There-s a werd thing that happens after my mark1 player has built databases while booting. The player does not display most of the id3 tags information while playing and none of the playlists in the menu. When the player boots up without building databases everything is normal again. I have been experienceing the problem a long time now. Meanwhile a number of software updates have been applied but the bug stays the same.

Veiko
veiko@lc.ee

MK1 #317 - 20GB green

The player should not have to build the databases on boot up. If this is happening regularly, there's some kind of an error with the files on the disk.

When was the last time you added a song and did a synch? The act of synching a new song should force a database rebuild and correct the error.

If not, e-mail support and let them know what's going on.

___________
Tony Fabris

Synching does'nt help. I have loaded new songs and synched many times after this error appeared. And as i mentioned before, uploaded new software. And its getting worse all the time, actually it's building the databases every other time i boot the empeg now.
Guess that cleaning the empeg, diagnoseing all the files with some other software and putting all the stuff back in would help. But have quite lot of music that is only on empeg (no backup) that i don't want to lose. Isn't there any other way to diagnose the databases and remove erroneous files. Would appreciate if some diagnose-ing function would appear in v2.0 of emplode.


Veiko
veiko@lc.ee

MK1 #317 - 20GB green

Get a serial log of the player boot-up when it does the building-databases thing (see FAQ entry for "hyperterminal").

You shouldn't need a diagnosis utility- the problem should not be happening at all. I suspect either a bug of some kind or a disk problem.

___________
Tony Fabris

I can't get it building databases when on home power, I tried several times. The building thing usually happens when empeg has been on standby awhile in the car and i turn the ignition (empeg reboots). Mark 1 doesn't have separate wire to connect car acessory line and in my case the power is connected thru ignition key.

Veiko
veiko@lc.ee

MK1 #317 - 20GB green

How does it fail to build the database on home power? Get a serial log from the player, and a log file from emplode for a sync where you've attempted to do this, and send it to carsupport@riohome.com


Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg

How does it fail to build the database on home power?

No, you misunderstood me. The problem is that the player is building databases when i boot it in car. The emplode works fine. I just tried to recall the boot error when empeg is connected to hyperterm.
Sry when i don't express myself clear enough, english is not my first language.

Veiko
veiko@lc.ee

MK1 #317 - 20GB green

I think he wants you to get a boot log on home power anyway. It might show something useful.

___________
Tony Fabris

My MK2 could very well suffer from the same problem. As with veixl, it *only* happens in the car after extended play. Once it happens, 'now and next' displays empty tags for some (not all) songs in the list and the scrolling info line has 'no title'. Skipping to a previous track doesn't work at all (is refused) and skipping to the next track skips over a few tracks e.g. from 7 to 11, to 13, to 17, etc. When it freezes, it is within a second into a new (illegal?) track. Switching the unit off doesn't help; when it is turned on, it rebuilds the list and resumes at the exact place where it was stopped with the same behavior. Removing the player without putting it to sleep and pushing it back in again resolves the error.

I can't cause the error to happen at home. There, the player runs fine for days, Also the empeg-car board test runs fine (no error), even after leaving it playing wrapped in a towel for half a day (see below), but it detected only one disk (line 220). Is this normal?

0000 empeg-car board test version 0.04
0100 ram test starting
0110 testing ic 1 (0-3mb, low word)
0120 testing ic 2 (0-3mb, high word)
0130 testing ic 3 (4-7mb, low word)
0140 testing ic 4 (4-7mb, high word)
0150 testing ic 19 (8-11mb, low word)
0160 testing ic 32 (8-11mb, high word)
01f0 ram test done
0200 ide detect
0210 command issued
0220 drive id IBM-DARA-206000
02f0 ide ok
0300 dsp/i2c test
03f0 dsp/i2c ok
0400 temperature detect
0410 temperature is 46
04f0 temperature ok
0500 usb detect
0510 usb rev 1012
05f0 usb ok
0600 ethernet detect
0610 ethernet rev 334b
06f0 ethernet ok
0700 cs4231 detect
0710 cs4231 rev a0
07f0 cs4231 ok
00f0 tests complete

Anyone who can explain why yanking it out of the sled cures the problem and switching the unit off doesn't?

and eh, veixl, does this sound similar?


Henno
mk2 6 nr 6

Anyone who can explain why yanking it out of the sled cures the problem and switching the unit off doesn't?

Because switching the unit off doesn't actually turn anything off. It just puts it in standby mode: It pauses playback, spins down the drives, and turns off the display.

Question: In both of your cases, do you have dual-drive systems? And are the missing songs on the second drive?

Is this just a loose-jumper-on-the-second-drive problem?

___________
Tony Fabris

Yeah, it really sounds similar, quite the same actually.

