(gulp)

I haven't had the need to make any player changes until today. I tried Emplode ... and ... got a sync error (this is through ethernet, which I never have a problem with).

It already rebooted, so I went into Hyperterminal and dropped to shell. Then I rebooted again and got this (insert shudder here).

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 kernel.
Linux version 2.2.14-rmk5-np17-empeg50-hijack-v269 ([email protected]) (gcc version 2.95.3 20010315 (release)) #2 Fri May 24 13:37:12 EDT 2002
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 30103046)
Command line: mem=16m
Calibrating delay loop... 207.67 BogoMIPS
Memory: 14952k/16M available (1040k 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)
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 67706d65 'empg'
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 d0004b80).
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-DJSA-220, ATA DISK drive
hdb: ÉBÍ-ÄJÓA­2²0                           , ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x000-0x007,0x038 on irq 6
hda: IBM-DJSA-220, 19077MB w/1874kB Cache, CHS=38760/16/63
hdb: ÉBÍ-ÄJÓA­2²0                           , 24191MB w/18258kB Cache, CHS=49151/16/63
empeg-flash driver initialized
smc chip id/revision 0x3349
smc9194.c:v0.12 03/06/96 by Erik Stahlman ([email protected])
SMC9194: SMC91C94(r:9) at 0x4008000 IRQ:7 INTF:TP MEM:6144b MAC 00:02:d7:26:0b:e6
Partition check:
hda: hda1 < hda5 hda6 > hda2 hda3 hda4
hdb: hdb1 < > 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
VFS: Can't find an ext2 filesystem on dev ide0(3,68).
Tried to mount /dev/hdc4 but got error 22
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
hijack: removed menu entry: "Hard Disk Detection"
khttpd: listening on port 80
kftpd: listening on port 21
player.cpp : 385:empeg-car 2.00-beta11 2002/02/08.
Prolux 4 empeg car - 2.1434 Feb 7 2002
Vcb: 0x4086d000

> hdb: ÉBÍ-ÄJÓA­2²0 , 24191MB w/18258kB Cache, CHS=49151/16/63

The above line looks funky, especially since you've got 18MB of cache You might have a bad drive cable or it has just come loose from one of the drives. If you talk to empeg they'll tell you what to do. No need to panic

- Trevor

Yeah, that's a lotta cache.

To think it has been working (or has appeared to be working) all this time, no problems playing any tracks (it's a nearly full install - two 20GB disks), I bring it indoors and - I confess, I didn't tell the whole story. Here's the whole enchilada:

First, I upgraded to the latest Hijack (ohhh, but that never causes any problems ... no really!).

After that I kicked off Emplode and went in via serial (had to change the player config to use DHCP). Went to sync and - got a sync error (the player had also rebooted).

Went into hyperterminal, dropped to shell, did a rwm, edited config.ini and made the necessary changes (instead of DHCP, I just changed the IP instead). Did a rom and rebooted.

Tried emplode again with TCP/IP - no problems. Went to remove an artist entry (and all associated tracks), synced ... again, same problem - sync error.

Back into hyperterminal, back to shell. Looked around - tried looking at /disk0 and /disk1 - uh oh, no disk1. Nothing there.

Tried mounting /disk1 - nothing. Rebooted player ... THAT'S when I noticed the garbled mess.

Greetings!

Probably your cable or jumper came loose off the second drive. You might want to open it and take a look.*

* Disclaimer: I know this particular unit is not under warranty, so feel free to look.

OK. (Now, don't I need a special wrench for that?)

Greetings!

Yup. A 2.5mm hex wrench. 5:1 loose cable or jumper.

Fixed. Loose cable.

Yup, all's well - though upon examining the insides it sure didn't appear that anything was loose. Hmm ... hmm ...

No matter. Thanks to everyone for the help, esp. Paul for over-the-phone coaching.

Yeah, Paul is a great guy! He once helped me out tremendously when I had a problem installing a second HD.

It's because of people like him this community is the way it is, and I'm proud being part of it!

Aw... Shucks...

> though upon examining the insides it sure didn't
> appear that anything was loose. Hmm ...

That could be a sign of the cable being faulty. If you get this problem again, email me for a replacement.

If you get this problem again, email me for a replacement.

Slightly off-topic here, but...

I bought a spare player during the fire sale. I've loaded it with about 8 GB of music, and tested it for several days in my car, and it seems to be working perfectly.

However, we all know there is a non-trivial likelihood that the drive cable is indeed defective and just hasn't shown the problem yet in the limited amount of testing that I did.

These cables are available now... but how about in the future? If I install my empeg in a second car a year from now, and a month after that the cable fails, what will my options be?

tanstaafl.

Wondering the same thing kinda. Say some how my cage and harness get destroyed by say a freak car fire but I was able to rescue the empeg with minimal 3rd degree burns. Now I need a new car dock will I be able to get one from you guys in like a year?

Good question since a lot of us have spares. I haven't even taken mine out of the box yet.

Now I need a new car dock will I be able to get one from you guys in like a year?

If you're worried about that, you've only got a couple of days to buy a spare car dock, as the Empeg store closes on the 31st of this month. I recommend you take advantage of this opportunity.

If your cable is going to fail, it will probably do so within the first month of regular use.

If you have spare players, unpack them and use them as your normal unit for a month.

Cables will be available for as long as I am providing support, which at the moment is indefinitely.