Hi,
I'm using v3.00b11 with the latest hijack kernel (I also applied the max_fid v7 patch) with my 500GB drive, and till now everything has been good. I've uploaded ~26K tunes successfully, but now whenever I try to add additional tunes/playlists, the player crashes.

On the "Uploading playlists" task, I'm getting 0x800400d3, which AFAIK is a result of the crash. Is this correct?

On the player screen, I'm getting "0000.0 sigkill err".

Looking at the terminal, I see the following (it ends with me going to the shell):

Prolux 4 empeg car - 2.1485 Jul 25 2005
Vcb: 0x4073a000
Adding Swap: 16028k swap-space (priority -2)
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.
show_message("0000.0 nomem err")
VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for player...
show_message("0000.0 nomem err")
VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for player...
show_message("0000.0 nomem err")
VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for player...
show_message("0000.0 nomem err")
VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for player...
show_message("0000.0 nomem err")
VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for player...
show_message("0000.0 nomem err")
VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for player...
show_message("0000.0 nomem err")
VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for player...
show_message("0000.0 nomem err")
VM: do_try_to_free_pages failed for player...
no room for private writable mapping
error: -12
/sbin/fsck.ext2: Memory allocation failed while retrying to read bitmaps for /de
v/hda4
EXT2-fs warning: mounting unchecked fs, running e2fsck is recommended
show_message("0000.0 segfault err")
player(74): user memory violation at pc=0x020f1020, lr=0x00000000 (bad address=0
x00000000, code 0)
pc : [<020f1020>] lr : [<00000000>]
sp : bdfffb80 ip : 00000000 fp : bdfffbd8
r10: 000555d0 r9 : 0004f380 r8 : 00040c70
r7 : 0000aac0 r6 : 0000aab0 r5 : 0000aaa0 r4 : 0000aa90
r3 : 0000aa80 r2 : 00000010 r1 : 022466dc r0 : 00000000
Flags: nzCv IRQs on FIQs on Mode USER_32 Segment user
Control: C0F3517D Table: C0F3517D DAC: 00000015
Function entered at [<020584f4>] from [<02058f28>]
r10 = BDFFFC88 r9 = 02227390 r8 = BDFFFBFC r7 = 00000001
r6 = 00000004 r5 = 022466A8 r4 = 00000000
Function entered at [<02058eac>] from [<02058ab4>]
r10 = 0001D4C0 r8 = 02227470 r7 = BDFFFC88 r6 = 02227650
r5 = 022274F0 r4 = 022466A8
Function entered at [<02058934>] from [<02057d40>]
r7 = 00000005 r6 = 02227648 r5 = BDFFFCDC r4 = BDFFFCD8
Function entered at [<02057c88>] from [<020dcff0>]
r6 = 0000000C r5 = 00000003 r4 = 02227464
Function entered at [<020dce54>] from [<020581b8>]
r10 = 02227648 r8 = 02227670 r7 = 0000000D r6 = 00000029
r5 = 02227464 r4 = 02227390
Function entered at [<02058144>] from [<020dead4>]
r10 = 020DEA00 r8 = 0000340E r7 = 00000080 r6 = 0000000E
r5 = BDFFFD4C r4 = 02227390
Function entered at [<020dea9c>] from [<020dea8c>]
r5 = 021D40FC r4 = 02227390
Function entered at [<020dea00>] from [<0211c970>]
r5 = 022273A8 r4 = BDFFFE40
Function entered at [<0211c8a8>] from [<0215334c>]
r4 = 00000000
Function entered at [<02151ac0>] from [<0211c6ec>]
r8 = 021E74CC r7 = 021E74B8 r6 = 020DEA00 r5 = 00000005
r4 = 00000000
Function entered at [<0211c63c>] from [<0215334c>]
r5 = 00000000 r4 = 00000000
Function entered at [<bffffab0>] from [<bffffad0>]
Function entered at [<fffffff4>] from [<02149030>]
Function entered at [<e1a0c001>] from [<e91ba800>]
Function entered at [<223ffff4>] from [<2240ff00>]
show_message("0000.0 sigkill err")
Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address 223ffff8
memmap = C0F34000, pgd = c0f34000
*pgd = 00000000, *pmd = 00000000
Internal error: Oops: 2
CPU: 0
pc : [<c00e6b70>] lr : [<c0019950>]
sp : c0665f44 ip : c0665f00 fp : c0665f90
r10: 00000000 r9 : c0fa1160 r8 : 0000000c
r7 : 00000000 r6 : 223ffff4 r5 : 22400000 r4 : e24cb004
r3 : 60000013 r2 : c0106284 r1 : 00000001 r0 : e24caff4
Flags: nZCv IRQs on FIQs on Mode SVC_32 Segment user
Control: C0F3517D Table: C0F3517D DAC: 00000015
Process player (pid: 74, stackpage=c0665000)
Stack:
c0665f20: c0019950 c00e6b70 600000
13
c0665f40: ffffffff c0fa1178 c0fa01a0 c0664000 c0665fb8 00000000 c0011be0 000000
00
c0665f60: 00000000 00000000 c0665fb8 0000000f 00000000 00000000 00000000 0004f3
80
c0665f80: 000555d0 c0665fb4 c0665f94 c0012134 c0011984 c010497c 0000aaa0 0000aa
b0
c0665fa0: 0000aac0 00040c70 00000000 c0665fb8 c000a0c8 c001205c 00000000 022466
dc
c0665fc0: 00000010 0000aa80 0000aa90 0000aaa0 0000aab0 0000aac0 00040c70 0004f3
80
c0665fe0: 000555d0 bdfffbd8 00000000 bdfffb80 00000000 020f1020 20000010 ffffff
ff
Backtrace:
Function entered at [<c0011978>] from [<c0012134>]
r10 = 000555D0 r9 = 0004F380 r8 = 00000000 r7 = 00000000
r6 = 00000000 r5 = 0000000F r4 = C0665FB8
Function entered at [<c0012050>] from [<c000a0c8>]
r8 = 00040C70 r7 = 0000AAC0 r6 = 0000AAB0 r5 = 0000AAA0
r4 = C010497C
Code: ebfccaf3 e2440010 (e5961004) e1a035a1 e59f20cc
Restored terminal settings
Remounting first music partition read-only
Remounting second music partition read-only
No secondary hard disk
Abnormal player termination
Player received signal 11
Starting bash.


