After upgrading to version 3 alpha 5, then subsequently to alpha 3 , and then back to version 2.0 final I lost some playlists. After fixing the database and re uploading files as needed, I just synced with emplode 2.0 then I notice the LED's in the karma dock flashing as my mk2a is being synched. My question is how is emplode talking to the karma/ karma dock?

I notice the LED's in the karma dock flashing

Those are ethernet traffic LEDs. They are just like the traffic indicator lights on your hub or on the NIC card in your PC. All it means is that there's traffic on the ethernet, it doesn't mean those devices are specifically communicating with each other.

It's likely that you're using a hub instead of a switch. The difference between a hub and a switch is that the traffic on a hub is heard by everything plugged into the hub. The traffic on a switch is routed only to the correct port (except for broadcast packets which go to everyone).

To add to what Tony has said. Even if your Karma is plugged in to a switch, it will still see some traffic from emplode, which uses broadcast packets to find empegs. It won't respond, though.

As to the implied question: No, it's extremely unlikely that emplode will ever talk to the Karma. It'd be too much work. A more promising direction is to make Rio Music Manager talk to the car player, and to include whichever features of emplode that are missing from RMM. RMM is a much more solid piece of code.

The karma ethernet port is not currently plugged into my switch, the only thing that is connected is usb and power. Emplode is synching with the mk2a via ethernet though.

The karma ethernet port is not currently plugged into my switch, the only thing that is connected is usb and power.

Wait. So what's blinking, then?

the leds in the karma dock are blinking. this is occuring when I am doing an emplode sync via ethernet (plugged in via switch) , the karma is not plugged into the dock (only usb and power are on in the karma dock) .

the leds in the karma dock are blinking.

Please be very specific. There are four LEDs in the Karma dock. They are:

- Link light on the ethernet port.
- Traffic light on the ethernet port.
- Indicator LED on the front center of the dock.
- Cradle glow illumination LED.

Which of those four is blinking?

It was the cradle glow LEDs. I am trying to reproduce it now, and am failing miserably.

If the Karma is plugged into the dock, the cradle glow illumination has (with recent versions of the Karma firmware) some options for how the glow behaves, under Settings/Dock. If it's set to "Pulse to music", you might mistake the pulsing of a playing song looks like traffic LED indication.

Otherwise, if the Karma isn't plugged into the dock at all, ther cradle glow LEDs should not be lit at all, as far as I know.

A more promising direction is to make Rio Music Manager talk to the car player, and to include whichever features of emplode that are missing from RMM.

..but since RMM is now moving to a new software team in the US that is unlikely to happen (unless any of them are really into the car player).

Rob

(unless any of them are really into the car player).

So, how many spare car players do you have to send them? :-)

American developers move companies too often to be given something as valuable as a car player. I want full value!

Rob

Is this bad news for the folks in Cambridge? It sounds rather ominous.

It only applies to Windows development. Although we found someone really good to take over from Roger, I couldn't find anyone else in the UK worth hiring to build up the team. Apparantly the Bay is full of good candidates (or maybe they have different standards there).

Luckily finding embedded developers in Cambridge is much easier.

Rob

In reply to:

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American developers move companies too often to be given something as valuable as a car player. I want full value

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Ahh, but the best way to tackle that problem is to donate a player [or two] to the US Windows software development Team, i.e. not any single team member.

With the understanding that they can use this as a "team" to test new software interoperability features in RMM. Suggesting that they get their feet wet with the existing [easy to use, well documented etc etc] Empeg protocol first.

And if you then load the said Empeg(s) with a bunch of uncool and/or badly ripped music tracks before you send them over, and do not give them access to Emplode to change the music, but instead then give them the documented Empeg protocol and suggest that RMM is the best way for them to get some cool music on their car-player, then stand back and see how quickly you get RMM to Empeg integration implemented.

And if the same team then get to see the neat features of Emplode [e.g. soup views, drag and drop tag editing/updating etc] they may want to implement them in RMM as a nice to have.

Still, maybe even that won't motivate your US development teams - and if so, then maybe someone in the Software team management should consider hiring some programmers willing to go the extra distance occasionally.

I gather there are rather a lot of un[der]employed Windows [and other types of] programmers in the West Coast these days...

And if the same team then get to see the neat features of Emplode [e.g. soup views, drag and drop tag editing/updating etc] they may want to implement them in RMM as a nice to have.

But RMM already has soup views and drag-and-drop tag editing. The last I heard about the split of responsibilities, Cambridge was going to keep control of enough of the back-end of RMM that the guys writing the front-end would never need to know whether it was a Karma or an Empeg they were talking to...

Peter