Hello, my empeg (MK2A) is giving me a headache. I just installed it in a 03 Tahoe after it sat on the shelf for 3 months. When I first powered it on it said "Player Settings Lost" and would continue to do this on every boot until I performed a reboot through Hijack. It now seems to boot up correctly but all settings are lost, (clock, current song, volume, etc.) I opened up the unit and checked the super cap on the board and it was 3.42V. Is this the source of my problems? How does the memory system work? I have constant power wired up to the sled as well as switched. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Nick

The cap is just used for the RTC. The actual settings are stored in flash which doesn't need any power to retain the data. As to why you lost the settings *shrug* it shouldn't have worn out yet unless you've been sitting there rebooting it a few million times. Something must have corrupted the setting.

Ok, I will give that a try and let you know what happens.

Thanks.

Ok, I just got finished using the Rio upgrade wizard. It seems to have upgraded just fine, I now have the RIO splash screen and my Hijack is gone. I still am not able to retain any settings or clock. When I plug the AC adapter in it starts with the same song every time in pause mode I can start the song playing, forward to a different song and set the volume but as soon as I unplug the power supply and plug it back in every thing resets. Now what???

Losing Hijack is expected - just grab the latest version and reapply it using logoedit.

The lost settings thing is a real problem. The player relies on energy stored in its power supply capacitors to write the flash when the power fails. I suspect that perhaps one of these has gone bad.

I have my Empeg apart and I think the power supplies are functioning correctly. I even temporarily added an extra 220uF of capacitance in parallel with 3 blue caps on the input of the switching fets, no help. I then moved the 220uF cap to the 3 yellow surface mount caps at the back edge of the board this was the 3.3V supply (I would think this is what the flash would use but not for sure) this had no effect either. I also tried moving it to the two 5V caps and the 2.0V processor core cap all with no effect. I am starting to think that one of two things is happening. (1) the processor is not seeing the power supply go down (this probably happens by the processor looking at a voltage sense line somewhere on the board or (2) the application is somehow still corrupt and it is not looking for the shutdown signal.

I just don't understand this because this thing has worked perfect since I bought it but after setting on the shelf for 3 months is now not working. I should say that the entire time I had it in my previous car it would power up in standby about 1/2 of the time and I was never able to figure it out.
Does anyone think it would be worth wiping out the kernel and app and starting completely over? If so how would I do that.

Very puzzled and sad

If I'm not mistaken, the "player settings lost" does not indicate a capacitance problem. If the player doesn't save its settings properly, it merely uses the last settings in flash.

No, I think the "player settings lost" error indicates worse trouble with either the kernel or the flash itself. Just for the heck of it, do a RAM test, too (the ctrl-T thing in the hyperterminal section of the FAQ).

Well, here it what it said....

0100 ram test starting
0110 testing ic 1 (0-15mb, low word)
0120 testing ic 2 (0-15mb, high word)
01f0 ram test done
0200 ide detect
0210 command issued
0220 drive id IBM-DARA-212000
02f0 ide ok
0300 dsp/i2c test
03f0 dsp/i2c ok
0400 temperature detect
0410 temperature is 26
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

Just to clarify, the first 3 times I applied power after the install it said "player settings lost" but then after doing a reboot through Hijack it powers up fine with no warnings but the settings are always back to defaults.

Can you post 3 boot logs? Leave the serial connected between boots. Do a full power down reboot, not hijacks reboot feature.

Sure I can, by "full power down reboot" do you mean just pulling the AC adapter when it is playing and then plugging it back in?

If this is only happening in the car sled, then I would check out the fuse on the supply lead.

This happens in the car and in the house. For now I am just using the AC adaptor on the back of the Empeg, I can play a song, pull the cord out and when I plug it back in every thing has reset. I do not see any error messages but I will post 3 boots tonight.

Yes.

More useful: blow V2 Developer. From the command line discard the current playlist and start the player from scratch with "player -i" (see the FAQ for this). Then reboot, connect with emplode, change one single piece of data, then do a sync.

Rob meant to put the v2-developer build on your player, then 'Q' or Ctrl-C your serial port after it finishes booting, and then run the player with its "Ignore all our existing saved data" flag. I don't think that it will help you, unless it also resets the flash save-area to the default too.

