I've searched for 2 hours with no luck finding an answer so I'm sorry in advanced if it has already been discused.

First, I am running car2-consumer-v2.00 which I reloaded once already and v340.hijack.mk2 on the player and car-emplode-v2.00 on 2 different computers, both running Win2k.

The player plays fine in the car and at home and I can connect to it using http (man is that awesome). When I try and connect to it with Emplode it gets through the rebuilding database and then gets a "Emplode.exe has generated errors and will be shut down" message.

I loaded JEmplode in a hope to sync with that and I get "[EmpegFILEID: 2] did not exist" twice and then it drops back to the unsynced jEmplode.

Also, on a side note, sice I've upgraded the player it loads the visuals on boot in the car weather I leave in in info mode or in visuals mode when it is shut down. Not sure if it is related it is a minor nusiance and I would like to fix it as well.

I hope someone can help me with this. Thank you in advance.

Hi Daniel,

Can you use Hyperterminal to connect to the player's serial port and cut and paste the output when you try to sync here?

There are several things that could be happening, and the output is vital to understand what is going on.

Greetings!

The visuals on boot may be a hijack setting. You should check your config.ini file to see if you have that option set.

The main problem sounds like it might be a problem on the hard drives. They may require a manual disk check (fsck). Get the boot log through hyperterminal, and if there are any errors when this happens, please post them here.

To resolve it, though, you will likely need to drop to the shell prompt - something you cannot do on the consumer version. You may want to load the developer version - it gives access to a lot of troubleshooting utilities.

If you do see disk errors, the solution is typically a manual fsck of the drives.

OK, here is the info from a sync. I am including the info from a reboot as well in an attached text file for anyone who wants to see it. Unfortunately with my current knowledge level the only thing I noticed was that I have some bad tags. I guess this might also account for why it seems to take longer to boot. I was passing that off as just my imagination.

Adding Swap: 16596k swap-space (priority -1)
e2fsck 1.19, 13-Jul-2000 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09
ext2fs_check_if_mount: No such file or directory while determining whether /dev/
hda4 is mounted.
hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x40
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:03 (hda), sector 4882
hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x40
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:03 (hda), sector 4884
! playerdb.cpp : 182:Failed to build dynamic database (status=0xc004401a).
Hijack: intercepting config.ini

player.cpp : 385:empeg-car 2.00 2003/04/01.
! tags.cpp : 61:Failed to open tags (0xc0041002).
hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x40
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:03 (hda), sector 4882
hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x40
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:03 (hda), sector 4884
Prolux 4 empeg car - 2.1434 Mar 26 2003
Vcb: 0x4086d000

No, no. This is a hardware issue at this stage. These errors:

hda: read_intr: status=0x59
hda: read_intr: error=0x40
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:03 (hda), sector 4882

imply that something bad is happening on your hard drive connection. There are a few known causes for this kind of behavior - typically a bad hard drive cable, dry solder joints or a drive that is starting to fail. Time for some diagnosis... How comfortable are you with opening the player?

OK, I opened the player and reseated the cable on the MB and pushed in the connector on the hdd. I checked the solder points and they are all connected. I've not modified the kernel or added any more then the 10GB drive that came with the unit. I tried to sync again without any change. Does this mean I have a bad drive?

I also ran the manual fsck on the drive and this is what it came up with.

q
Restored terminal settings
Remounting first music partition read-only
Remounting second music partition read-only
No secondary hard disk
Player exited normally: 0
Switching to shell-player loop
Starting bash.
empeg:/empeg/bin# ro
empeg:/empeg/bin# umount /dev/hda4
empeg:/empeg/bin# umount /dev/hdc4
umount: /dev/hdc4: not found
empeg:/empeg/bin#
empeg:/empeg/bin# umount /dev/hdc4
umount: /dev/hdc4: not found
empeg:/empeg/bin# swapon /swapfile
Adding Swap: 16596k swap-space (priority -1)
empeg:/empeg/bin# fsck -fay /
Parallelizing fsck version 1.19 (13-Jul-2000)
e2fsck 1.19, 13-Jul-2000 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09
ext2fs_check_if_mount: No such file or directory while determining whether /dev/
hda5 is mounted.
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information
/dev/hda5: 1514/4096 files (0.5% non-contiguous), 9443/16384 blocks
empeg:/empeg/bin# fsck -fay /dev/hda4
Parallelizing fsck version 1.19 (13-Jul-2000)
e2fsck 1.19, 13-Jul-2000 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09
ext2fs_check_if_mount: No such file or directory while determining whether /dev/
hda4 is mounted.
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information
/dev/hda4: 3694/76800 files (9.1% non-contiguous), 2073144/2434320 blocks
empeg:/empeg/bin# swapoff /swapfile
empeg:/empeg/bin# sync

Thank you for the help so far.

