RioCar
2 x 60 GB
V2.0 developer
XP Pro
USB
ethernet
COM4 via USB adapter and factory D9 cable 11520

Just when I thought everything was going fine and I got the player fully loaded (within 500 Mb), we now have the ‘Building music databases…’ hang on boot again. It will complete the boot after about 20 min. but that’s too long for emplode to wait during it’s boot up with the player so it tadas and crashes. I really don't know much about this stuff so I read on the BBS that I need to fix the player via Hyperterminal. I got the player to talk to HyperTerminal but I can’t seem to talk to the player. This is what the player sends during its boot:



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!

€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€



e000 v1.04€€€€€€€€€€

Copying kernel...

Calling linux kernel...

Uncompressing Linux..................................... done, booting the kerne€€€€€€€€€€€

l.

Linux version 2.2.14-rmk5-np17-empeg52 (rob@aphex) (gcc version 2.95.3 20010315€€€€€€€

(release)) #11 Tue Apr 1 18:49:59

empeg-car player (hardware revision 9, serial number 40103395)€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€

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

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

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 d0004900).€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€

empeg RDS driver initialised

empeg power-pic driver initialised (first boot)€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€

hdb: TOSHIBA MK6021GAS, ATA DISK drive

hda: TOSHIBA MK6021GAS, ATA DISK drive€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€

hdb: TOSHIBA MK6021GAS, ATA DISK drive

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

hda: TOSHIBA MK6021GAS, 57231MB w/0kB Cache, CHS=7296/255/63

hdb: TOSHIBA MK6021GAS, 57231MB w/0kB Cache, CHS=7296/255/63€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€

empeg-flash driver initialized

€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€

smc chip id/revision 0x3349€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€

smc9194.c:v0.12 03/06/96 by Erik Stahlman ([email protected])



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

player.cpp : 385:empeg-car 2.00 2003/04/01.

! tags.cpp : 61:Failed to open tags (0xc0041002).





…and then it goes into the ‘Building music databases…’ stage.



So I tried holding the q key during boot up but it won’t recognize the interruption.



This is what it sends after it finishes ‘Building music databases’:



Prolux 4 empeg car - 2.1434 Mar 26 2003

Vcb: 0x4086d000





Here is what the BBS says:



· My player takes a long time to boot and says it is Building Music Databases.
(Entry last updated on February 15th, 2004)

If your player is taking an unusually long time to boot up, and the startup screen is paused on a message similar to "Building music databases", then it's got something wrong with its databases. The player should only take about 8-10 seconds to boot up.

This should only happen if something has gone wrong during the synch process. For instance, if Windows crashed during the synch or if you were running beta software which contained a bug. Also, make sure to rule out disk drive problems as described here, since disk trouble can also cause database trouble.

Usually, you need only to synch once with Emplode to cure the problem.

If synching once with Emplode doesn't solve the problem, you can force it to rebuild the database as follows:

Make sure you've installed the developer version of the player software (instructions here).
Make sure you're not running any third party programs that lock the /drive0 or /drive1 filesystems as described here.
Make absolutely sure you're not having hardware disk or cable trouble. If you are, you need to solve that before messing with the filesystem.
Use Hypterterminal to connect to the player's shell prompt (instructions here).
Reboot the player, and after the player software starts, press q (enter) to get to a shell prompt.
You should be at a shell prompt now. Enter:

rwm (There will be a long pause)
rm /drive0/var/database
rm /drive0/var/database3
rm /drive0/var/tags
rm /drive0/var/playlists
rm /drive1/var/database
rm /drive1/var/database3
rm /drive1/var/tags
rm /drive1/var/playlists
(Note that some of those RM commands will not work, that's OK)
exit
(The player application will run and rebuild the databases; watch the screen and wait until it is done, then q out of it again...)
q
(This should exit the player application back to the shell prompt.)
rom
exit
Cycle the power on the player. Make sure it boots correctly, without the long pause.
Note that during this procedure, you also might get an error message about "e2fsck". If that happens, click here and perform the procedure to manually FSCK the disks. You might need to repeat the above procedure after a manual FSCK.



Am I supposed to be able to enter these commands now? No typing appears in the Hyperterminal window at the curser.


Please help!

You might have a faulty serial cable. I've had two go bad on me since I owned my first empeg.

Anyway, try a ctrl-C to kill the player software instead of a Q and see if that works. If not, I'd worry about the cable, and any other of the things that might go wrong based on the Hyperterminal section of the FAQ.

And make sure you have the flow control turned off in Hyperterminal. That seems to be an easy mistake to make and it has the same symptoms as what you're describing.

Also, this is in totally the wrong forum. Moving....

Or, rather, I would if I had permissions in this forum.

thanks but no joy:

tried another cable (from sewell fastlinx) i had laying around. same problem. RioCar talks to Hyperterminal but i just have a cursor in the Hyperterminal window. If i click in the window i get a vertical cursor that goes away on (enter). I even tried send paste from right click.

all the port settings are good.

And you're applying power to the player after running hyperterminal? Sometimes I need to have hyperterminal already running when I apply power to the player or I can't talk to it.

yes power after hyperterminal is connected. Is there any harm in rebooting the player during 'rebuiling databases..' hang? this would allow me to try things more than every twenty minutes or so waiting for the player to finish booting.

As far as I can recall, no. The The database files can't be written to disk anyway (which is why you need that successful sync with emplode to get out of the long delayrebuilding databases situation...) The process will just restart after a reboot.