Is There Love In Space? Who knows? Anyway, your player is certainly not saving its state correctly:

Quote:
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0004100)

The "save to" address should change at each boot. The fact that is the same each time indicates that the flash is not being written correctly at shut down, for whatever reason.

There is a debug flag in the kernel that could be compiled in that prints "The Quick Brown Fox..." at shutdown. The empeg guys put it in so that they could measure how long the power stays up (to ensure that the flash did indeed get written, no less). I'm not really sure what is considered normal though.

Ok, I installed the V2 developer version, and ran "player -i" from the shell prompt. It did reset my playlist but did not fix my problem. Posted below is a what Hyperterminal captured when I advanced a few tracks, adjusted the volume up a little and then pulled the AC cord and restarted. It is still not writing correctly to the flash area. Is it possible that the flash save area is corrupt? Can I view it or erase it?

serial_notify_thread.cpp: 116:@@ N1
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 117:@@ F0x730
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 118:@@ TGnaah
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 119:@@ AJoe Satriani
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 120:@@ GOther
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 116:@@ N2
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 117:@@ F0x950
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 118:@@ THands in the Air
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 119:@@ AJoe Satriani
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 120:@@ GOther
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 116:@@ N3
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 117:@@ F0x10b0
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 118:@@ TIf I Could Fly
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 119:@@ AJoe Satriani
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 120:@@ GOther
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 116:@@ N4
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 117:@@ F0x1100
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 118:@@ TI Like the Rain
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 119:@@ AJoe Satriani
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 120:@@ GOther
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 116:@@ N5
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 117:@@ F0x1090
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 118:@@ TIs There Love in Space
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 119:@@ AJoe Satriani
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 120:@@ GOther
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 116:@@ N6
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 117:@@ F0x10e0
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 118:@@ TJust Look Up
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 119:@@ AJoe Satriani
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 120:@@ GOther
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 116:@@ N6
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 117:@@ F0x10e0
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 118:@@ TJust Look Up
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 119:@@ AJoe Satriani
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 120:@@ GOther
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 170:@@ S1
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 136:@@ V1
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 136:@@ V2
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 136:@@ V3
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 180:@@ #10e0 0:00:02
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 136:@@ V4
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 136:@@ V5
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 136:@@ V6
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 136:@@ V7
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 180:@@ #10e0 0:00:03
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 180:@@ #10e0 0:00:04
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 180:@@ #10e0 0:00:05
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 180:@@ #10e0 0:00:06



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 kernel.

Linux version 2.2.14-rmk5-np17-empeg52 (rob@aphex) (gcc version 2.95.3 20010315 (release)) #11 Tue Apr 1 18:49:59 BST 2003

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 120001063)

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 206f6972 'rio '

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 d0004100).

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-DARA-212000, ATA DISK drive

hda: IBM-DARA-212000, ATA DISK drive

hda: IBM-DARA-212000, ATA DISK drive

hda: IBM-DARA-212000, ATA DISK drive

hda: IBM-DARA-212000, ATA DISK drive

hda: IBM-DARA-212000, ATA DISK drive

ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6

hda: IBM-DARA-212000, 11513MB w/418kB Cache, CHS=23392/16/63

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:d7:18:04:27

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... hange_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 2003/04/01.
Prolux 4 empeg car - 2.1434 Mar 26 2003
Vcb: 0x4086d000
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 116:@@ N0
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 117:@@ F0x14e0
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 118:@@ TBamboo
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 119:@@ AJoe Satriani
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 120:@

Although you have blown V2Dev and reset the playlist, you did not connect with emplode and modify a playlist followed by a sync.

If your flash was corrupt/damaged/whatever, then the player app would not load.

Have you performed any modifications (hardware or software) to the player recently?

I have not done any modifications to the empeg itself ever, I did make a device that monitored the serial notify info coming out of the serial port in order to indicate if the empeg was in aux or player mode. (This was needed for my previous installation) The empeg was running V2 and Hijack 379 before getting pulled out of my car and sitting on the shelf for 3 months.

The first time I powered the empeg on after sitting 3 months it said "player settings lost" so maybe that is a clue???

I will try modifying a playlist and re-synching tonight.

Nick

Ok, I just reset my playlist using "player -i" I then connected to emplode, added a new playlist put 3 songs in it and resynched. My problem still exists, the empeg will reset and go back to the first song in the playlist in pause mode when power is removed. What next?