Some of the hard drive cables were not quite crimped properly. Pressing on them like you did is often a temporary fix. If you reboot it now, do you see those same I/O errors like you posted before? If not, then that's your most likely cause. (The fact that you didn't seem to get any such errors during the fsck after you reseated the cable would tend to point in that direction.) Email support (carsupport@xs4all.nl now, I think) and he should be able to get you a replacement. I don't know if it's free or how much it'll cost this late in the game. Surely not much.

Agreed. Because the drive was visible again, and was able to be checked, it was likely a loose connection or a bad crimp on the cable.

Well, he did say that he had tried to sync again without any change, so I guess he still has the same problems....

Stig

Hm... But was that sync before or after the fsck? Good point, though... It would imply that the drive is intermittent, or there is something else going on...

Where exactly does it fail in the sync?

Edit - oh. It gets to / through the database rebuild. Perhaps the database files are corrupted, and need to be wiped.

Sorry, I was out today. Thank you for all the helpfull information. Yes I did write that in the wrong order. The last thing I did before post the last message was try and sync again which gave me the same problem as it did when I started this posting.

I will try the diskk wipe, I was looking for instructions on how to di it earlier, but ran out of time to work on it. I'll let you know what I come up with.

Edit: BTW, I couldn't use the consumer developer image as it said it was corupt when I tried to use it, so I used the 2.00 Beta 13. I hope that didn't cause any problems.

Thanks again,

OK, I tried removing the files as the instructions said, sans the drive1 as I only have 1 drive. Still the same thing. As a side note I also have no playlists now on the player after it boots (they used to be there). I believe I caused this when jEmplode said it was not syncronized on exit and I told it to sync. I thought maybe it would help.

Can anyone tell me where I can find instructions on reformatting the disk and starting from scratch. I think that may solve my problem and I only have about 8.5 gigs of mp3s to put back on there.

q
Restored terminal settings
Remounting first music partition read-only
Remounting second music partition read-only
No secondary hard disk
Player exited normally: 0
Switching to shell-player loop
Starting bash.
empeg:/empeg/bin# rw
empeg:/empeg/bin# rwm
empeg:/empeg/bin# rm /drive0/var/database
rm: cannot remove `/drive0/var/database': No such file or directory
empeg:/empeg/bin# rm /drive0/var/database3
rm: cannot remove `/drive0/var/database3': No such file or directory
empeg:/empeg/bin# rm /drive/var/tags
rm: cannot remove `/drive/var/tags': No such file or directory
empeg:/empeg/bin# rm /drive0/var/tags
rm: cannot remove `/drive0/var/tags': No such file or directory
empeg:/empeg/bin# rm /drive0/var/playlists
rm: cannot remove `/drive0/var/playlists': No such file or directory
empeg:/empeg/bin# rom
empeg:/empeg/bin# ro
empeg:/empeg/bin# exit
logout
Shell exit
Starting player
player.cpp : 385:empeg-car 2.00-beta13 2002/07/24.
! tags.cpp : 61:Failed to open tags (0xc0041002).

