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Don't Panic: Rolling Back Firmware on the Creality K2 Plus 3D Printer

Wilson M
Maintainer
Mike Wilson
Founder & Lead Engineer

Don't Panic: Rolling Back Firmware on the Creality K2 Plus 3D Printer

If you are reading this, you probably did exactly what I did last night: I wasn’t paying attention, saw a green update button, and just pressed it .

Normally, updates are a good thing. But in this case, I immediately regretted it. I was trying to record a video and needed my K2 Plus for its enclosed chamber, but the moment I installed the new firmware, I had nothing but errors and couldn’t print a single thing . Specifically, it wouldn’t even get to the preheating stage before crashing out with stepper timing errors .

Since I don’t use Creality Print, it took me a while to figure out how to manually roll back the firmware to a stable version . If you are stuck in the same boat, here is the step-by-step process to get your machine running again without using their slicer software.

Step 1: Finding the “Hidden” Firmware

Section titled “Step 1: Finding the “Hidden” Firmware”

The first step is grabbing the firmware image from the Creality website. This gets a little confusing because of how they organize their files.

  1. Go to the Creality website and navigate to the K2 Plus in the categories section .
  2. Look at the firmware list. You might notice the version listed isn’t the previous one you were using—it might be several versions behind .
  3. The Trick: Click the “plus” sign next to “Old Versions” . Surprisingly, you will often find newer firmware hidden in this folder.
  4. Download the image file for the version you want to restore .

Step 2: Preparing Your USB Drive

Section titled “Step 2: Preparing Your USB Drive”

This is the most critical step. If you don’t format the drive correctly, the printer won’t read it.

  1. Insert a USB drive into your computer.
  2. Open your disk utility (I used a Mac, but right-clicking ‘Format’ on Windows works the same way) .
  3. Format the drive as exFAT . It is vital that you choose exFAT; otherwise, the bootloader likely won’t pick it up.
  4. Once formatted, drag and drop the downloaded image file onto the USB drive .
  5. Eject the drive safely .

Step 3: The “Upgrade” Process

Section titled “Step 3: The “Upgrade” Process”

Now we head over to the printer.

  1. Turn the printer OFF .
  2. Insert the USB drive into the port on the right-hand side of the machine .
  3. Turn the printer back ON .
  4. The screen will boot up and ask if you want to “Upgrade” to the version on the stick. Even though we are downgrading to an older version, hit Upgrade .

Note: The system might estimate this will take hours, but in my experience, it installs much faster than that . Just be aware that rolling back firmware will wipe any custom config files you had, so you will lose your customizations .

Step 4: Recalibration

Section titled “Step 4: Recalibration”

Once the installation is complete, the machine will reboot.

  1. Remove the USB drive .
  2. Since the machine thinks it has a fresh install, you need to recalibrate .
  3. Run the start detection/self-check to ensure your bed tension and leveling are correct .

Once that finishes, you should be clear to slice a file and send it to the printer to verify everything is working .

Watch the Video

Section titled “Watch the Video”

If you want to see exactly how I formatted the drive or navigated the menu, you can watch the full walkthrough here:

Hopefully, this saves you the frustration I dealt with last night!

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