While I was emplode over the ethernet, the player stopped working. (Download indicator hasn't moved) So I had to power off.
Now everytime I try to use emplode I get the error message: the download process failed during stage 2: Error 0xfffffff8.(For USB, serial and ethernet)
I uploaded the consumer and the developer image several time. But it still doesn't work. Any ideas?

At the moment there is no music on the player. When I reboot the player it say's End of playlist.

Is there a tool, which erase everything on the hole disc, including partition and then creates it as if the player was new?

Thanks
Rene

Here is the output from the serial line:
empeg-car bootstrap v1.00 20000601 (hugo@empeg.com)
If there is anyone present who wants to upgrade the flash, let them speak now,
or forever hold their peace...it seems not. Let fly the Penguins of Linux!
Copying kernel...
Calling linux kernel...
Uncompressing Linux........................
mpeg-car player (hardware revision 7, serial number 80000251)
Command line: mem=12m temp=47
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 11000k/12M available (968k code, 20k reserved, 292k data, 8k init)
Dentry hash table entries: 2048 (order 2, 16k)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 16384 (order 4, 64k)
Page cache hash table entries: 4096 (order 2, 16k)
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
TCP: Hash tables configured (ehash 16384 bhash 16384)
IrDA (tm) Protocols for Linux-2.2 (Dag Brattli)
Linux-IrDA: IrCOMM protocol ( revision:Tue May 18 03:11:39 1999 )
ircomm_tty: virtual tty driver for IrCOMM ( revision:Wed May 26 00:49:11 1999 )
Starting kswapd v 1.5
SA1100 serial driver version 4.27 with no serial options enabled
ttyS00 at 0xf8010000 (irq = 15) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS01 at 0xf8050000 (irq = 17) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS02 at 0xf8030000 (irq = 16) is a SA1100 UART
empeg display initialised.
empeg dspaudio driver initialized
empeg audio-in initialised, CS4231A revision a0
empeg infra-red support initialised.
empeg usb initialised, PDIUSBD12 id 1012
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0004900).
empeg power-pic driver initialised (first boot)
RAM disk driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size
empeg single channel IDE
Probing primary interface...
hda: IBM-DARA-218000, ATA DISK drive
hda: IBM-DARA-218000, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: IBM-DARA-218000, 17301MB w/418kB Cache, CHS=35152/16/63
empeg-flash driver initialized
smc chip id/revision 0x3349
smc9194.c:v0.12 03/06/96 by Erik Stahlman (erik@vt.edu)

SMC9194: SMC91C94(r:9) at 0x4008000 IRQ:7 INTF:TP MEM:6144b MAC 00:02:d7:10:00:f
b
Partition check:
hda: hda1 < hda5 hda6 > hda2 hda3 hda4
RAMDISK: ext2 filesystem found at block 0
RAMDISK: Loading 320 blocks [1 disk] into ram disk... done.
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
empeg-pump v0.03 (19980601)
Press Ctrl-A to enter pump...VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
change_root: old root has d_countTrying to unmount old root ... okay
Freeing unused kernel memory: 8k initEXT2-fs: #blocks per group too big: 1678566
4
empeg-car 1.0.

At the moment there is no music on the player. When I reboot the player it say's End of playlist.

You should be able to select a playlist and it should play music. Even if the database is damaged a bit. It's normal for it to say "end of playlist" after a synch.

Press the bottom button on the unit's face three times. It should start playing the whole unit.

Is there a tool, which erase everything on the hole disc, including partition and then creates it as if the player was new?

Yes. It can be found at the Empeg download page under utilities. There are no instructions there on how to use it, but you can glean the necessary information from this FAQ item.

But you shouldn't need to format the disk. The database is very good at self-repairing and you should be able to use the unit without having to start over again. Try performing some more synchs and see if you can force the database to repair itself.

___________
Tony Fabris

Actually, the message at the end of boot looks like somehow the ext2 music partition has got totally toasted - in this case, the reformat option is the only way (or manually fsck'ing the disk).

I've never seen a partition get in such a state until now, though.

Hugo

looks like somehow the ext2 music partition has got totally toasted - in this case, the reformat option is the only way (or manually fsck'ing the disk).

Hmm, if that's the case, shouldn't we be looking for the cause of the toasted partition rather than just fixing the symptom?

___________
Tony Fabris

Ok, I will try the MARK II Builder tomorrow.

The problem occured while I deleted all files from the playlist.Then I added some new files. During the synchronize process (ethernet), the emplode software stopped working. (Maybe a network problem) The update indicator on the player stopped too. So I had to power off the player.

During the synchronize process (ethernet), the emplode software stopped working.

Or... it is possible you may be able to join the small but growing club of people who have this problem.

As promised, I added the USB hub to see if that would help, but no joy there. The Emplode software runs perfectly on my computer at work, it just doesn't seem to like something about my PC at home.