Does anyone know which GPIO pin the processor uses to monitor the power supply?

Nick

Throw this kernel on your player and let's see the serial output from a couple of boot/power down sequences.

Cool, I am willing to try anything, however I am not sure how to load just the kernel. Is there something described in the FAQ or can you give some quick instructions?

Thanks for the help

Nick

Download Logoedit. You'll find a kernel flashing utility there.

Sorry about that, I knew that. I am not thinking straight tonight for some reason. Here is what I came up with...





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 kernel.
Linux version 2.2.17-rmk5-np17-empeg52-hijack-v413 (root@genixia.genixia.net) (gcc version 2.95.3 20010315 (release)) #3 Thu Dec 9 20:42:29 EST 2004
Processor: Intel StrongARM-1100 revision 11
Checking for extra DRAM:
c1000000: wrote ffffffff, read e91ba9f0
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.94.1 (c) 1998 Corel Computer Corp.
empeg-car player (hardware revision 9, serial number 120001063) 16MB DRAM
Command line: mem=16m
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 15008k/16M available (984k 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
Powerfail is now disabled (1)
Powerfail is now enabled (0)
Signature is 206f6972 'rio '
Tuner: loopback=0, ID=-1
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
Powerfail is now enabled (0)
Powerfail line current level is 0
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0004180).
Powerfail is now enabled (0)
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-DARA-212000, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: IBM-DARA-212000, 11513MB w/418kB Cache, CHS=23392/16/63
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:d7:18:04:27
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
Timezone: Atlantic/South_Georgia
Hijack: intercepting config.ini

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.
Prolux 4 empeg car - 2.1434 Mar 26 2003
Vcb: 0x4086d000
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 116:@@ N0
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 117:@@ F0x950
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 118:@@ THands in the Air
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 119:@@ AJoe Satriani
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 120:@@ GOther
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 180:@@ #0 0:00:00
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 170:@@ S0
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 116:@@ N1
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 117:@@ F0x1090
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 118:@@ TIs There Love in Space
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 119:@@ AJoe Satriani
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 120:@@ GOther
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 116:@@ N1
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 117:@@ F0x1090
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 118:@@ TIs There Love in Space
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 119:@@ AJoe Satriani
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 120:@@ GOther
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 180:@@ #1090 0:00:00
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 170:@@ S1
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 180:@@ #1090 0:00:01
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 180:@@ #1090 0:00:02
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 180:@@ #1090 0:00:03
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 136:@@ V1
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 136:@@ V2
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 180:@@ #1090 0:00:04
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 136:@@ V3
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 136:@@ V4
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 180:@@ #1090 0:00:05
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 180:@@ #1090 0:00:06
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 180:@@ #1090 0:00:07
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 180:@@ #1090 0:00:08



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 kernel.
Linux version 2.2.17-rmk5-np17-empeg52-hijack-v413 (root@genixia.genixia.net) (gcc version 2.95.3 20010315 (release)) #3 Thu Dec 9 20:42:29 EST 2004
Processor: Intel StrongARM-1100 revision 11
Checking for extra DRAM:
c1000000: wrote ffffffff, read e91ba9f0
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.94.1 (c) 1998 Corel Computer Corp.
empeg-car player (hardware revision 9, serial number 120001063) 16MB DRAM
Command line: mem=16m
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 15008k/16M available (984k 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
Powerfail is now disabled (1)
Powerfail is now enabled (0)
Signature is 206f6972 'rio '
Tuner: loopback=0, ID=-1
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
Powerfail is now enabled (0)
Powerfail line current level is 0
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0004180).
Powerfail is now enabled (0)
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-DARA-212000, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: IBM-DARA-212000, 11513MB w/418kB Cache, CHS=23392/16/63
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:d7:18:04:27
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
Timezone: Atlantic/South_Georgia
Hijack: intercepting config.ini

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.
Prolux 4 empeg car - 2.1434 Mar 26 2003
Vcb: 0x4086d000
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 116:@@ N0
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 117:@@ F0x950
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 118:@@ THands in the Air
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 119:@@ AJoe Satriani
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 120:@@ GOther
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 180:@@ #950 0:00:00
serial_notify_thread.cpp: 170:@@ S0

I only have 3 songs in that particular playlist. I think I only have around 1000 songs in the player total.

