Multiple Sequential Pandora Fails

[daffy]

So yesterday, I got my Pandora out of my pocket to find that although it was fully charged when I put it in there, it had somehow discharged in the last few hours.

So I charge it last night, take it with me, whip it out and... it wouldn't get past the password screen.

So I reboot and use the reflasher which I now keep on the card because this kind of shit keeps happening.

Completed reflash, restart. Get part-way through reboot and just sit doing nothing. Give that five minutes, restart. Repeat.

Finally get to "setup or reboot" screen you first see when the firmware initializes, but have no way to proceed: tapping the buttons does nothing and tabbing and pressing enter likewise.

Okay, fine: reflash. Nope. Now, the SD card is being reported as corrupted. This is the second SD card corruption I've experienced in three days. At least this time it was only a sector or something, rather the entire thing suddenly being unreadable.

This device is a great *idea*, but it's *far* too unreliable for me to use for anything right now.

 

[mali]

Trying to flash with a corrupted SD Card might be the problem here. You should format the card with the Panasonic formatter and try again.

 

[Prometheus]

Just a quick question, if the Panasonic formatter doesn't work: What sort of card is it, and where did it come from? (Yeah, yeah, we all know why I ask this, by now. I like to cover all bases, if possible, though.)

 

[tsh]

So I reboot and use the reflasher which I now keep on the card because this kind of shit keeps happening.

If you carry on like this, you will never find the cause of the problems, just trash the NAND by writing to it every day.

I know a few other people have had some issues with batteries, but the SD corruption seems to be more rare - unless it is being caused by the battery draining and the unit not shutting down cleanly. (or using the Pandora+power to power off)

I know that I managed to build the kernel native about 5 times yesterday (twice from a clean checkout), and haven't had any crashing problems at all since sorting out the low power shutdown code (but that only causes a problem if you leave it to run down in low-power state).

You can avoid using low power state altogether at the moment - it doesn't help yet.

 

[EvilDragon]

This sounds more like a broken SD Card than a broken Pandora.
There was another thread here where weird things like that happened - and then the user found out that almost ALL users on amazon.com had trouble using the card. They lost data, had it frequently corrupting, etc.

Flashing from a card that corrupts easily will also lead to a corrupt firmware and stuff happens...

 

[Prometheus]

Hey daffy, would you greatly mind visiting this thread and completing the test that I've written about there, if you can, please?

 

[daffy]

Hey daffy, would you greatly mind visiting this thread and completing the test that I've written about there, if you can, please?

Did. Ran the test. Reported the results. Card was fine.