My player locked up doing a sync at "Writing Player Configuration - Moutings Disks". I restarted the player and it started doing a database rebuild, but was taking way too long and not making any noises....

I tried it again (starting the player) and here is what I get....

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 2.2.17-rmk5-np17-empeg52-hijack-v352 (root@ibbm) (gcc version 2.95
.3 20010315 (release)) #2 Sat Jan 10 18:01:44 EST 2004
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 30102609)
Command line: mem=16m
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 15016k/16M available (976k code, 20k reserved, 368k 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)
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'
Found custom animation at offset 0x9bb84
Tuner: loopback=0, ID=-1
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 d0005f80).
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: IC25T060ATCS05-0, ATA DISK drive
hdb: IC25N080ATMR04-0, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: IC25T060ATCS05-0, 57231MB w/1768kB Cache, CHS=7296/255/63
hdb: IC25N080ATMR04-0, 76319MB w/7884kB Cache, CHS=9729/255/63
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:d7:26:0a:3
1
Partition check:
hda: hda1 < hda5 hda6 > hda2 hda3 hda4
hdb: hdb1 < hdb5 hdb6 > hdb2 hdb3 hdb4
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: 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
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

hijack: removed menu entry: "Button Codes Display"
hijack: removed menu entry: "Button Illumination Level"
hijack: removed menu entry: "Calculator"
hijack: removed menu entry: "Font Display"
hijack: removed menu entry: "Show Flash Savearea"
hijack: removed menu entry: "Volume Level on Boot"
hijack: removed menu entry: "Hard Disk Detection"
hijack: removed menu entry: "Serial Port Assignment"
khttpd: listening on port 80
kftpd: listening on port 21
player.cpp : 385:empeg-car 2.00 2003/04/01.
! tags.cpp : 61:Failed to open tags (0xc0041002).
hda: lost interrupt
hda: lost interrupt
hda: lost interrupt
hda: lost interrupt
hda: lost interrupt
hda: lost interrupt
hda: lost interrupt
hda: lost interrupt
hda: lost interrupt
hda: lost interrupt
hda: lost interrupt
hda: lost interrupt
hda: lost interrupt
hda: lost interrupt
hda: lost interrupt
hda: lost interrupt
hda: lost interrupt

Help.

Ooops.

Lost interrupts are usually a sign of a cable failure or dry solder connection...

I took the drives and put them into my backup Mk2. (Those things come in handy huh?) I re-used the cable and it's booting up fine. Looking at the Mk2a that was giving me trouble, the pins are discolored a bit, but I don't think I see any dry connection. Maybe I need a magnifying glass?

Is contacting support my best bet? Am I going to pay through the nose on this? (Assuming it is a dry solder connection.)

PS - My Mk2 had no drives in it and had last run 2.00b11. I flashed it with the latest HiJack and put the drives that have 2.00final on them in. Am I missing a step? Do I need to reinstall 2.00final?

The lost interrupt error definitely indicates hardware failure with the disks or the IDE connection, and has nothing to do with the way you installed the software.

Yes, you might need a magnifying glass to see header solder joint problems. But that's not necessarily what's happening to you, it could be any number of things. Just go through the whole list of possibilities in the FAQ about hard drive trouble, and carefully investigate every one.

Your FAQ was the first place I looked before posting. I didn't find any reference to "lost interupt" but I did check out the "no hard disk found, contact support" info. It appears that the cable and drives are fine since I did a complete swap of those to my backup player. That alone eliminates most of the probable causes. And since this was only on DC, car wiring or power issues are not at cause.

It's just weird how I've been sitting here syncing to the thing all day and suddenly it takes a crap.

I'll see if I can get a magnifying glass.

It's just weird how I've been sitting here syncing to the thing all day and suddenly it takes a crap.

That could be temperature, then.

After some painfully long media checks and fsck's, I had the drives working perfectly fine in the backup empeg. Then, just for shits, I popped the drives and cable back into the "problem" RioCar and it booted up fine...

So, Tony's suggestion of temperature being an issue seems likely.... The cable could have been loose etc, as well.

I'll keep everyone posted (if anyone cares) if I can replicate the issue on either or both players.

Keep in mind also that the cold solder problem first shows up when you have significant termperature swings. At least, that is how I first found mine.