Thanks to the Dell free Zire offer I now have the tools to finally try this out. I've got the Palm set & running with my database, and have installed the files & changed permissions on the empeg (MKII) to match the install page.

Unfortunately when Palantir looks for the empeg it never finds it. I verified that the IR LEDs are working with my nightvision camcorder.

One time (just once of perhaps 14 tries) I got a message that it was uploading the playlist, but it seemed to time out with no change in playlist on the empeg. Palantir said it lost contact.

The only part of the install I was a little fuzzy on was the link to the OBEX page. I don't think I was supposed to (and didn't) install anything directly from the OBEX webpage, rather the libopenobex files from the empire.zip file. Is that correct?

I'm kind of stumped. The only thing that looks funny is a line at the end of the boot sequence that says something like 'unknown IR received' (I've put the gadgets away for the night, and can get the specific message tomorrow, if need be).

The PalmOS version on the Zire is 4.12 and other than empire & my contacts/calender entries synced from MS Outlook, it's virgin. The empeg kernel is the precompiled hijack 230 kernel linked from Cushman's page.

Anybody have an idea what I might have botched? Thanks.

-Zeke

Does your serial log output verify that Empire is running, and that it has run AFTER the player has started? Post your serial log and I'll take a look at it. Also, remember that you have to be within a few inches of the Empeg to get within IrDA range, because of the lens, IR hardware, and a zillion other things.

I've attached a serial log showing the boot sequence and then ls -l of what I believe are the proper install directories. I did notice one other thing (not included) and that was a series of khttpd errors, which I assume are there because I haven't reinstalled charcoalgrey's web interface yet. Let me know what you think.

Further info (may or may not be important), I use the green AR face and did have the Palm 1-3 inches from the IR on the empeg.

-Zeke

Okay, you are starting ttsclock after empire starts, maybe that is delaying the start of the player for a second or so. Try increasing the time delay on start_empire from 10 (seconds) to 30, just for testing. Then start up the player, watch the boot log, and when you see these lines:

start_empire: Starting Empire...
IrDA: Registered device irda0

Then you can try to beam something over. The line:

irlap_driver_rcv(), Unknown frame ef received!

usually means that some other program was trying to use the irda port, in this case the player application. For some reason that I don't fully understand, Empire cannot be started until AFTER the player app has been started. This is the reason for the start_empire script, it just sleeps for x seconds then starts empire after the player has (presumably) started.

After you have verified that Palantir/Empire works with the delay setting at 30 or 60, then you can narrow it down to probably 11 or 12.

I upped it to 30 and for good measure, changed the @exec order in my config.ini (putting ttsclock first) and now it works. Killer. Thanks man!

-Zeke

If you changed the exec order, you could probably stick it back at 10 or 11 and it would work just fine now.

The only disadvantage of having it set to 30 though is that you have to wait 30 seconds from startup to beam.

I set it back to 11 (just because 'this one goes to eleven') and as you predict, it's still working.

Kewl.

This warms my geek heart to no end.

-Zeke

Would database size effect this because the player takes longer to boot up? Or does the database only get loaded after the player ap has started?

I'm wondering if some of us that have a lot of songs will need to have a longer wait time for Empire to start..

Palantir already has the song database on the Palm device, that is what uploading the .pdb file does.

All Empire does (on the Empeg) is listen for FID's and insert them into the playlist, it has no idea what it's inserting, really.

I just meant that players with larger databases take longer to boot up. And if it's critical that Empire start after the player starts, would the database size effect how long the "wait" has to be set to...

Ah yes, you're right. If you do have a HUGE database, you may need to crank the wait time on start_empire to 11. Because you CAN.

Not sure if this is "huge" or not...

Good, then you can test it! Do you have start_empire set to 10 or 11?

Does it ever give you problems by not starting up in time?

Hi,

I have problems when trying to run the palantir PDB application; I doubleclick on the .jar file and winRAR opens it as an archive. I have downloaded and installed Java (from the link on your hp), but still, it doesn't work as it should. In total desperation, I copied the .jar file onto my mobile (Siemens S55), and there I can start it as a Java app, but then get an error that my mobile hasn't an FPU
Am I doing something wrong?

Your file associations have been changed by WinRAR. Re-associate .jar files with the java program, and it will work correctly.

Go to Windows Explorer, then click on Tools -> Folder Options. Then click on the File Types tab. After that, scroll to the file type JAR, and click Advanced. Click on the "open" action, then click Edit. Under Application used to perform action:, put this line in:

javaw.exe -jar "%1"

When you installed a Java Runtime Environment, this was the default setting, but you must have installed WinRAR afterwards (or let WinRAR modify your file settings). Alternately, you could re-install your JRE, run PalantirPDB from a command line, or write a batch file that would run PalantirPDB using javaw.exe -jar.

