolpath an inch lower than my gcode said to.

The bit was shredded and the material burned and destroyed on the corner.

so I go look at the machine inspector to see what happened, my copied over grbl settings aren’t there.

the program can copy my credit card (the import part to the company of course) info and my projects to the HTTPS domain but not my bloody grbl. if I hadn’t had my grbl saved in notepad I would have had to start from scratch for calibration. easel should look to the port where the controller is for my grbl like Picsender does.

NOT tell me what my grbl settings are based on stock setting. you should at least give people the option to choose if they are revving up an xcarve for the first time or a returning user so we can bypass first time setup.

I used easel again and it cost me $70.00 thanks team Inventables for that.

Thanks whoever made that choice to force migrate the users over with no warning or choice, my wallet appreciated it.

Why does https matter?
Easel generates the gcode for the projects before you carve and shows you a preview. How did you “copy and paste” your gcode?
You don’t need to setup the machine to use easel as a sender. Maybe you inadvertently changed your steps/mm on your non-stock Z-axis?
How did you set your Z-zero?

I was typing and doing other stuff I meant… I copied my GRBL not Gcode settings . I’m assuming that the HTTPS version and the HTTP version of the easel webpage software are two seperate things and when they are told to migrate users from one to the other other, it decides to treat the user as brand new to that site in some ways but not others

The reason this happened is because the settings in Easel are stored in your browser, not the Inventables server and are saved based on the website that you are visiting. So as far as your browser was concerned the https version was a completely different website and so the settings were not migrated. As for your bit slamming into the workpiece, the Inventables machine setup does not mess with your X or Y steps/mm, but does think it knows enough to change your steps/mm in Z based on what Z axis it made you select. In the Easel features request section I asked Inventables to add a “something else” option so that the setup process would know not to reset your steps/mm in Z. I suggest you add your support to that request. I’m not defending their architecture, just explaining what’s going on. That’s also why your machine settings aren’t shared across machines you might use to run Easel or even different browsers on the same machine.

Also, pretty much all websites are being forced to migrate to https by all the web browsers not warning against websites that do not use it and have any kind of login screen.

Grbl settings are stored in the controller, not in easel, your account or the browser. You’d have to copy/paste each $ setting separately… You can’t paste them all at once.
Again, when you go through the setup, it assumes you have a stock X-Carve. It sounds like you don’t?

yeah I’m aware of that. when I use picsender. it access the port for my GRBL setting in my controller. easel does not do that when you asks you to set up a machine. hence why I said I wish easel this instead of loading stock xcarve settings

I have cnc4newbies and the phantomm screw drive. my XY and Z settings are all changed to match these upgrades.

it does mess with any settings that you change when you go through machine setup. it generates a generic set of GRBL settings based on the generic questions it asks about your machine size etc.

so if you have only modified your Z axis then yes, it reverted your z axis grbl settings to generic stock settings.

it changed my steps per mm, my max travel.

as I said I copied and pasted my saved modified GRBL settings into the machine inspector prior to running a carve, and it showed that it updated my grbl settings, however it then reverted them back a second time, because after the machine destroyed my bit I went back to chack my settings and it showed them being changed back a second time.

So I did my part and updated my settings but easel glitched and changed them back a second time.

I understand how it all works, I wasn’t looking for an explanation on how my Z axis setting work.

I’m saying the web software forced me to migrate to the new site then glitched and screwed up my GRBL settings twice.

and yes I know you can’t paste them all at once. I went line by line.

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@LanceCameron Don’t go through the setup. You don’t have a stock X-Carve.

dear lord I know that. it locked me into that screen when it migrated me over. no matter how many times I re logged in I was taken to that screen.

I’m not asking how I could have avoided this, I’m saying the webpage is flawed auto migrated me over and treated me like a brand new user but forgot to migrate the fact that I had already done the machine setup screen, but it remembered all my past projects, just not the fact that I had already used my machine.

it comes down to offline files and browser cookies and the fact that I did indeed enter my grbl settings but it glitched and over wrote them a second time in the new browser with the stock GRBL settings.

the software screwed up and I was simply letting people know that.

What browser are you using? Clear your cache.

Hi @LanceCameron,

Very sorry you ran into an issue with Easel that caused you to break a bit, waste material and your time.

We are currently in the process of migrating Easel accounts over to https for increased security. The migration is designed to automatically transfer settings related to your machine that are stored in your browser (such as work area size, presence of Z Probe, dust shoe, etc.). We do this by first pushing those settings to the Easel app server, reloading Easel in https mode, then restoring those settings by pulling them back from the Easel server.

Another change we made separately was to detect when someone tries to start a carve without these settings being present in the browser’s storage and prompt them to run through the setup walkthrough. This change was put in place because users sometimes don’t realize when their browser storage gets erased, which can lead to unexpected results in the carve walkthrough.

It’s possible that for some reason the automatic setting migration didn’t work for you. We have not heard any other reports of this problem, but we are also fairly early in the process of converting accounts. We will review our process for migrating these to see if we might have missed certain corner cases. (We’re assuming that you did not clear your browser cache, use a different browser/computer, or change your cookie/storage retention policies in your browser settings).

I believe someone on the Inventables’ team reached out to you directly as well!

Happy Wednesday,
Jessie

thank you, yes I am in contact with inventables now via email. feel free to close this thread and delete it if you want.

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Hey @LanceCameron

Just so you know you are not crazy, it did not migrate our settings either although that was a while ago we switched to HTTPS

Hi @DebbieLee,

Yeah, the automatic settings migration was something we added after the initial early access period of SSL that you participated in.

Jeff

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Ah… OK that makes sense.

Is this settings migration feature a one time thing for the transition to https or will it continue to be around to assist with people using multiple machines and/or browsers?

If I’m seeing https for Easel now does that mean I’m totally migrated and there isn’t something else coming?

When your account gets migrated to SSL, you’ll be shown a message stating that if you have any other machines or browsers that you use with Easel, you can log into them to transfer your settings on those as well. We’ll keep your machine settings on the Easel servers for a while (months) to facilitate this. If you modify your settings in any instance of Easel after migrating, then we’ll clear out those stored settings and won’t auto-migrate any new devices.

Yes, but if your account was part of the current migration process and not part of the early access launch of SSL last year (which involved explicit opt-in), then you should have been prompted and informed within Easel that your account would be migrated and asked to click a button to continue.

I’ve got the beta opt in set in my Easel account settings - is that what you mean? I appear to be using SSL now, don’t remember a migration notice. But since I seem to be migrated I’m fine.

It would be an amazingly good feature in Easel if long term the settings were stored on the server so that the settings for multiple machines/browsers would be kept in sync. But then a feature to be able to change the thickness of your Z probe without going through the entire setup process would be good too.

No, the beta opt-in in your account is a general setting that lets us know you’re open to beta testing new features. We may reach out to users periodically who have that option turned on and invite them to try things out. Is it possible that last year you saw the forum post about early access for SSL testing and turned it on at that point?

Thanks for the feedback. I agree that the settings management could be improved, and storing them on the server permanently is a potential option.

Jeff