Code 50 amp cuts out. All sound stops. Anybody else?

All Questions

Hey everyone I'm having a major problem with my Code 50 and looking for a solve. Bought it brand new in November 2019 so about 8 months old. Recently my amp has started cutting out arbitrarily. Zero output. I feed my guitar directly into the amp.. nothing. My guitar and cords work fine with other amps. The ONLY thing that fixes the problem is to reboot the amp. Turn it off, wait a bit, turn it back on. Then it works for a while, then it happens again. Incredibly frustrating! Happened in the middle of band practice last week, off and on for a good half hour, then was ok the rest of the night and for a few days and then it started again. Just cuts out totally out of the blue. Can someone help please? I'm about to throw this amp out of the window and smash it! Agghh!

CODE

asked 26 Jun 2020 at 12:55 AM

Answers: 3

Hi All,

Just as a follow-up. ...

My code50 kept cutting out and a power cycle would have it come back but quickly go out again.

I actually videoed this behavior and sent the video to the support team at the place I purchased it.

The amp was still under the 1 year warranty, and they asked me to send them the amp for evaluation. So I did.

They reproduced the problem and a board assembly had to be replaced. This was done they tested and shipped it back to me.

It is working fine now. No issues with cutting out. Amp works flawlessly with the BT. I have played live twice with it and no issues.

I'm very happy with how it performs. I really like the BT capabilty and rely on it wrt using it with the Marshall app. Easy tweaks during rehearsal

and when playing live.

Now I spend my time tweaking the half dozen patches to the optimal settings.

One things I'm lacking is a really nice acoustic guitar patch. Still experimenting.

Shout out to Sweetwater who were great to work with to get this issue resolved.

Best Regards

TedL.

answered 21 Jan 2024 at 04:55 AM

OMG! I have this problem since ever. I have read this forum there is a lot of time looking for a solution. You are the first person that I could read with a solution. Marshall supports should be more clear about the problem. There's clearly a factory problem with a lot of units and nothing is done. - 03 Feb 2024 at 12:38 AM

Hi Felipe,

Well my amp starting doing the speaker fail issue again. I can't believe it.

So I decided to try a workaround. When it fails, the headphone out still has sound that I would tap off and run to the main board.

I have a VoxMV50 mini amp that I have decided to use that will use the headphone jack out as its input signal. I did added a speaker jack to the Code50 such that I have disconnected the Code50 speaker wires from the Code50 power output stage and connected the external speaker jack wires to the internal Code50 speaker.

So the Vox MV50 is the new power stage (bypassed the Code50 power stage). I connect the headphone out of the Code50 to the input of the VoxMV50 and the output of the VoxMV50 connects to the new external speaker jack I added to the back of the Code50.

Thus far everything is working fine...no main speaker dropping out anymore. I will be gigging with this next month (April 2024) and let's see how things perform. I feel confident with this workaround. I really like the amp when it works. Hopefully the reliability will be solid from here on out. - 21 Mar 2024 at 05:19 AM

Hi Mitch,

your definitely need to return your amp for either repair or replacement. It should be under the twelve month warranty as you purchased it new. That's unless you registered (sent the card off in the original box) as then you'd be covered for three years.
In all correspondence I've seen on here, Marshall ask that during the first year you initially return it to the retailer.
Hope you get a functional one soon.
Cheers,

Si.

answered 27 Jun 2020 at 11:26 PM

Thanks Simon. Yup I also emailed the Marshall support team and they said the same thing. Dropped it off yesterday at the dealer, they are going to do a factory reset and have the tech check it out today. I did try to mail in my registration card on this amp. Bought it here in the states and the registration card had a US address on it. The card came back to me saying that address didn't exist. Interesting. - 29 Jun 2020 at 12:35 PM

Hello,

I bought a code 50 in January 2023 and have the same issue with the most current firmware update.

It makes the amp unusable.

My gut feeling is it is a FW issue and for whatever reason the FW is getting confused and cuts off the main speaker.

The headphone jack still works. I have had to run from the headphone jack to the board then out the mains.

Footswitch still works and my patches still can be accessed.

I have written Marshall but have no response. I wonder when their next FW update is going to be?

I sure hope the root cause and have a FW patch to resolve.

If it is a Bluetooth issue, I'd rather have them kill the BT capability and I'll edit everything from the amp panel.

Very frustrating.

Best Regards,

TedL.

edited 25 Jul 2023 at 06:45 PM

answered 24 Jul 2023 at 08:37 PM

Hi Ted,

We would suggest the amp is looked at by an engineer, sounds like an issue with the Headhpone socket becoming active when not engaged causing the speaker to cut out.

Regards
Marshall Support - 25 Jul 2023 at 07:53 AM

Hi,

I really think there is some sort of FW issue that controlling whether the speaker goes on or off.
Based on the large amount of people encountering this, the working theory is the BT connectivity is contributing to the issue. Either via competing BT devices
in the vicinity of the amp confusing things in the controller or just plain interference susceptibility.

For those you know of who have taken their amp to the shop....did they follow up and let you know what they found was the root cause?
Some say do a factory reset but I don't think a factory reset restore the FW to the factory version does it?
I thought it just restores the patch settings only to what the amp shipped from the factory. The FW version is unaltered?

Also do you know when the next FW update will happen?