I think I'm hitting some kind of limit (memory etc.).

Any idea?

Thanks,
Ury

Hopefully, Mark Lord or Roger will see this thread.

If they don't answer within a few days, just ping them with at private message and tell them to look at this thread.

Will do, thanks John.

Some variables to consider here, as possibilities:

1. 26,000 tunes is a lot. It's possible that, even with the MaxFid patch, you're hitting some kind of limit, such as database size.

2. 3.x alpha software was never finished and is still buggy. I stopped using it because of crashes like that (on a much smaller number of tunes), each crash would trash my FIDs and playlist structure when they happened.

3. Which software did you use to try to synch with your player? Did you use the 2.10 Emplode software? That's known to be buggy. You should be using Jemplode instead.

If you can get the player back to a working state, see if a manual database rebuild fixes the issue temporarily, then, see if you can successfully upload a single tune into an existing playlist.

Manual database rebuild instructions:
http://www.riocar.org/modules.php?op=mod...;faqent=220#220

I don't remember what all of the limits / workarounds consisted of at this point. So you'll have to do the same as I would do: search this site for "maxfid" and read through the discussion threads that contain that string.

http://empegbbs.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/287390/Plain_english_description_of_w
http://empegbbs.com/ubbthreads.php/posts/250953

Enabling swap space would probably help, though. Dunno if it is already enabled when sync'ing or not.

Cheers

Thanks guys!