empeg-car bootstrap v1.02 20001106 (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 v1.04
Copying kernel...
Calling linux kernel...
Uncompressing Linux..................................... done, booting the kerne
l.
Linux version 2.2.14-rmk5-np17-empeg51 (mac@aphex) (gcc version 2.95.3 20010315
(release)) #16 Wed Jul 24 18:19:54 BST 2002
Processor: Intel StrongARM-1100 revision 11
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.94.1 (c) 1998 Corel Computer Corp.
empeg-car player (hardware revision 9, serial number 30102445)
Command line: mem=16m
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 15024k/16M available (964k code, 20k reserved, 372k data, 4k 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
Signature is 636f6972 'rioc'
Scheduling custom logo.
empeg display initialised.
empeg dsp audio initialised
empeg dsp mixer initialised
empeg dsp initialised
empeg audio-in initialised, CS4231A revision a0
empeg remote control/panel button initialised.
empeg usb initialised, PDIUSBD12 id 1012
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0005180).
empeg RDS driver initialised
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-DJSA-210, ATA DISK drive
hda: IBM-DJSA-210, ATA DISK drive
hda: IBM-DJSA-210, ATA DISK drive
hda: IBM-DJSA-210, ATA DISK drive
hda: IBM-DJSA-210, ATA DISK drive
hda: IBM-DJSA-210, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: IBM-DJSA-210, 9590MB w/384kB Cache, CHS=19485/16/63
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:d7:26:09:8
d
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.
EXT2-fs warning: checktime reached, running e2fsck is recommended
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: 4k initempeg init 0.8
I see this is a developer image!
Mounting proc
Mounting first music partition
Tried to mount /dev/hda4 as reiserfs but got error 19
Mounting second music partition
Tried to mount /dev/hdc4 but got error 6
Error mounting partitions (possibly already mounted)
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 ComðStarting
player
player.cpp : 385:empeg-car 2.00-beta13 2002/07/24.
! tags.cpp : 61:Failed to open tags (0xc0041002).
hda: read_intr: status=0x59 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Error }
hda: read_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=137941, sector=4882
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:03 (hda), sector 4882
hda: read_intr: status=0x59 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Error }
hda: read_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=137941, sector=4884
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:03 (hda), sector 4884
Prolux 4 empeg car - 2.1434 Jul 24 2002
Vcb: 0x4086d000
Adding Swap: 16596k swap-space (priority -1)
e2fsck 1.19, 13-Jul-2000 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09
ext2fs_check_if_mount: No such file or directory while determining whether /dev/
hda4 is mounted.
hda: read_intr: status=0x59 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Error }
hda: read_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=137941, sector=4882
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:03 (hda), sector 4882
hda: read_intr: status=0x59 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Error }
hda: read_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=137941, sector=4884
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:03 (hda), sector 4884
! playerdb.cpp : 182:Failed to build dynamic database (status=0xc004401a).
Restored terminal settings
Remounting first music partition read-only
Remounting second music partition read-only
No secondary hard disk
Restart code received
Starting player
player.cpp : 385:empeg-car 2.00-beta13 2002/07/24.
! tags.cpp : 61:Failed to open tags (0xc0041002).
hda: read_intr: status=0x59 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Error }
hda: read_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=137941, sector=4882
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:03 (hda), sector 4882
hda: read_intr: status=0x59 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest Error }
hda: read_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=137941, sector=4884
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:03 (hda), sector 4884
Prolux 4 empeg car - 2.1434 Jul 24 2002
Vcb: 0x4086d000

As a side note I also have no playlists now on the player after it boots (they used to be there).

Right, after you delete the playlists, you must perform a synch with Emplode to get it to rebuild all that stuff. I believe that's in the instructions.

Note: If you have any third party programs, like tetris or pac-man, running from drive0 in AC mode, you will not be able to synch because it can't mount/unmount the drives. Although your serial log doesn't seem to indicate that's the case.

I noticed it said this:

EXT2-fs warning: checktime reached, running e2fsck is recommended

So just for the heck of it, do the manual FSCK and then synch once with Emplode. See if that fixes it.

But he's still getting hardware errors. There is, AFAIK, no way to get those I/O errors without a hardware problem. Whether the problem is the IDE header, the cable, or the drive, I don't know, but that seems to me the first problem that should be solved.

That's not to say that there aren't further errors, but making it so that those I/O errors don't show up should be step one.

Oh, I missed those hardware errors. I looked at that listing, dunno how I missed them.

Yeah, Ralyon, dude, you've got disk trouble and it needs to get taken care of. Read through that whole link carefully, top to bottom, and check for every possible cause of the disk trouble. It could even be a bad hard disk.

I've already run the fsck as shown prior. My problem has only gotten worse since I started to "fix it" and everything I've done is listed here. I do remember getting some Drive not found errors about 2 months ago, but I opened the player and reseated the cable and I didn't get the errors anymore. They were intermitten before that anyway and only in the car it seemed. Reseating the player would get it to work.

I did also upgrade from the 2.00 beta 12 to the full release 2.00 not long after. I don't know if that changes anything. I swapped the cable to the end and no change still.

I keep hearing mention about a hardware error. Can anyone tell me more about what this hardware error is? Maybe if I have a little better idea of what I am looking for.

I'm still trying everything I find to try and wipe the drive clean. I tried the builder image and when I try to sync jEmplode it does tell me 1.38 out of 9.28 is available at the bottom. It just happens to be the only info I do still get. Oh well, I'll just keep trying.

I keep hearing mention about a hardware error.

As I said before, it's most likely either a problem with the IDE header (requiring it to be resoldered), a problem with the IDE cable (requiring a replacement), or a problem with the hard drive itself (also a replacement).

All of these problems are described in this FAQ.

A remote possibility is that the empeg's IDE controller is going bad, but that's quite unlikely, I think.