When I first powerered on the empeg after sitting 3 months it said "player settings lost" I pulled power 2 or 3 times and it kept saying "player settings lost". I then went into the Hijack menu and did a reboot player. I have not seen the "player settings lost" since but I am not able to retain settings or the time from the RTC.

Wierd huh.

Hmm. no evidence that the power fail event was seen. As far as I can tell, we should have seen a serial message...

However, I'm not sure whether the serial notify feature may be clobbering it - or at least delaying it until the power is totally dead.

Can you set "suppress_notify=1" in the hijack section of your config.ini and try again.

I wonder if the leaf spring in the DC power socket has failed into the on state?

Can you move the leaf with a matchstick or something?

Ok, I set suppress notify = 1, now the player starts up and goes into standby mode every time. The last 2 powerfail statements in the boot cycle happen once I turn the empeg on after it has booted up. I can check the leaf spring in the power connector but I am pretty sure it is fine, the connector does not get used much.

Here it is, 2 boots.




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 kernel.
Linux version 2.2.17-rmk5-np17-empeg52-hijack-v413 (root@genixia.genixia.net) (gcc version 2.95.3 20010315 (release)) #3 Thu Dec 9 20:42:29 EST 2004
Processor: Intel StrongARM-1100 revision 11
Checking for extra DRAM:
c1000000: wrote ffffffff, read e91ba9f0
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.94.1 (c) 1998 Corel Computer Corp.
empeg-car player (hardware revision 9, serial number 120001063) 16MB DRAM
Command line: mem=16m
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 15008k/16M available (984k 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
Powerfail is now disabled (1)
Powerfail is now enabled (0)
Signature is 67706d65 'empg'
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
Powerfail is now enabled (0)
Powerfail line current level is 0
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0004200).
Powerfail is now enabled (0)
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-DARA-212000, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: IBM-DARA-212000, 11513MB w/418kB Cache, CHS=23392/16/63
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:d7:18:04:27
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 intStarting player
Timezone: Atlantic/South_Georgia
Hijack: intercepting config.ini

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.
Prolux 4 empeg car - 2.1434 Mar 26 2003
Vcb: 0x4086d000
Powerfail is now disabled (1)
Powerfail is now enabled (0)





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 kernel.
Linux version 2.2.17-rmk5-np17-empeg52-hijack-v413 (root@genixia.genixia.net) (gcc version 2.95.3 20010315 (release)) #3 Thu Dec 9 20:42:29 EST 2004
Processor: Intel StrongARM-1100 revision 11
Checking for extra DRAM:
c1000000: wrote ffffffff, read e91ba9f0
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.94.1 (c) 1998 Corel Computer Corp.
empeg-car player (hardware revision 9, serial number 120001063) 16MB DRAM
Command line: mem=16m
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 15008k/16M available (984k 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
Powerfail is now disabled (1)
Powerfail is now enabled (0)
Signature is 67706d65 'empg'
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
Powerfail is now enabled (0)
Powerfail line current level is 0
empeg state support initialised 0089/88c1 (save to d0004200).
Powerfail is now enabled (0)
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-DARA-212000, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: IBM-DARA-212000, 11513MB w/418kB Cache, CHS=23392/16/63
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:d7:18:04:27
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
Timezone: Atlantic/South_Georgia
Hijack: intercepting config.ini

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.
Prolux 4 empeg car - 2.1434 Mar 26 2003
Vcb: 0x4086d000
Powerfail is now disabled (1)
Powerfail is now enabled (0)

Ok, I've now tried it a few times on my player. If I pull power whilst the disks are spun up then I don't see the "The quick brown fox" message. I have two disks and 64MB of memory so it takes a while to fill the cache after boot, and the drives can sap power, so this isn't completely unexpected. If I wait for the disks to spin down and then pull power I usually see some of the message. I don't have those two final "Powerfail is now..." messages that you don't. but if I understand you correctly then your player is in Standby after boot (which you can't change until we resolve this flash save issue), and these messages occur when you come out of Standby. The kernel code supports this behaviour.

So, you need to repeat the experiment a couple of times ensuring that the disk is spun down before pulling power. If the results don't change then don't bother posting a complete log, just let us know.