• I'm using emplode v2.00 (v2.10 keeps crashing). Where can I grab jemplode from these days?
• I'll revert to v2.01 to improve my odds.
• I've been building the database manually over and over, after each failed sync. The following sync fails when uploading a single playlist or tune.
• I'll look for maxfid clues on the forum. Thanks for the leads.
• If I enable the swap file from the shell (I *think* it's already enabled), will it remain enabled during sync? Should I disable it afterwards?
  

jemplode is mirrored on RioCar.org here: http://riocar.org/upload/jemplode/

Looks like jempeg.org is still borked.

If you can work out how to keep swap enabled all of the time, I believe that would be best.

Cheers!

As far as I know, emplode 2.0x cannot work successfully with the 3.x alpha player firmware. And yeah, 2.1x is crashy. So yeah, try Jemplode.

That might have been your only problem.

Wrong. I use 2.0x with 3.0alpha11. Yeah, it crashes sometimes, but I wouldn't call it "cannot work".

Why did I think it was required?

Hmmmmm.

Let me think....

OH! I KNOW!

It's because 3.0x Alpha supported OGG/FLAC, and in order to load OGG/FLAC you needed Emplode 2.1x. Gotcha.

I think it would get the tag encoding wrong, as well. Old Emplodes wouldn't know that car-v2 is Latin-1 but car-v3 is UTF-8. So it won't do the Right Thing for non-ASCII characters.

Peter

I'm having a similar problem. After some other problems with my car stereo which I finally got working again I came back to look at my Empeg, and to add some more music to it. It is an early MkII with 12MB of RAM and now has 2x256GB disks in it. Anyway it was fine with about 100GB of music but then I added a load more and now it boots up to a "0000.-1 segfault err" every time.

Any help would be most appreciated.

Here is the boot:

empeg-car bootstrap v1.00 20000601 (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-empeg55-hijack-v515 (hijack@rtr.ca) (gcc version 2.95.3 20010315 (release)) #2 Wed Jul 20 09:24:02 EDT 2011
Processor: Intel StrongARM-1100 revision 11
Checking for extra DRAM:
c0c00000: wrote ffffffff, read e28cc001
NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.94.1 (c) 1998 Corel Computer Corp.
empeg-car player (hardware revision 7, serial number 80000452) 12MB DRAM
Command line: mem=12m
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 10944k/12M available (996k code, 20k reserved, 324k 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 ffffffff 'ÿÿÿÿ'
Tuner: loopback=0, ID=-1
show_message("Hijack v515 by Mark Lord")
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 d0005b80).
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...
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0x8080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0x8080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0x8080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x8080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0x8080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0x8080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0x8080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x8080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0x8080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0x8080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0x8080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x8080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0x8080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0x8080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0x8080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x8080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0x8080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0x8080
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0x8080
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0x8080
hdb: WDC WD2500BEVE-00WZT0, ATA DISK drive
ide_data_test: wrote 0x0000 read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xffff read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0xaaaa read 0xffff
ide_data_test: wrote 0x5555 read 0xffff
hda: WDC WD2500BEVE-00WZT0, ATA DISK drive
hdb: WDC WD2500BEVE-00WZT0, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: WDC WD2500BEVE-00WZT0, 238475MB w/8192kB Cache, CHS=30401/255/63, LBA48
hdb: WDC WD2500BEVE-00WZT0, 238475MB w/8192kB Cache, CHS=30401/255/63, LBA48
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:d7:10:01:c4
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.
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
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
Timezone: GB
Hijack: intercepting config.ini