Veiko
veiko@lc.ee

MK1 #317 - 20GB green

Ok, here's the bootlog on home power.
###############################

empeg-car v0.07 19991106 (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!

e000 v1.03
Copying kernel...
Calling linux kernel...
Uncompressing Linux....................... done, booting the kernel.
Linux version 2.2.14-rmk5-np17-empeg43 (root@linux) (gcc version 2.95.2 19991024
(release)) #1 Wed Jul 18 20:20:45 MDT 2001
Processor: Intel StrongARM-1100 revision 9
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.94.1 (c) 1998 Corel Computer Corp.
empeg-car player (hardware revision 4, serial number 00317)
Command line: mem=8m temp=27
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 7356k/8M available (580k code, 20k reserved, 228k data, 8k init)
Dentry hash table entries: 1024 (order 1, 8k)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 8192 (order 3, 32k)
Page cache hash table entries: 2048 (order 1, 8k)
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.2
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
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
Signature is 67706d65 'empg'
Scheduling custom logo.
empeg display initialised.
empeg dsp audio initialised
empeg dsp mixer initialised
empeg dsp initialised
empeg remote control/panel button support initialised (Using FIQs).
A25D0A->B94614 10640650->12142100
A25D0B->B94615 10640651->12142101
A25D43->B9460B 10640707->12142091
A25D42->B9460A 10640706->12142090
A25D12->B9465E 10640658->12142174
A25D1A->B9461F 10640666->12142111
A25D0C->B9460E 10640652->12142094
A25D40->B9461B 10640704->12142107
A25D41->B9460F 10640705->12142095
A25D19->B94603 10640665->12142083
A25D0D->B94600 10640653->12142080
empeg usb initialised, USBN9602 revision 1
empeg state support initialised 0089/8893 (save to d0005680).
empeg RDS driver initialised
empeg power state driver initialised
Linux video capture interface: v1.00
empeg FM radio driver (Philips).
RAM disk driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size
empeg dual channel IDE
Probing primary interface...
No drives found, retrying...
No drives found, retrying...
No drives found, retrying...
No drives found, retrying...
No drives found, retrying...
hda: TOSHIBA MK1011GAV, ATA DISK drive
hdc: TOSHIBA MK1011GAV, ATA DISK drive
Registering drives...
ide0 at 0x040-0x047,0x078 on irq 7
ide1 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: TOSHIBA MK1011GAV, 9590MB w/0kB Cache, CHS=19485/16/63
hdc: TOSHIBA MK1011GAV, 9590MB w/0kB Cache, CHS=19485/16/63
empeg-flash driver initialized
Partition check:
hda: hda1 < hda5 hda6 > hda2 hda3 hda4
hdc: hdc1 hdc2 hdc3 hdc4
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_count=1
Trying to unmount old root ... okay
Freeing unused kernel memory: 8k initI see this is a developer image!
Mounting proc
Mounting first music partition
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
empeg-car 1.03-rc1.

Veiko
veiko@lc.ee

MK1 #317 - 20GB green

Nothing wrong with that.


Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg

Guess i have to get serial log in car somehow then. I could use my company laptop for that purpose. Is the connection the same with car serial on MK1 (except bits per second of course)?

Veiko
veiko@lc.ee

MK1 #317 - 20GB green

I wonder whether your installation isn't delivering enough juice to get both disks spun up properly, and that's causing it to rebuild the database?

Hmmm. I'll go check in the source code and find out under what circumstances it does build the DB...


Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg

I wonder whether your installation isn't delivering enough juice to get both disks spun up properly, and that's causing it to rebuild the database?

My thoughts exactly!

Where's the car sled getting its power from? Do you tend to see the little battery icon often?

___________
Tony Fabris

switching the unit off doesn't actually turn anything off. It just puts it in standby mode
Yeah, but switching off ignition didn't cure it either, and that should write 'state' to memory shouldn't it?

do you have dual-drive systems?
Yes, I have two drives. You think this has anything to do with it?

And are the missing songs on the second drive?
Interesting suggestion! I haven't checked this, and ehh, honestly I don't have a clue how to do this. Nothing to hunt for as the tracks with missing file names do not play! So: no name / no content. Any suggestions to find out which fids get skipped?

Is this just a loose-jumper-on-the-second-drive problem?
I guess you mean a loose connector. Could be. I promissed myself to open up the player when the tuner arrives to check if the connectors still sit tight, though I find it difficult to believe that they have come loose so slightly that it only causes temporary errors when in the car after 2-3 hours playing, and connect properly on a cold boot when the player is yanked out of the cage two minutes later. Will check soon (I hope)

My guess is that somehow the playlist itself gets corrupted, but I've no clue how to substantiate this. Any ideas? Can I somehow dump the playlist?

Will let you know if the connectors still sit tight on the disks. Just waiting for the tuner to arrive . . .


Henno
mk2 6 nr 6

wonder whether your installation isn't delivering enough juice to get both disks spun up properly, and that's causing it to rebuild the database?

I don't think that's the case. At least in my case it only happens after the Mk2 has been on for at least a few hours without any problem, and on such long trips I'm usually easily cruising a motorway. Can't think of anything that could have upset the car's power household. Moreover, starting the car *does* cause the battery symbol to show but this doesn't mess up the playlist.

Where's the car sled getting its power from?
straight from the battery

Do you tend to see the little battery icon often?
only when starting the car while the player is on


Henno
mk2 6 nr 6

I tried do connect hyperterm in car with laptop. The hyperterm shows that it's connected but nothing appears on the screen. The Bits Per Second is on 4800, all other settings like on desktop (where it connects like it supposed to). Allso i noticed weird noise in the speakers when i connected the serial (no matter empeg on standby or working). Is there something wrong with my in car serial?

Veiko
veiko@lc.ee

MK1 #317 - 20GB green

Edited by veixl on 03/09/01 07:47 PM.