There is nothing wrong with the Bus Pirate, this will only effect future firmware upgrades.

There’s an erase issue with the AN1157 bootloader used in all Bus Pirate versions. So far it’s not been a problem because it only effects an unused section of memory, but the next firmware release might require that space. The translated versions already use it. There’s a risky procedure that will clear the entire chip, but it’s 100% guaranteed to brick your Bus Pirate if something goes wrong.

The bottom line is that a bootloader update is needed if the firmware grows much larger, we need to reclaim that space (up to 6KB). Normally a bootloader upgrade requires a ‘real’ PIC programmer, but we can deploy the GPL’d ds30 Loader (also used in the web platform) using the existing bootloader. Bootloader upgrades for everyone! But not yet! There’s still some issues. Additional details to follow.