Hi,
I just messed around a bit; and finally got it working I just reinstalled a newer JRE and everything was fine.
I installed "empire" on the empeg, it seems to start somewhat, but after the 10 seconds, I get this:

player.cpp : 385:empeg-car 2.00 2003/04/01.
Prolux 4 empeg car - 2.1434 Mar 26 2003
Vcb: 0x4054d000
start_empire: Starting Empire...
/usr/local/bin/empire: error in loading shared libraries: libopenobex-1.0.so.0:
cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
IrDA: Registered device irda0

Kinda strange to me, my /bin directory just looks as the example on your homepage; where did I go wrong?

It can't find the OBEX libraries, did you install them properly? Look at step 4 on installation part two here

Hi,
if I just re-copy them from my pc to the empeg following the instruchtions, do I need to delete the old files on the empeg first?
Will try it tomorrow.

You'll have to delete the old lib files before as otherwise ln will fail. Or just change it to "ln -sf" instead of "ln -s" and it'll overwrite them.

Hi,
it worked! Nice app!

just a question (I am a complete linux newbie): What does the "ln -s"-command do, and what changes with the "f"?

ln creates a link between files and is used so you only need one copy of a file/directory even if you need it in more than one place. The -s bit makes it a symbolic link which basically means you can see the link when you do a ls. The -f means force and it'll overwrite any existing file.

Ok thanks, I think I got it!

Hello,
It's me again...since 2 days I observed a strange beaviour: I beam a playlist on the empeg and everything goes just like it should, empeg tells empire made a new playlist, but in reality nothing happens; I still have the old playlist going. Am I doing anything wrong without noticing it?

What is the setting in the Playlist screen in Palantir? It can either be Enqueue, Append or Replace. Are you appending the songs to your playlist?

Hi,
I tried the 3 options; but got no "response" from the player...Like I'm listening to a playlist with 450 songs; I beam one with 19 songs and I want palantir to replace the current one with the new and the player sticks to the one with 450 songs; although it displayed that it got the correct instructions from the palm. Very strange...

Please be clear. You say you have a playlist on your Empeg of 450 songs. You set the Playlist beam option to Replace (upper right hand corner). Then you select 19 songs on the Palm using Palantir, point the Palm at your Empeg, and press Beam on the playlist screen. Then the Palm brings up the beam dialog, the beam dialog ends, then your Empeg displays the message "19 Songs in playlist", but the playlist stays with the same 450 songs?

Can you do this while looking at the serial output of your player? This might give me more clues as to what your problem is. Also, has anything changed recently? Did it work before? Did you install any new software? Have you upgraded Palantir but not Empire, or vice versa? Did you upload new tunes onto your player but not put a new .pdb file on your Palm?

Please be clear. You say you have a playlist on your Empeg of 450 songs. You set the Playlist beam option to Replace (upper right hand corner). Then you select 19 songs on the Palm using Palantir, point the Palm at your Empeg, and press Beam on the playlist screen. Then the Palm brings up the beam dialog, the beam dialog ends, then your Empeg displays the message "19 Songs in playlist", but the playlist stays with the same 450 songs?

Yey, this is exactly what is happening. (sorry, if I didn't express myself clearly, my english is somewhat rudimental )

Yes, the program worked. I had a littlebit of trouble getting it to work (see my earlier posts in this thread) but then it finally worked flawless. The database on the palm is up-to-date with the files on the empeg; so that's not the cause. The only thing I did was to delete "emptris" and the corresponding line in the config.ini; do you think that could be the cause of my problem?

Remounting first music partition read-only
Remounting second music partition read-only
No secondary hard disk
Press 'q' now to go into development mode. You Have Zero Seconds To Comply...
Starting player

player starting with "-s-" flag
Hijack: intercepting config.ini

hijack_exec("/programs0/empacman"), rc=0 (okay)
hijack_exec("/bin/bash -c "/usr/local/bin/start_empire 10 &""), rc=0 (okay)
hijack: removed menu entry: "Tuner RDS Control"
empacman running as pid 18
start_empire: sleeping for 10 seconds...
empacman running as pid 24
/etc/preinit.d/M20emptris: /programs0/emptris: No such file or directory
/etc/preinit.d/M30emptriv: /programs0/emptriv/emptriv: No such file or directory

player.cpp : 385:empeg-car 2.00 2003/04/01.
Prolux 4 empeg car - 2.1434 Mar 26 2003
Vcb: 0x4054d000
start_empire: Starting Empire...
IrDA: Registered device irda0

This line is what I get in Hyperterminal when sending a playlist with one song:

#000001010

I guess that is the id of the track?

