Posted on July 15, 2015 at 00:14I see your point. I've been lucky to not have had issues with .HEX file loading, but it may be the file size or parts I'm loading. I have fought machine, OS, STM32Fxxx, and ST-LINK specific ''connecting to target'' issues and those seem to mostly have gone away in the 3.2 and later versions. My only external flash applications happen to load the external flash as part of the final application code, rather than via the ST-LINK utility, so I have not experienced that pain.
In regard to updates, I have found it interesting that accessing the ST site from the US often does not show application notes or utility updates that are available to my business colleagues in western EU. (The same has been true for samples...one can get part samples in the EU sometimes months prior to them being even announced in the US.)
On the upside, ST's price for device programmers and Discovery type evaluation boards is hard to beat.