Assuming that they don't change then it is probable that the message is not getting sent. There are two possibilities that I see for this. First is that the kernel is attempting to write the flash but never gets done, and second is that the kernel isn't even trying (not seeing power fail).

Where from here? You could look at the GPIO pins on the CPU I suppose. GP0 (pin 86) is the POWERFAIL input. It's monitored for transitions not levels. I dare say that a proficient electronic tech could find a way to safely manipulate that pin so we could see if the kernel picks it up.
You could also scope the FLASHWE pin (output, Flash write enable). That's GP20, pin 60.

Alright, I tried again making sure the drive was spun down, no luck. My empeg is bone stock with a single 12G drive. I will unfortunately be busy for most of the weekend but I will check the powerfail line as soon as possible. Thanks for the technical info on the CPU lines (don't suppose part of a schematic would be available?) I will post as soon as I have been able to try what you've suggested.

Thanks again
Nick

No, the schematics are not publically available. Rob Schofiel has them though, so may be able to help you trace a signal.

Ok, now we are getting somewhere. I am not getting any voltage on pin 86 when the empeg is on. I traced the signal back by the power supply and am kind of stuck now. While the empeg was running I injected 3.3V through a 10K resistor and the empeg quickly saved to flash and blanked the display for a 1/2 second and then kept running kind of like a quick reset. Now when I reset power it comes up to that very position that I manually saved. I have repeated this process 3 times so I think everything will be fine if I can figure out how that signal works. I have attached a pic that shows the part of the power supply in question. I have traced the powerfail signal back to a 8 pin part marked 8532A that appears to be some sort of switch or something. I need help in figuring out what this is and how the powerfail part of the circuit works. Hopefully someone will be able to shed some light on this and I can get this up and running again.

All I want for x-mas is for my empeg to work.....

Thanks in advance for the great help.

Nick

I can't help any further than that - I don't know what that chip is. I'm guessing that it is a power supervisory circuit, but I can't find any datasheet that matches the number. Rob?

It's a dual op-amp package by Analog Devices, (AD8532), using one amp as a unity gain comparator in a fast power fail detect circuit. It drives through a 1k2 resistor to GP0 on the processor.

Probe pin 2 = DC input voltage (nominal car battery voltage, ie. "12v")
pin 3 = 3V power line for processor/RAM/FLASH.

Output is on pin 1.

Interesting. I swear I replied to genixia, but my post has gone missing.

Problem Solved!!! Thanks to everyones help I was able to find a broken resistor on the 3.3V divider input to the op-amp. This did not measure correctly but looked fine until I put it under a microscope. I was able to attach a fairly high resolution pic that shows the resistor in question. It looks like the solder end broke loose from the ceramic plate on the left side of the resistor. I suppose this was slightly weak from the start and just failed due to thermal stress over the past year or two. I appears that the powerfail line sits at 0V under normal operation, then when power is removed the comparator flips and puts 3.3V on the line until it dies. I will fully assemble it tonight and try it out, (can't wait!)

I really appreciate everyone who helped me on this, I would not have been able to find it with out you all. Special thanks to Genixia and Rob.

It looks like I get my X-mas wish after all.

Nick

Just doin' mah job, ma'am!

Glad I could help a little - you carried out the hard work, and had the inspiration while I was still scratching my head. Pat on the back to you for helping resolve the first recorded Power fail circuit failure diagnosis!

Great news, I'm glad that you got it resolved.

That photo is a corker. Was that taken through a microscope? The fault itself is rather unusual. Resistors are generally incredibly reliable (assuming they're sized correctly for their expected dissipation of course). I think that you could be winning the Most Obscure Failure award at the moment.

Welcome to my life... I seem to be able to fix almost anything for anyone else but when my stuff breaks it is usually the most bizarre types of failures imaginable. Murphy's law I guess.

I took that pic through a handheld 10X magnifying eyepiece, worked pretty good. I have a 90X scope at work that really shows detail but no camera adapter.
Anyway, on behalf of my Empeg and myself, thanks again.

Nick

It would not surprise me if one day someone on this board had the means and the motive to post a Scanning Electron Microscope picture of their empeg board. We've already seen an infrared heat signature picture, then there's that picture, it's the next logical step.