I can't really blame empeg for this, because emplode does work properly in the vast majority of cases... but there is more than just myself now with this problem, so I am hoping for a solution. Of course, by that time, I'll already have all my music in the empeg and will no longer care!

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

Alex's case may be slightly different from yours, Doug.

Alex may have been hit by the known bug where the synch seems to lock up at a certain point (where there is a long pause), and just made the mistake of yanking the power instead of waiting. Although I don't know if yanking the power at this point should have caused a file system corruption, so maybe this isn't what happened.

In any case, that "long pause" bug should theoretically be swatted in 1.01 when it comes out.



___________
Tony Fabris

If the PC software gets upset, but the empeg is still displaying the "sycnhronising" animation - LEAVE IT. After about 5-10 minutes the empeg will time-out, remount the disks read only (ie, enter into a safe state) then reboot. This is much safer than powering it down when the PC software gets upset.

Hugo

Will the empeg time-out, even if the "synchronising animation" doesn't move?

If it doesn't move, something strange is happening. When you've got it working again, it might be an idea to connect the serial and keep a hyperterminal log of any messages that are sent by the empeg during sync. If it dies again, this may help determine the problem.

Hugo

If it doesn't move, something strange is happening.

Mine stops moving all the time. It will sit there for a while, then later it will start again. But then, you know I'm already having synchronization problems.

If it doesn't move, something strange is happening.

Mine only ever stopped moving once -- and it stayed stopped until I pulled the power and rebooted. My unit normally times out (after emplode fails) in 3--5 minutes and reboots itself, but this time it was locked up apparently forever.

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

I made the upgrade with the (car2-builder.upgrade) file from the empeg homepage. It succeeded sucessfully.
After rebooting the player it displays "partitioning hd" and so on. But at the stage makeing directories it stoped for over 15 minutes. The serial log says:
Function entered at [<400c782c>] from [<0200c31c>]
r10 = 4002110C r9 = 00000000 r8 = 00000000 r7 = 00000000
r6 = 0200C2F8 r5 = 00000000 r4 = 40021A0C
init: permission fault on section, address=0xe5932200, code 2
pc : [<020131c0>] lr : [<0200f434>]
sp : bffff5ec ip : ffffd800 fp : bffffe24
r10: 4018c134 r9 : 02067930 r8 : 02080080
r7 : bffff62c r6 : bffffc6c r5 : 000000f0 r4 : 000000f0
r3 : e5932100 r2 : fffffffe r1 : 00000000 r0 : 0207d334
Flags: nZCv IRQs on FIQs on Mode USER_32 Segment user
Control: D03B917D Table: D03B917D DAC: 00000015
Function entered at [<0200f1c8>] from [<0200f034>]
r8 = 02080080 r7 = 0200C3D4 r6 = 400217C0 r5 = 00000000
r4 = 02081FCC
Function entered at [<0200efac>] from [<0200f154>]
Function entered at [<0200f078>] from [<0200ed88>]
Function entered at [<0200ebfc>] from [<0200cd10>]
Function entered at [<0200c3d4>] from [<400c795c>]
r7 = 0200C3D4 r6 = 400217C0 r5 = 00000002 r4 = BFFFFF04
Function entered at [<400c782c>] from [<0200c31c>]
r10 = 4002110C r9 = 00000000 r8 = 00000000 r7 = 00000000
r6 = 0200C2F8 r5 = 00000000 r4 = 40021A0C
init: permission fault on section, address=0xe5932200, code 2
pc : [<020131c0>] lr : [<0200f434>]
sp : bffff5ec ip : ffffd800 fp : bffffe24
r10: 4018c134 r9 : 02067930 r8 : 02080080
r7 : bffff62c r6 : bffffc6c r5 : 000000f0 r4 : 000000f0
r3 : e5932100 r2 : fffffffe r1 : 00000000 r0 : 0207d334
Flags: nZCv IRQs on FIQs on Mode USER_32 Segment user
Control: D03B917D Table: D03B917D DAC: 00000015
Function entered at [<0200f1c8>] from [<0200f034>]
r8 = 02080080 r7 = 0200C3D4 r6 = 400217C0 r5 = 00000000
r4 = 02081FCC

and so on ...

I powered off the empeg and updated the player once again with "car2-builder.upgrade" image. The upgrade wizward says "The upgrade has succesfully been applied" but after this it doesn't reboot at all!

The serial log always says:
empeg-car bootstrap v1.00 20000601 (hugo@empeg.com)
If there is anyone present who wants to upgrade the flash, let them speak now,
or forever hold their peace...it seems not. Let fly the Penguins of Linux!