hijack: removed menu entry: "Hard Disk Detection"
hijack: removed menu entry: "Serial Port Assignment"
kftpd: listening on port 21
khttpd: listening on port 80
player.cpp : 385:empeg-car 2.01 2004/07/06.
! tags.cpp : 61:Failed to open tags (0xc0041002).
show_message("0000.-1 segfault err")
player(8): user memory violation at pc=0x020e16c0, lr=0x0207cc44 (bad address=0x4056c000, code 0)
pc : [<020e16c0>] lr : [<0207cc44>]
sp : bffff7c0 ip : bffff7e0 fp : bffff7dc
r10: 00000000 r9 : bffffc24 r8 : 00000000
r7 : 4056bff8 r6 : 4056c000 r5 : 02153559 r4 : 0000000a
r3 : 00000030 r2 : 00000002 r1 : 02153550 r0 : 4056bff8
Flags: nzCv IRQs on FIQs on Mode USER_32 Segment user
Control: D033D17D Table: D033D17D DAC: 00000015
Function entered at [<020e1630>] from [<0207cc44>]
r7 = BFFFFC60 r6 = 02153550 r5 = 0000000A r4 = BFFFFC60
Function entered at [<0207cbf4>] from [<0205642c>]
r6 = 02135B80 r5 = 0214DA74 r4 = 00000000
Function entered at [<020560b0>] from [<0206189c>]
r10 = 00000000 r9 = 02112594 r8 = 0214DA68 r7 = BFFFFC60
r6 = 00000000 r5 = 02174E90 r4 = 00006301
Function entered at [<020617c0>] from [<020322fc>]
r7 = BFFFFD0C r6 = BFFFFD04 r5 = 0214F1AC r4 = 02174E80
Function entered at [<02032258>] from [<0200881c>]
r6 = BFFFFD08 r5 = 0214F1A4 r4 = BFFFFD04
Function entered at [<020087e4>] from [<0202fcbc>]
r5 = BFFFFD04 r4 = BFFFFD10
Function entered at [<0202fa0c>] from [<0202f758>]
r10 = BFFFFEE4 r9 = 00000001 r8 = 0214DA68 r7 = BFFFFEE8
r6 = 00000054 r5 = BFFFFD78 r4 = BFFFFD78
Function entered at [<0202f718>] from [<020316bc>]
r6 = 00000054 r5 = FFFFFFFF r4 = BFFFFD78
Function entered at [<02031464>] from [<020317ec>]
r10 = 02031788 r9 = 00000000 r8 = 02112280 r7 = 00000000
r6 = 020000C0 r5 = 00000001 r4 = BFFFFF64
Function entered at [<02031788>] from [<020c90c4>]
r5 = BFFFFF64 r4 = 00000001
Function entered at [<020c8fe8>] from [<02000104>]
r10 = 00000000 r8 = 00000000 r7 = 00000000 r6 = 00000000
r5 = 00000000 r4 = 00000000
Restored terminal settings
Remounting first music partition read-only
Remounting second music partition read-only
Abnormal player termination
Player received signal 11
Starting player
Timezone: GB
Hijack: intercepting config.ini

player.cpp : 385:empeg-car 2.01 2004/07/06.
! tags.cpp : 61:Failed to open tags (0xc0041002).

Hodge

OK - I fixed it by doing the following:
I ran the set_empeg_max_fid which I hadn't previously done.
I ran the fidsift.sh program.
Still no joy.
I then deleted the contents of all the _0005 & 6 fids directories to get the contents back to about 15k tracks (120GB used).
This then let the machine boot OK and rebuild the database and then jEmplode (v69) managed to re-sync OK.

I'm now going back and putting in what I think is missing and we'll see if it craps out again.

Ah well, maybe not quite fixed then.
Appeared to be OK but with 18,000+ tracks it could create a database but no playlists and then gave me a memory error.

I'm taking some tracks off and see if it can survive OK on less tracks. A bit annoying when I have the 2x 256GB disks and can get less than 130GB on the machine...

You do realize that this device was originally designed with I believe 2GB storage in mind, unless you wanted to go all out and put in the 6GB option. I mean, who in their right mind would need more than 6GB?

It is miraculous that people are stuffing nearly 50 times as much storage into these little boxes as they were originally meant to hold.

tanstaafl.

Well, the issue is also something the empeg engineers couldn't easily address. The computing industry long ago decided to choose IDE, a notoriously shortsighted specification. The number of "limits" that have been hit on IDE, or a combination of IDE and BIOS is pretty silly. The 128GB limit is one of those, and no workaround existed when the empeg shipped.

SCSI was far better about these limits, but never had mass consumer adoption. And still had it's own set, but nowhere near the degree IDE did.

