Openpandora Won't Boot After Battery Discharge

[labelreader]

REPOSTED -- originally posted to wrong forum.

Hi everybody,

We received an OpenPandora and started fooling around with it. One of my teammates decided to do a battery discharge test, but after leaving the device on the charger over the weekend to make sure it was recharged, it won't boot anymore.

If you hold the power/reset slider to the right and press the Pandora logo button, it reboots, but the device will only get about 40% of the way through the boot loader progress bar before the screen goes dark.

Thanks for any advice!
Jacob

 

[htl2001]

How was the discharge test run? did it not properly shut down? Freezing during bootup sounds like what happened when some of the first units didn't go through their firstboot routines right.

 

[labelreader]

How was the discharge test run? did it not properly shut down? Freezing during bootup sounds like what happened when some of the first units didn't go through their firstboot routines right.

That's right, it was simply unplugged, and not properly shut down.

Any advice?

 

[Drak]

This is because it saved your brightness setting to a really dark level when it shut down(most likely). You need to 'login' using your admin name and password.

So basically when the screen goes dark you type your password press enter, then press FN + I (brightness up) to get back in. You should apply hotfix #2 to prevent this from happening in the future .

 

[EvilDragon]

Yep, it's either the brightness saving bug (if the screen goes black while booting) or a broken SD Card in your slot (if it seems to hang while booting).
As said, that brightness saving bug is fixed since Hotfix 2

 

[labelreader]

Yep, it's either the brightness saving bug (if the screen goes black while booting) or a broken SD Card in your slot (if it seems to hang while booting).
As said, that brightness saving bug is fixed since Hotfix 2

Great! I've downloaded the .pnd file for hotfix 2 to an SD card (put it into /pandora/menu) but I'm not sure what to do to install it -- docs weren't linked from the download page. Any suggestion as to how to find this in the docs?

Thanks again!

 

[mali]

You should simply start it from the menu. It will give you instructions. If it doesn't start, the PND might be corrupted(redownload) or your SD might be corrupted and you need to format it to FAT32 with the formatter linked to under [Tools] in the Tweaks Thread pinned in this forum section.

 

[ste_167]

You should simply start it from the menu. It will give you instructions. If it doesn't start, the PND might be corrupted(redownload) or your SD might be corrupted and you need to format it to FAT32 with the formatter linked to under [Tools] in the Tweaks Thread pinned in this forum section.

I just put mine in pandora/desktop on the SD card, ran it from the Desktop and then deleted it.

 

[Loon]

REPOSTED -- originally posted to wrong forum.

Hi everybody,

We received an OpenPandora and started fooling around with it. One of my teammates decided to do a battery discharge test, but after leaving the device on the charger over the weekend to make sure it was recharged, it won't boot anymore.

If you hold the power/reset slider to the right and press the Pandora logo button, it reboots, but the device will only get about 40% of the way through the boot loader progress bar before the screen goes dark.

Thanks for any advice!
Jacob

Hi Jacob, hope you got your Pandora working.

Out of curiosity, who is 'we' as in 'we received an OpenPandora'?

 

[labelreader]

Yep, it's either the brightness saving bug (if the screen goes black while booting) or a broken SD Card in your slot (if it seems to hang while booting).
As said, that brightness saving bug is fixed since Hotfix 2

Can anybody provide me with a keystroke sequence to log in from cold boot? I tried doing it blind, but I don't know the exact sequence of keystrokes to enter the username/password.

 

[javaJake]

I did exactly the same thing. I let it discharge, and it wouldn't turn back on. If I let it sit for a few hours, it'd finally boot up.

I've detailed everything I've done so far here: http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/54861-pandora-wont-turn-on

 

[labelreader]

I did exactly the same thing. I let it discharge, and it wouldn't turn back on. If I let it sit for a few hours, it'd finally boot up.

I've detailed everything I've done so far here: http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/54861-pandora-wont-turn-on

Hrm, nope, I've had it sitting on my desk, plugged in and powered on, for a week. Seems like it's a doorstop.

 

[God Ginrai]

You said that you got partially through the bootup and then the screen turned dark. When that happens, let it sit for about a minute, enter your password using the keyboard and hit enter (if you have a password prompt on startup for standard). And then hit the Fn+I to bring the brightness back up.

-God Ginrai

 

[labelreader]

You said that you got partially through the bootup and then the screen turned dark. When that happens, let it sit for about a minute, enter your password using the keyboard and hit enter (if you have a password prompt on startup for standard). And then hit the Fn+I to bring the brightness back up.

-God Ginrai

I know exactly what I set the password to, but these instructions aren't helping =(

I slide the power switch over and press the OpenPandora logo, it resets, the progress bar appears, then the screen blanks out at about 40% progress.

Then I wait (a minute, fifteen, etc).

Then I do NOT enter the username, but DO type the password.

Then I press Enter.

Then I hold down Fn and repeatedly press I.

Nothing. =(

Is there a factory reset I can trigger somehow?

 

[Prometheus]

You can't "trigger" it, but you can reflash the OS. Instructions for that are here (and remember to apply Hotfix 2 after this is done, if this works, because it fixes some bugs).

 

[labelreader]

You can't "trigger" it, but you can reflash the OS. Instructions for that are here (and remember to apply Hotfix 2 after this is done, if this works, because it fixes some bugs).

Thanks, Prometheus, I'll give this a try! I previously found the Hotfix 2 instructions, but as you know, you can't apply that unless you can actually get to the desktop!

 

[Prometheus]

Good luck, labelreader - here's hoping you get it fixed.

 

[God Ginrai]

You said that you got partially through the bootup and then the screen turned dark. When that happens, let it sit for about a minute, enter your password using the keyboard and hit enter (if you have a password prompt on startup for standard). And then hit the Fn+I to bring the brightness back up.

-God Ginrai

I know exactly what I set the password to, but these instructions aren't helping =(

I slide the power switch over and press the OpenPandora logo, it resets, the progress bar appears, then the screen blanks out at about 40% progress.

Then I wait (a minute, fifteen, etc).

Then I do NOT enter the username, but DO type the password.

Then I press Enter.

Then I hold down Fn and repeatedly press I.

Nothing. =(

Is there a factory reset I can trigger somehow?

Now that I think about it, you might have to do username as well. However, I would suggest just going with Prometheus's idea. It's faster, and harder to screw up with.

-God Ginrai

 

[labelreader]

You can't "trigger" it, but you can reflash the OS. Instructions for that are here (and remember to apply Hotfix 2 after this is done, if this works, because it fixes some bugs).

Thanks, Prometheus, I'll give this a try! I previously found the Hotfix 2 instructions, but as you know, you can't apply that unless you can actually get to the desktop!

Okay, gave this a try -- even tried the updated image, but I don't get the "boot from SD1" menu option.

The boot menu *does* appear, but it only contains these items:

default boot
power off
serial prompt

Anybody got any idea why?

EDIT: further weirdness: if I take the SD card out, the option for "serial prompt" disappears. Maybe this unit has a defective bootloader that mistakenly displays the wrong menu item when an SD card is in the slot?

 

[Prometheus]

Assuming you have access to a computer running Microsoft Windows, or if it works under WINE on x86 Linux, have you formatted the card using the official Panasonic Formatter utility? (It's linked to in the "[Tools]" section, here.) It may possibly be that the card is wonky.