The IDE header has been visually accounted for, I moved the cable from the middle to the end and I don't have enough money to go out and buy a new drive now. So I'm sorry, but I'm trying to find every possibility to get this drive to work.

It is my understanding of computers that if the cable is not working correctly that the drive would either not work at all or the error wouldn't be the same if it was intermitten since it wouldn't make sense for the cable to fail only when reading from a certian part of the drive.

I would have no problem fixing this in DOS, but unfortunately I am not familiar with Linux other then what I have played around with on the Empeg. In DOS I would scandisk and find and mark bad sectors or at least be able to repartition and reformat the drive.

I have used the builder image and it doesn't seem to be working as my custom start screen shows up everytime I boot. I was under the impression that this would reformat the drive. I have went to the shell and under fdisk removed all the partitions I could find and wrote to the drive before exiting. I boot back up to once again see my custom startup screen followed by a drive not found error. Running the build after this gets the unit to boot up normally and once again, same errors as first reported. A failed sync with jEmplode tells me that I've not freed up any drive space either. Please feel free to tell me where my logic is flawed.

It is my understanding of computers that if the cable is not working correctly that the drive would either not work at all or the error wouldn't be the same

Actualy, a problem with the cabling could result in any number of random errors, each completely different.

if it was intermitten since it wouldn't make sense for the cable to fail only when reading from a certian part of the drive.

If you're sure that the disk drive is failing only on a certain part of the drive, then I think you might be right about that. If it's always in the same spot, I too would suspect a faulty disk drive. How do you know it's always in the same spot?

Since you said you had cabling trouble in the past, I wouldn't rule that out yet. Make sure it's all crimped right like in the new pictures I added to the FAQ within the last day or so.

I have used the builder image and it doesn't seem to be working as my custom start screen shows up everytime I boot.

Have a look through the disk upgrade guide for instructions on how to properly use it. If there's already data on the disk, you need to press the Enter key in Hyperterminal at the right moment to make it work its magic.

How do you know it's always in the same spot?

I only know that other than loosing the playlists (which I believe was a result of my troubleshooting) I would always get the same errors in hyperterm. I would think that would be from bad file/s either from corruption or bad sectors on the disk.

...you need to press the Enter key in Hyperterminal at the right moment to make it work its magic.

Thank you Tony, that was exactly the "magic" I was looking for. It would have been nice to have at least a readme on empeg's site giving you some basic instructions though. I ran the stress test all night and put the developer image back on and it synced fine with empload before I left for work. I can't wait to get back home and load all my music back on.

Thank you for everyone's help.

Are all 4 speaker channels working when it does this? Either the player is not detecting it is in the car sled, or you have locked it in "Home/AC" mode with HiJack.

Are you connecting with Ethernet or USB?

empeg audio-in initialised, CS4231A revision a0
empeg remote control/panel button initialised.
empeg usb initialised, PDIUSBD12 id 1012
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0005180).
empeg RDS driver initialised
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-DJSA-210, ATA DISK drive
hda: IBM-DJSA-210, ATA DISK drive
hda: IBM-DJSA-210, ATA DISK drive
hda: IBM-DJSA-210, ATA DISK drive
hda: IBM-DJSA-210, ATA DISK drive
hda: IBM-DJSA-210, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: IBM-DJSA-210, 9590MB w/384kB Cache, CHS=19485/16/63

Well, at least you havn't got the two common failures (even though the IDE header soldering issue is not easily diagnosible through a log). It looks more like he might have had a cosmic ray through a sector of the dB after a rebuild. I am surprised that a purge hasn't fixed things: did you re-connect with emplode afterwards?

Are all 4 speaker channels working when it does this?

Never had a problem with the speakers in or out of the car. I'm not sure what your referring to?

Are you connecting with Ethernet or USB?

I am connect with both the serial port and ethernet wich is DHCP and my home computer has been assigning it an address with no problem. Although it does give it a different address each time which bugs me. I don't bother with USB if I can avoid it.

...did you re-connect with emplode afterwards?

That was my original problem was not being able to connect. It would give me "Emplode generated errors" and close down when I tried to connect on ethernet or serial same.

Everything is working fine except for one thing. In the car it still boots up to the Visual and not the Info. Does anyone know how to change this?

In the car it still boots up to the Visual and not the Info. Does anyone know how to change this?

Are you using the Hijack Kernel? Have you set the setting which changes this on purpose?

Most people complain about the opposite: that the player boots up to the info and not the visual, so Mark added a feature in Hijack to set it back. Click here for more information.