I dont know what I did wrong. It looked easy enough..

I installed the TTS clock program, and everything was running great. Then I got a little greedy and installed one additional line in my Hijack config.ini file.. a line that would play an additional .pcm file at start up.

Now my player boots to the home/car graphic page and hangs there.. I cannot get to the player via emplode, ftp (since I no longer know the IP address my provider gives it) and cant edit the file to remove the line.

I did install HiJack again thinking it would overwrite the config.ini file but I guess it doesnt.

Any ideas?

If your player won't boot, the only way to edit the config.ini file now is with a terminal program on the serial port. Instructions for sending and receiving files via serial is here, but make sure that you pay attention to the note in this FAQ entry about manually editing your config file.

By the way, regarding the DHCP address: Usually, your player will get the same IP address every single time, so odds are you just use the same one you used last time and it will work. So you might not have to resort to serial.

I tried the same IP already.. it was a no go.

I am familiar with the terminal program somewhat, have used it before with emptris, empacman, etc.. I guess thats my next step.

Hmm.. I see in Hyperterminal where it asks me to 'press Q now to go into development mode' .. only it also says that I 'have zero seconds to comply' and continues with the boot. I cant get in to development mode.

I do still hear TTS clock pleasently telling me the time and date.. ugh!

The zero seconds to comply is a joke. You can press Q at any time.

What is at the VERY END of the boot log where it locks up?

The last line is :

hijack_exec("/drive0/var/ttsclock -t-5"), rc=0 (okay)

I know its (okay) because I hear the time.

For that matter, here are the last few lines..

Mounting second music partition
Remounting first music partition read-only
Remounting second music partition read-only
Press 'q' now to go into development mode. You Have Zero Seconds To Comply...
Starting player
Hijack: intercepting config.ini

': not a valid identifieropts: `Option
Saved AC volume was 62
Volume=62
hijack_exec("/drive0/var/ttsclock -t-5"), rc=0 (okay)


Pressing Q and then enter does nothing.

Then it's definitely the next exec line that's locking things up.

See if you can do a lot of q <enter> q <enter> q <enter>s during bootup and maybe it'll get you to the shell prompt before it hits that second exec line. If that doesn't work, try Ctrl+C's.

You need to get that second exec line out of your config somehow.

Oh, and that's also the reason why you're not getting a DHCP address for your player by the way. I think the player software has to do DHCP, and it's not even getting that far.

Yeah, I figured the DHCP part.. and that last line is the only line I added so I figured that was the one hanging the system.

Its just a matter of getting rid of it. I will try the multiple Q[enter] bit and see if I can sneak in.. I know of no other way.

Wait, silly me. Lateral thinking solution.

Just replace Hijack with a standard factory kernel (I think Mark even has a standard factory kernel .zimage at his site so you only have to install the kernel and not the whole software) and then the exec lines will be ignored. You can edit the config with emplode at that point.

(Note that you'll have to pull the power from the player, start the kernel application, then apply the power when prompted.)

God, I'm so stupid for not thinking of this before.

Yeah, the unmodified factory kernel for the Mark 2 is here. Just pull the power, run logoedit, drag that file onto logoedit, wait till it prompts you to apply power, and then do so.

Leave it in place long enough to get your config.ini editing done.

Hmm. Control-C during the TTSclock routine worked. I got past it.

Now I need to figure out how to edit the file without the carriage returns that Windows likes to put in it. I saw the link you gave me above, I am going to try that.

I am now at this point..

Press 'q' now to go into development mode. You Have Zero Seconds To Comply...
Starting player
q
Hijack: intercepting config.ini

': not a valid identifieropts: `Option
Saved AC volume was 62
Volume=62
q
hijack_exec("/drive0/var/ttsclock -t-5"), rc=0 (okay)
hijack_exec("/drive0/var/pcmplay < /drive0/var/systemcheck.pcm"), rc=0 (okay)
hijack: removed menu entry: "Hard Disk Detection"
hijack: removed menu entry: "Tuner RDS Control"
hijack: removed menu entry: "Serial Port Assignment"
khttpd: listening on port 80
kftpd: listening on port 21
Restored terminal settings
Remounting first music partition read-only
Remounting second music partition read-only
Abnormal player termination
Player received SIGINT, user interruption
Switching to shell-player loop

Now I need to figure out how to edit the file without the carriage returns that Windows likes to put in it. I saw the link you gave me above, I am going to try that.

Nevermind that, just put the regular kernel in place and edit with emplode, then you don't have to worry about carriage returns.

OK.. all is well again.

But I didnt have to use logoedit to send anything to the player at all. Weird.

I was going to remove the config.ini file from the player and upload a new copy. I performed an RWM command on the player.. after a few minutes I got the command prompt back.

At that point I saw your post about sending the code with logoedit..

So I next performed an ROM just to make sure, then an EXIT. It booted. I loaded emplode, removed the line of code causing the problem, synced.. and here I am again. A hardy 'Yee Haw' from the land of Texas for the help!

Thanks!

then an EXIT. It booted.

Aha. Interesting What happened:

The Ctrl+C killed the program that was locking up the player. When you typed exit, it finished the boot sequence and ran the player software properly, allowing you to get into Emplode just that one critical time you needed to.

If you'd cycled the power instead of typing EXIT, it wouldn't have booted unless you did the ctrl+c trick again.

Just for fun now, can someone tell me where my mistake is?

Here is a line from the boot log that caused the lockup.. only it never displayed until I gained control by hitting Control-C on my keyboard.

hijack_exec("/drive0/var/pcmplay < /drive0/var/systemcheck.pcm"), rc=0 (okay)

The actual line in the config.ini is as follows..

;@EXEC_ONCE /drive0/var/pcmplay < /drive0/var/systemcheck.pcm

There are spaces on both sides of the < sign.. is that the problem? I created my own sound file and converted it from a .wav to a .pcm with cooledit.. I may want to try this again sometime but I really would rather get it right the next time.

Try;
;@EXEC_ONCE "/drive0/var/pcmplay < /drive0/var/systemcheck.pcm"
(ie add the double quotation marks)

If that doesn't work, try creating a bash script, eg /usr/local/bin/startsound;

!#/bin/bash
/drive0/var/pcmplay < /drive0/var/systemcheck.pcm
exit


and then using

;@EXEC_ONCE /bin/bash -c "/usr/local/bin/playsound &"

I think it's more likely to be a problem with the audio file itself, and the pcmplay program not failing gracefully when it hits a filetype it can't play.

He should try getting the file to play by entering the command "live" at the shell prompt and make sure it works that way, before locking up his player with more config.ini editing...

It could well be that. Care to wager a pint?

Sure. You're on.

I will let you know when I get home from work today. See in about 8 hours.

Hmm.. puzzling. I found a mistake that I made.. I left out a directory. I uploaded my .PCM file to the /drive0/var/tts directory but was trying to execute it from the /drive0/var directory. The file did not exist where the script was looking.

I can type in the correct command in Hyperterminal and it will play, but at a super fast speed (sounds like a fly buzzing almost) and you cannot understand it. I guess I encoded the sound file wrong?? It plays just fine under CoolEdit.

So we were both wrong. Does that mean we buy each other a pint?

No. It means you both buy everyone else a pint

pca

The PCM file must be 44.1k and stereo. If it's not then you'll get it sounding slow or fast. CoolEdit is capable of playing other sampling rates but the DSP used in the empeg is locked at 44.1k.