SCSI is no better than IDE. Both protocols have had to add extensions to increase the number of addressable units on a drive. The difference is that SCSI has had to do this three times thus far, whereas IDE only had to extend it once twice ("LBA", then "LBA48"). Other "limits" were PC BIOS, MS filesystems, and MS-Windows issues. And the IDE drives are not the issue here anyway.

The problems here are due to the in-memory database of the player software becoming too large for available memory (RAM).

Cheers

But isn't it the case that trimming extra tag information allows for more songs to fit in the RAM? What actually goes into the in-RAM database?

Fair enough. I saw the 130gb and due to some other distractions thought it was drive size limits he was wanting to be better. Leave it to the geeky mindset to get distracted on the little details of why instead of how to address Hodge's concerns


Can you provide a citation on the SCSI side, because I am curious about this. My understanding is that also eliminating all the crappy BIOS limitations, SCSI's initial implementation in 1981 from the Shugart Associates System Interface specs had a 1GB limit. (Due to the 6 byte CDB allowing a 21 bit LBA). The 10 byte CDB introduced in 1987 bumped the LBA to 32 bit and to a 2TB limit. SCSI then jumped to LBA 64, bumping the limit to ~ 8 ZB

I also thought IDE started with a 22 bit LBA, presenting a 2GB limit before LBA28 jumping it to 128GB. Also thought IDE didn't fully switch to LBA until the mid 90s, so not sure what limits were in place in the initial IDE standard.

SCSI 6, 10, 12, 16, 64.
IDE CHS, 28-bit LBA, 48-bit LBA.

28-bit LBA was there in the first ATA-1 spec, alongside CHS.
But I don't think all drives supported LBA from day-0.

The empeg Hijack kernel supports 48-bit LBA. The factory one didn't originally, but I dunno what's in the v3alpha kernels.

Cheers

SCSI CDB increases didn't always include LBA increases though. The ones that did are:

6 byte CDB = 21bit LBA
10 byte CDB = 32bit LBA
16 byte CDB = 64bit LBA

After the initial fixed CDB sizes, variable sizes came into play, I believe all using 64bit LBA.

Looks like the 22bit LBA was in the initial IDE spec, as an optional addressing scheme prior to ATA-1. I guess it all depends on where one defines the start of IDE, either back in 1986 with the first IDE drives showing up in PCs, or 1994 with the first ATA-1 standard drives.

There is no such thing as "22bit LBA" for IDE. Never has been.

"IDE" began with Compaq Computers doing weird stuff.
"Standardized" IDE began with ATA-1, 28-bit LBA and CHS.

My Empeg originally was the top spec model with 2x 18GB drives (and £1500!) and I had heard before that the issue was down to only having 12meg of RAM installed to actually address it all being the problem, and I agree it's quite a marvelous achievement in itself to be running as well as it is, I'm sure an M$ product wouldn't be, however I thought that was a memory problem for a single playlist and not the entire collection.
Is there a way for instance to cheat the RAM allocation using disk cache as there is plenty of space available?

IIRC, you can create, and mount, a swap partition, but the player does its best to keep the disks spun down as much as possible. The consequence of a swap partition is that disks will never spin down. I'm not sure if the swapping would lead to disruption during playback...

What's the most number of tracks someone has put on a 12meg Empeg and still had it work properly?

I seem to get to near 18,000 and it's OK but then I put a few more on (still less than 19,000) and it barfs with a "failed to open tags" again.

And out of interest, how many can one get on a 16meg (or more?) machine?

Maximum RAM in a Mark 2 is 16MB. Mark 2A has a somewhat solid path to 32MB, with potential, with extreme risk to go to 48 or 64MB.

http://www.eutronix.com/media/memory_manual.pdf for the hardware side complete with howto.

Software side, I don't remember offhand how stable upgrades were. Most of the discussion about it happened in 2004, and kits were sold for a short time.

Google may offer a better search then the boards to see what people's experiences were:
https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=empeg+memory+upgrade+site:empegbbs.com

Yes but how many tracks can 16meg address?
Is it linear, so 18,000 track on 12meg equates to 24,000 tracks on 16meg?
How many have people managed to get on their machines?