Thank you for trying to help me; I won't have internet access for the next week; so you don't need to hurry on this one

player starting with "-s-" flag

This is your problem. The player is starting up "disconnected" from the serial port, and will not take commands from any app over serial (which Empire uses to append/replace/enqueue songs). You should upgrade to the latest version of Hijack, and make sure that you aren't giving the serial port to an app (like gpsapp). The Hijack menu option: "Serial Port Assignment" should be set to the player, not applications.

I have a problrm with Palantir every once in a while. After the second or third time or so that i beam a list to the empeg I can no longer beam anymore playlists. A reboot of the empeg always helps. Only a slight inconvenience however.

Sean in NC

now that was quick
Yep, that was it; I must have messed around...
Thank you so much!

Hi Sean, does your Palm ever display an error message while beaming? The only reason I could think that Empire (the IrDA listener portion on the Empeg) would not accept another playlist is if it had crashed, which could possibly happen if you were to interrupt the ir beam in progress. Is it consistant at all? Also, have you looked at the serial output while beaming? Let me know, I could possibly send you a debug version of Empire to track down the problem. What Palm device are you using?

The only error code is that the Sony Clie SL10 "Searches..." then it pops up with "Could not find a receiving handheld computer." It only happens in the car that i have checked as I do not use the empeg inside because I use my Rio Receiver inside.

Mark, do not worry about the debug software. There may be a possibility of the beam being interupted as I have to hold the PDA about 1/2" away to get it to function and if you move it a little bit maybe the beam looses "focus". It does take up to 30 seconds to connect sometimes, which creates some difficulties driving sometimes without a passenger. But most of the problems have been at night... mostly at parties... sometimes with the car standing still. After the third or fourth beaming the empeg stops responding to the PDA. My 1972 Datsun 510 works great as the party boom-box and gets lots of rave reviews. I have have found a few empeg converts and newbies if they could only find a retail one to purchase... (all are hoping for a Mk3 I think) The only embarrasing part is when I have to reboot to get the IR to refunction but that is why I still have a tape deck hooked up. I can still play the tunes.

Anyway, Palantir is a great app for the PDA and empeg. Maybe there is a way to get it to function through USB port to the serial port also?

Sean in NC

The only error code is that the Sony Clie SL10 "Searches..." then it pops up with "Could not find a receiving handheld computer." It only happens in the car that i have checked as I do not use the empeg inside because I use my Rio Receiver inside.

In the car, use hijack to force AC mode. I bet it works. If so, you should be able to use the serial port binding option in hijack to let the player keep the serial port.

In reality this shouldn't be necessary as the player isn't really reading from the serial port anyway, but the requisite code to allow the player to read from the /proc file and not the serial device doesn't exist. I guess it hasn't hit the top of Mark's list yet; Maybe I should get off my butt and deal with it.

Mark, do not worry about the debug software. There may be a possibility of the beam being interupted as I have to hold the PDA about 1/2" away to get it to function and if you move it a little bit maybe the beam looses "focus". It does take up to 30 seconds to connect sometimes, which creates some difficulties driving sometimes without a passenger. But most of the problems have been at night... mostly at parties... sometimes with the car standing still. After the third or fourth beaming the empeg stops responding to the PDA.

Yeah, it sounds like the beam is interrupted or just diffused somehow so that it is getting low transfer rates. With my Palm Vx, I had to hold it within 3 inches of the Empeg, but with my newer Tungsten C, it can beam from a few feet away. Check the transparant lens on your ir port on the Clie, it may be scratched, or a combination of the lens on the Clie and the lens on the Empeg could be giving you data transfer errors. The 30 seconds to connect tells me that you've got physical ir issues.

Maybe there is a way to get it to function through USB port to the serial port also?

This has been asked for before, it's easily doable, I just haven't gotten around to implementing it yet. I've been thinking of making other transport methods available (like 802.11 or BT) also. It just makes things more complex, and I like to keep it simple.

The only error code is that the Sony Clie SL10 "Searches..." then it pops up with "Could not find a receiving handheld computer

I had the same recurring problem with my T425 Clie, largely kept timing out, found the empeg about 1 in 4 times (albeit after a long negotiation).

Finally got frustrated and bought a cheap Palm Vx, works perfectly every time. Connects in 2 to 3 seconds max, anything from 0 to about 6” away.

Shame about the Clie, it had a nicer screen but its IR capabilities are not the same as the Palm. I assume your problem is the same. Sorry Dude!

Cheers, Sim

I think this is what I have figured out at this point. Maybe it is time to "upgrade". A wireless connection would be nice also to get those all important radar weather maps from accuweather.com on the fly...


Sean in NC

That's unfortunate, since the older Clie's can be had for a reasonable price on eBay or discounted at stores. I do have to say that Palm is coming back heavily into the market with their new models. The Tungsten series is just great, and if I didn't have a Tungsten C already I would probably buy the Tungsten E. Great screen, memory, speed and form factor, all for $199. It should replace the Vx nicely as the sleek, sexy PDA in the Palm line.