Thank You and Best Regards,
Ted

- 25 Jul 2023 at 06:54 PM

Hi Ted,

This is not a FW issue, and I would suggest the amp is looked at by an engineer, at this time there is no date for FW updates, but they will show on here when out, the headphone socket sound like the issue and would need changing.

Regards
Marshall Support - 26 Jul 2023 at 07:50 AM

Dear Marshall Support, I have the same issue with my Code 25. The Tech have looked at it dozen times and found nothing. We even replaced the DSP module and the control panel. Nothing works. All I can do now is pressing BT button combinations and then long press Exit button (until a present is resaved). In this scenario Code works fine, even presets are available.
I also think that this is software problem. And it is a pity that Marshall have not managed do anything about this well-known problem for 4 years. I should have bought something else
Oh, it's also pretty funny seeing like you suggest everybody stuck with this problem to consult an engineer knowing that nothing works - 21 Aug 2023 at 02:15 PM

Hi,

I have contacted Sweetwater and a ticket is open for this but in all honesty not sure they have the needed items to debug this.
This is a FW driven product and would they have some fw tracing tools to monitor the FW state....at least they could rule it out or at least see if disabling the Main Speaker path is controlled by FW they could see why?

Anyway I was hoping to find some schematics on this unit to see if I could makes sense of the main speaker path.
I would like to bypass any mechanism that disables the main speaker path....even the tuner.

I do feel there is some BT relationship. Just the other day I turned on the unit....it came on...my BT on my phone was off....but the amp had the blue light on as if it wanted to connect to BT. The main went out after one minute while strumming a chord. I then did the BT / Exit sequence...the blue light went out. But after
30 seconds or so came back on and then no sound again. I powered off, then on.....sound was on and BT blue light on again. I had the footswitch attached so I switched the footswitch to a different patch then played a few chords. Sound went out again....did the BT / exit routine again. BT blue light went out...switched footswitch to another patch....BT Blue light came on again. I thought I disabled this dang BT.

Remember my Phone BT was disabled and I did not have My Marshall app on.
(Another thing I notice is on the amp lcd display...the title of the patch flickers?, is this a expected behavior during operation?)

I really like this amp but there is something going on. I really do not think the retailer will be equipped to look at at in detail. My next step is to use my phone and record this hic up. And that way I'll post what I see. I'm unable to use the main in Band Practice...have to use the headphone jack to the mixer than come out the mains. I have performed a few times with it and it seemed to get through with the main speaker not going out. But my band mates are getting irritated as well.

To make a short story longer....I'm very curious on the root cause here. I would really like to get the schematics to better understand the Hardware inter-connectivity. If FW is not the cause as Marshall says....then is there an issue with vibration loosening things with connectors or wire joints? Dunno....would like to see a schematic to see where that possible cause could be? And again understand the signal path to the main speaker.

Also I could measure voltages here and there to maybe rule out power supply hic ups.

Anyway I do want to continue using this amp and I learn things I'll provide my learnings to the forum. - 21 Aug 2023 at 09:51 PM

Hi Ted,
Try to contact this guy ? h-t-t-p-s://w-w-w.m-a-r-s-h-a-l-l-f-o-r-u-m-.com/threads/scheme-code-25-50-incl-repair-hints.124988/ (remove hypfons)
He claims he can provide a scheme.

And try to do the standart BT combination, but do LONG press to Exit button. In this scenario the amp resaves the present, but blue light continues to blink and the display shows something about BT (if you want I can check what exactly in displays). In this regime my code works without further cutting off, even presets are accessible, the only problem is the display shows something about BT - 22 Aug 2023 at 07:25 AM

Hi Vitalii,

Thank you very much for the tips. I will try holding the exit longer (several seconds). Also I will reach out to the contact mentioned.
I have a few other questions to see if you have ever noticed this behavior:

1) You ever see a flickering display ... patch name will be flickering?
2) While playing does volume levels go lower than back to what you would expect?
3) When the amp cuts out....do you have any other wireless capability nearby? Say someone else's cell phone with BT enabled?

Thank You and Best Regards
TedL.
- 22 Aug 2023 at 03:55 PM

Hi Ted,
Here is the answer to your questiongs:
1. Before my amp cuts out the display may grey out and became less visible. The tech support (authorized by Marshall) replaced the control panel (where display is installed). For a couple of weeks the display worked fine, but then the problem returned.
When I do the BT combination with long pressing the Exit button the display is flickering displaying some information, maybe that's a patch name (don't know that for sure.
2. Until my initial amp parts were replaced I had never had problems with master volume level except physical problems with the master volume potentiometer (it was making distorting noise while being used). A contact cleaner was a solution.
Now sometimes something goes wrong with volume level - it may decrease and then increase. Still, after doing the BT combination I have noticed such problems so far (it is 4 days by now).
3. I have never noticed it, but I didn't investigate in this direction. I deleted pairing with the amp. Every time I turn the amp on it tries to pair with the phone. It's very annoing.

On the whole, the tech guy said they did everything they may do and as I understood the Marshall support service don't know what to do either.
In fact, I've done everything the support proposed - bought the new DSP module, paid several times for repairing works, still have a defect amp and Marshall just don't know what to do with this well-known problem. Their service is pretty poor for my opinion.
- 23 Aug 2023 at 08:57 AM