Copying kernel...
Calling linux kernel...
Uncompressing Linux.................................... done, booting the kernel
.
Linux version 2.2.14-rmk5-np17-empeg35 (mac@fatboy.internal.empeg.com) (gcc vers
ion 2.95.2 19991024 (release)) #13 Sun Aug 27 17:35:36 BST 2000
Processor: Intel StrongARM-1100 revision 11
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.94.1 (c) 1998 Corel Computer Corp.
empeg-car player (hardware revision 7, serial number 80000251)
Command line: mem=12m temp=38
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 11000k/12M available (968k code, 20k reserved, 292k data, 8k init)
Dentry hash table entries: 2048 (order 2, 16k)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 16384 (order 4, 64k)
Page cache hash table entries: 4096 (order 2, 16k)
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
TCP: Hash tables configured (ehash 16384 bhash 16384)
IrDA (tm) Protocols for Linux-2.2 (Dag Brattli)
Linux-IrDA: IrCOMM protocol ( revision:Tue May 18 03:11:39 1999 )
ircomm_tty: virtual tty driver for IrCOMM ( revision:Wed May 26 00:49:11 1999 )
Starting kswapd v 1.5
SA1100 serial driver version 4.27 with no serial options enabled
ttyS00 at 0xf8010000 (irq = 15) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS01 at 0xf8050000 (irq = 17) is a SA1100 UART
ttyS02 at 0xf8030000 (irq = 16) is a SA1100 UART
empeg display initialised.
empeg dspaudio driver initialized
empeg audio-in initialised, CS4231A revision a0
empeg infra-red support initialised.
empeg usb initialised, PDIUSBD12 id 1012
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0004e80).
empeg power-pic driver initialised (first boot)
RAM disk driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size
empeg single channel IDE
Probing primary interface...
hda: IBM-EASA-218101 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !, ATA DISK drive
hda: IBM-EASA-218101 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: IBM-EASA-218101 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !, 8063MB w/418kB Cache, CHS=16383/16
/63
empeg-flash driver initialized
smc chip id/revision 0x3349
smc9194.c:v0.12 03/06/96 by Erik Stahlman (erik@vt.edu)

SMC9194: SMC91C94(r:9) at 0x4008000 IRQ:7 INTF:TP MEM:6144b MAC 00:02:d7:10:00:f
b
Partition check:
hda: unknown partition table
RAMDISK: ext2 filesystem found at block 0
RAMDISK: Loading 320 blocks [1 disk] into ram disk... done.
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
empeg-pump v0.03 (19980601)
Press Ctrl-A to enter pump...X]]Y[\]H]
)kk«kÍ�‰•å½¹‘�•¹‘�½™�‘•Ù¥�•)5Ó“‚ªÒ’ÝõÁ±�
Ý…¹Ñõɱ�±¥µ¥ÑõÁ)5�«Ë�ÁÍéÁÕ�‰±­Í¥é•õÅÁÉÑ�‰±½�­¹ÉõÅ�Í•�ѽÉõÉ�Í¥é•õÅÁÉÑ��½Õ¹ÑõÅ)5 E
XT2-fs: unable to read superblock
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:05

There seems to be a problem with the disc. Maybe a manual filecheck would help, but how do I get a shell prompt?
Any ideas?

Thanks
Rene

This possibly could be a ram fault. When the player dies, power it off & on and hit Ctrl-T when you first see text output from the empeg, this should enter the test code. Email the log to support@empeg.com

Hugo

In the meantime I tried to update the player several times with the "car2-builder.upgrade".
There is some progress. Somethings seems to happen. At the moment the player is at the hdstresstest for over 45 minutes. How long does this stresstest usualy take?

The serial output looks like:
Stressing /dev/hda: Spinning up.
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 30): Poll result=0 on fd=5
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 30): Poll result=0 on fd=5
Drive length is 35433216 blocks, seek testing
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 30): Poll result=0 on fd=5
Seek test complete: 40.61 seconds.
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 30): Poll result=0 on fd=5
Stressing /dev/hda: Spinning down.
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 30): Poll result=0 on fd=5
Stressing /dev/hda: Spinning up.
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 30): Poll result=0 on fd=5
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 30): Poll result=0 on fd=5
Stressing /dev/hda: Spinning down.
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 30): Poll result=0 on fd=5
Stressing /dev/hda: Spinning up.
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 30): Poll result=0 on fd=5
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 30): Poll result=0 on fd=5
Speed checking /dev/hda3
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 30): Poll result=0 on fd=5
Read/write of 8Mb took 15.00 seconds
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 30): Poll result=0 on fd=5
Stressing /dev/hda: Spinning down.
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 30): Poll result=0 on fd=5
Stressing /dev/hda: Spinning up.
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 30): Poll result=0 on fd=5
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 30): Poll result=0 on fd=5
Stressing /dev/hda: Spinning down.
hdstress.cpp 189 ( 30): Poll result=0 on fd=5
Stressing /dev/hda: Spinning up.

Maybe some hope?

Thanks for the help.
I don't know what I have done, but at the moment the player is working normally again.
I uploaded the builder image several times, and suddenly the kernel panic message disappeared. I'll test the player in the next days and if I see any problems I write to the support e-mail address. Hope that there is no hardware problem.

Rene