I've got issues, mostly with wifi

[Alex777]

My Pandora finally arrived today, but unfortunately I'm having several problems with it:


I can't for the life of me get the stylus out of the case. I've actually started to chisel away part of the plastic on the stylus. Is there some trick to this?


My system time got borked somehow (probably when the OS froze and I had to do a hard reset), and there doesn't appear to be a way to change it. The "date" command doesn't work. I found a tool in minimenu that does this.


Wifi is so spotty as to be useless. (Is this related to the above?) I can connect to my home network well enough, but Midori stops loading pages after a minute or so and I have to bounce the connection. Downloading is right out. Turning off power saving hasn't helped.


I'd love to test other browsers, applications, but since I can't download anything I'm stuck.

 

[mcobit]

Hi, first you should download the hotfixpacks, if they are not installed by default on the new units. You can also use the pandora as a cradreader and install the apps from your main pc to the sdcard.


Edit: If you have trouble with midori, try to use aurora, more stable, I think. And don't use the browsers from the nand after installing anotherone (Chromium is pretty fast and stable).


For wifi problems you can experiment with channelsetting on your router to make a better connection.

 

[dreamer]

^ if he recieved his unit just now he should already have all the hotfixes installed with the latest firmware.

 

[TrashyMG]

I know some people had luck getting their Wifi working better by changing the channel the Wifi router uses.

 

[WizardStan]

My system time got borked somehow (probably when the OS froze and I had to do a hard reset), and there doesn't appear to be a way to change it. The "date" command doesn't work. I found a tool in minimenu that does this.

In XFCE, bring up the menu (tap the lower left icon), choose "Settings" and then "Date and Time"


To set the date from the command line, you need to be super user: "sudo date yaddayadda"

 

[Alex777]

In XFCE, bring up the menu (tap the lower left icon), choose "Settings" and then "Date and Time"


To set the date from the command line, you need to be super user: "sudo date yaddayadda"

So that's what "sudo" does. :rolleyes:


This is my first Linux machine, so I'm not familiar with all the commands. I have used Unix though, so I know the basics.


As for the wifi, I'm currently on channel 11. I live in a city, with several other networks in range, so changing it might be problematic. None of my other wifi devices have had any problems though.


I've only ever tried Midori, do you think it's simply a browser issue? I know it has some issues, but I didn't think they were of this magnitude.

 

[darfgarf]

try playing with security settings aswell, it shouldn't make a difference, but i've seen plenty of devices (the worst being the archos tablets) that don't play well with some kinds of encryption, but fly with others

 

[Alex777]

I can't check right now (I'm at work), but I think it uses WPA2 Personal with AES encryption. Before I start fiddling with it (and risk messing up my PC, which also uses it) I'm going to take a trip to McDonalds and see how it fares on a totally open connection.


If that works, there's a possible solution here. If not... :unsure:

 

[EvilDragon]

well, your Pandora should have the latest Hotfixes on it, but not the latest WiFi-Betadriver


Try it, it did wonders for some guys


Also, changing the channel often improves Wifi, as mentioned.


Channel 11 seems to be a standard with a lot of routers, so if you're in the city, changing the channel to something like 5 or 6 might improve the connection a lot.

 

[Alex777]

I'll have to try that. It's small enough that it should download successfully.

 

[TrashyMG]

So that's what "sudo" does. :rolleyes:

sudo grants super user(administrative) access to run a particular command. There is a file called sudoers that this command checks to see if the user or group has the authority to do the command. I think in the case of Angstrom the distribution that the Pandora OS is based off, Since for mobile devices I think sudo pretty much grants full root access to anything you do.. which is not the case in most Desktop / Server distributions.


Well rough go at what that does..

 

[Alex777]

The beta wifi drivers worked like a charm.


Anyone have a solution for the stuck stylus?


I've also discovered that the Y button (the button, not the keyboard key) doesn't work. It actually has a B on it instead of a Y, and feels squishier than the other, working, buttons. The real B button also has a B on it, and works fine.


Is there a difference between the Y and B buttons apart from the letter etched into them? If the're expecting contacts or something to be in a different place, that could be why the button doesn't work. Maybe they're unrelated, but it seems awfully coincidental that the mis-labeled button is also the broken one.

 

[Prometheus]

Regarding the stuck stylus, just keep trying - it's all you can really do. It's my understanding that it's the paint finish on the casing and on the stylus that causes it.

 

[EvilDragon]

Anyone have a solution for the stuck stylus?

As Prometheus mentioned, it's the painting.


Some are REALLY hard to remove at the beginning.


It wears off after a while, but you could also use some sandpaper on the stylus to make it work better.

Is there a difference between the Y and B buttons apart from the letter etched into them? If the're expecting contacts or something to be in a different place, that could be why the button doesn't work. Maybe they're unrelated, but it seems awfully coincidental that the mis-labeled button is also the broken one.

Hm, no, there's no difference between those two.


Have you checked them with the op_input_test?

 

[Prometheus]

It wears off after a while, but you could also use some sandpaper on the stylus to make it work better.

That reminds me of something that I forgot to mention. Thanks, ED.


If you do sand it down, don't use sandpaper on the tip, just the barrel - whilst there is some paint on the tip, your best bet to get rid of that is use the stylus to "write" on a scrap of paper until it all comes off.

 

[Alex777]

Have you checked them with the op_input_test?

I didn't know such a thing existed. Do you just run it from the command line?


Normally, Y operates as Page Up and X as Page Down. It's pretty telling when one of those works and the other doesn't.

 

[sbt]

Sorry to bring this up again. Got my Pandora today, WiFi wouldn't connect but after I installed the beta driver all seemed fine....but


It does connect and brings a page up but once I click on a link the wi-fi dies and sits there connecting. I have to bring down the Wi-Fi and then back up again only to have the same thing happen.


Any tips anyone?


(I'm on a Netgear N router with WPA-PSK [TKIP])


thanks

 

[WizardStan]

Experiment with different channels (5, 6, and 11 seem to be popular), and by turning encryption off. Also helpful (especially on old wifi driver, the beta driver handles this automatically much better but it could still be useful) open a terminal and type the command "sudo iwconfig wlan0 power off" (requires password) to turn off power management. It keeps the wifi running at full power all the time and should help prevent some disconnects, but will knock an hour or two off your battery.

 

[Prometheus]

(I'm on a Netgear N router with WPA-PSK [TKIP])

I *think* someone recently mentioned that switching to AES instead of TKIP fixed this for them. Your mileage may vary, of course.

 

[Alex777]

I've had trouble in the past with TKIP (not related to the Pandora), which is why I'm now using AES.


Even though I haven't figured out how to use op_input_test (it's not a terminal command; this ought to be documented better), I'm quite convinced that my Y button masquerading as a B button isn't working. It doesn't evoke a response to UQM's "push a button to bind it" prompt, when all the other buttons I tried did. The other face buttons were interpreted as Home, End, and PgDown as I had expected.


So unless there's a fairly easy DIY fix available (and doing so won't void my warranty), it'll have to be sent back at some point.