pandora asks me suddenly a password (and i can't login)

[ahahah]

hello

i'm afraid. i think my problems of booting will come back.

yesterday when i booted the pandora it asks me my login/password.

The 1st problem is that this option is always disabled because i don't need it, but suddenly it appears.

so i entered it.

very quickly a black screen with instructions is displayed (see image) and back to  the login/password screen.

my password is correct since when i enter a wrong password it doesn't load anything, but when i enter the correct password it loads the black screen quickly and comes back to the login screen.

see the capture

the day before, when i powered off the pandora (in xfce/zaxxon 1.55) i didn't wait the complete process, i closed the lid before the shutdown process ended. Do you think this can cause the problem?

now i know i have to reflash an other time the pandora because i can't do anything after this black screen and i can't connect to  the desktop. (with or without my SD card)

in the last line it is written "USER does not exist" but my login is not USER.

anyway if you have an idea before i have to reflash it would be cool.

thanks

 

[TrashyMG]

I believe last time I seen anything like this I accidentally filled up all the free space on the NAND.

I don't know the exact steps, but you could boot off an SD card... mount the NAND(believe there was instructions on this) and using the df command see if your NAND is in fact full.

 

[EssoAir]

ITS A VIRUS!

...but seriously, just boot off SD. Why are you booting off of NAND in the first place? Its too risky

 

[TrashyMG]

^Seriously you believe this?.I have three Pandoras and since getting my first batch Pandora  three years ago I've always booted off the NAND except for booting slackware. I've had one issue messing up my install and that was using the opkg repository before it was stabilized.

Also reinstalling the firmware is only a few minute process.. so it's not a huge deal.
 

 

[Monkfish]

reflash the firmware

 

[ahahah]

how to use the df command^^ (im so noob in these things)

"Why are you booting off of NAND" that question was for me or trashymg?

 

[EssoAir]

You

 

[KickAss]

trashy's right. you prolly filled up all of your nand space.

you have several options:

1. boot from sd, mount and access the nand and copy anything you need (or even try to undo the steps you did before, freeing nand space...)
   df stands for disk free and is a terminal command. you just type
   
   df -h
   
   and it will show you available disk space in a human readable format.
    
   
2. you abandon your nand and reflash instead.
   

 

[EssoAir]

trashy's right. you prolly filled up all of your nand space.


you have several options:

• boot from sd, mount and access the nand and copy anything you need (or even try to undo the steps you did before, freeing nand space...)
  df stands for disk free and is a terminal command. you just type
  
  df -h
  
  and it will show you available disk space in a human readable format.
  
• 
  you abandon your nand and reflash instead.
  

You forgot his third option. He could buy a new pandora

 

[ahahah]

You

ok lol, so what do you mean by "Why are you booting off of NAND" ? what is booting off? (english is not my native language)

trashy's right. you prolly filled up all of your nand space. you have several options: boot from sd,

why the nand is fillng up? i don't manipulate it at all.

and when i delete a file i use the shift key to delete it permanentley rather than put it in the trash so i don't understand why it fills up.

and does it mean i will have to reflash every time the nand fills up? does it fills up regularely each time we use the pandora?

how boot from sd? i remember that a sd card have to be created in the pandora OS, but if i can't access it i can't create such a sd card.

 

[rohezal]

Easy solution: reflash. No password needed.

More advanced, but let you keep your nand: type ls to see the content of the nand. Type rm filename to remove a file. Like: "rm big.pdf". You need your password for this.

 

[TrashyMG]

and does it mean i will have to reflash every time the nand fills up?

No if you catch it before rebooting and can clear up the space you should be fine..  

does it fills up regularely each time we use the pandora?

It shouldn't, it's most likely an accident.. a few older PNDs don't play friendly with the NAND and could accidentally write stuff to it. It could also be a temp file that expanded too far and crashed without clearing the file.. 

how boot from sd?

You can follow the instructions to get superzaxxon running on the SD card or go with slackware..  

Looking at my three units there is on average about 105 MBs free on the NAND,  it doesn't take much to accidentally fill it.. installing too much from the opkg repository, accidentally picking the wrong download destination on a web browser etc.. If working with the typical Pandora environment as in PNDs running on SD cards, things should be fine and never fill up.

 

[ahahah]

ok so the nand can fills up if we use some "bad" pnds,

an alert, an update or a fix is feasible to prevent this situation? (in the case it is really this problem that happened)

 

[TrashyMG]

^ I don't recall seeing any PNDs that break the rules in a while.. it would be reported if it did.

It's most likely some other freak thing, download to the wrong spot, copy command gone wrong..

 

[ahahah]

so i really don't think that it is a full nand problem in my case, because i didn't do that sort of things.

close the lid before the shutdown process finish can disturb the OS? i did this the day before.

when i boot with the right shoulder button which option should i use to try the commands you gave me?

 

[TrashyMG]

There is not much in the boot menu that will help you unless you:

A ) decide to boot another OS on an SD card and try to diagnose the issue.

B ) Reflash your firmware.
 

 

[rohezal]

Your nand can also fill up when you download something and place it on the NAND instead on the SD card.

 

[ahahah]

Your nand can also fill up when you download something and place it on the NAND instead on the SD card.

it is more convenient for me to download pnd directly in the apps folder. i don't use the nand at all^^

it is not sure that the space was the problem.

btw, i have reflashed.

 

[ahahah]

Why are you booting off of NAND in the first place? Its too risky

is "booting" the same thing than "booting off"?

if yes, what is risky in booting with nand? it is the normal way to boot the pandora. it is made for that, isn't it?

 

[Asiyura]

Why are you booting off of NAND in the first place? Its too risky

is "booting" the same thing than "booting off"?

if yes, what is risky in booting with nand? it is the normal way to boot the pandora. it is made for that, isn't it?

Yeah booting the pandora from the NAND is the normal way of using it, that's how mine has been running for months without any problem.

I don't know why he says that it's too risky… well, maybe I know… that's EssoAir… he is known to write quite irrelevant things so most of us just ignore him

You just have to be cautious on where you put things. As it has been said before there is not much space available on the NAND, so a few small files can fill it quite fast.