Hi

I was attempting to upgrade my hijack kernel to the latest one today. This is something I've done several times before without problem.
However, today the upgrade failed, and when I rebooted the player I was left with a blank screen and nothing much else.
I was using the Windows Logo Editor to upload the zImage. This is the output from the upload program:

==================================================
Trying to reboot the player now...

-----------------------------------------------
- READY TO BEGIN SENDING DATA -
- -
- The player should reboot and the data -
- transfer should begin automatically. If -
- this doesn't happen within the next few -
- seconds, then do the following: -
- -
- UNPLUG the power from the empeg car player, -
- then PLUG IT IN again to begin the data -
- transfer process. -
- -
- Please do this now. -
-----------------------------------------------

Error status in readbyte 2
Error status in readbyte 2

found empeg unit: entering program mode
Error status in readbyte 2
manufacturer=0009, product=88c1
waiting for prompt
starting erase [Error status in readbyte 2

Error: erasepage(10000) got code 100

Press the Enter key to continue.
==================================================


I took a look at the console output in HyperTerminal, and this is what I saw:
=================================================
empeg-car bootstrap v1.02 20001106 ([email protected])
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!
(prefetch abort vector)
==================================================

This text doesn't always come out cleanly though, maybe that's a symptom of the problem (e.g. several characters are often skipped)

Any suggestions? I've read the FAQ but couldn't find anything useful, except checking my serial cable. But I've used the cable before with no problems, and have stored it safely since then.

I've tried the Rio Upgrade Wizard also, but no luck there. It complains with the following error:
=================================================
Error "Hardware revision check failed" occurred during stage 0x04
=================================================

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,
-Dan

Do you have anything else open on the serial port when the upgrade is running? Any open hyperterms, etc? At this stage, if the flash has an incomplete image, the only way you would be able to do another flash is the upgrade wizard. Concentrate on this tool at this point.

First things first...

Are you using the latest version of Logo Editor? There were some bugs fixed in a recent release.

Next thing, do an ".upgrade" of the software onto the player using the standard upgrade procedure. You'll have to pull the power from the player, and don't apply power to the player until the upgrade software prompts you to do so.

If the upgrade does not work, then the problem lies in your serial connection somewhere. Bad or loose cable, for example. Or maybe something in the PC's software or hardware that's screwing up the serial port.

If the upgrade works, then mess with commands in hyperterminal and see if those work. Note that just seeing the screen in hyperterminal is not enough, you need to also be able to send commands to the player and have those work too.

If the upgrade works and hypterterminal works bidirectionally, I don't see why the flash programmer shouldn't work.

that's wierd... I replied to this yesterday but realised today that the post didn't appear. That's the second time its happened to me in 2 posts...

Anyway, Tony and Paul, thanks a million for your quick replies. I later discovered the problem was actually my laptop, which for some reason is randomly dropping bytes going through the serial port. When I got home and plugged it into my home PC, I was able to restore the kernel and upgrade to latest Hijack without any problems. So I'm very very relieved about that.

Thanks again guys!

Regards,
-Dan