DS-X announced the availability of public beta release of the fix for the Qkin bug affecting many DS-Xtreme users. According to the company, the so-called Qkin bug recently hit its latest batch of DS-Xtreme DS media enhancers shipped during the holidays. The bug affects affects a significant number of the latest batch devices.

"As this is a hardware logic update, it will take slightly longer to apply then a normal firmware update, and the progress bar will proceed more then once," says the maker of DS-Xtreme.

Before applying the update, affected users should format their DS-Xtreme. It is recommended to copy the 1.0.2 skin folder back (which is included in the download folder) onto the device.

It is important that you leave your USB cable connected until a message box appears that the update has completed. The LEDs will turn off during the update, and will turn back on when the update is complete. After the update, the updater will still report the firmware version as 1.0.2. This, according to DS-X, is normal.

With the beta release, the firmware version remains 1.0.2. However, the hardware version is now 1.0.1. The next release of the updater tool will be able to show the firmware and hardware versions separately.