Pandora going into an infinite reboot loop on boot - help?


Ragnar Homsar

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Jun 23, 2011
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I've had my Pandora for about a week and a day now, it's an absolutely wonderful device...


But as of this morning, my Pandora's going into an infinite reboot loop on boot! It gets to the bootloader (the bright blue Pandora logo), gets to the Zaxxon Hotfix 6 loading screen, the progress bar moves about an inch... and then the LCD brings up some random colors either in rectangles extending the length of the screen with random width, or it covers the entire screen in one color. Either way, the screen then fades out and goes back to the bootloader.


I first thought that the OS had become corrupted, since this was happening during the loading sequence but not the bootloader. So I grabbed the full flash of Zaxxon HF6, booted from the SD card... and it flashed colors during the Pandora-Tux loading screen. Tried loading the full flash again, it got to "Starting updater, please wait...", and then it flashed colors again.


Both of these still happen regardless if it's running off of battery, or if it's plugged in.


Is my Pandora completely screwed and do I have to send it back to Craig's shop, or is there something I can do over here? I'd rather not have to open up it up and mess around with its innards, but I'll try that if I have to.
 
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Perhaps if you leave your battery out for a few hours then place it back in and try again.


Hope this is valid advice.


Best of success to you!!
 
Can you try a reflash with a different SD Card, possibly? Sometimes some cards don't play nice with this sort of thing, resulting in a bad flash.
 
Can you try a reflash with a different SD Card, possibly? Sometimes some cards don't play nice with this sort of thing, resulting in a bad flash.
Just tried that with the SD card I used for a full flash when I first got the Pandora, infinite reboot loop is still happening before the patcher starts.
 
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I'm afraid I don't have a clue - this sort of thing is outside of my knowledge. Sorry about that.
 
Huh that's really odd, if all else fails, take the battery out, unplug it and try it again in the morning. If it does not work, then I guess RMA.


Maybe the bootloader somehow got corrupted, but I can't see that happening since it gets to the Zaxxon boot screen.


Maybe something is up with the power button or something else hardware related, maybe when booting it up put the power switch into the hold position, just a guess.
 
I'm afraid I don't have a clue - this sort of thing is outside of my knowledge. Sorry about that.
Oh well. Thanks for trying to help!


Darkknight: I'll try leaving the thing unplugged and without a battery overnight. I'll see if the power switch suggestion works in the morning, too. Thanks for the advice!
 
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Sounds like a highly unusual problem to me. Do you have a video camera? A youtube video of what happens during the boot process might help people offer a diagnosis, even a few still photos of the screen corruption might help.


Did the Pandora work fine originally and then suddenly start exhibiting this behaviour?


Sorry I can't be more help.
 
There is also a super-secret emergency recovery mode that involves making a very special SD card used for those times when even the boot loader gets corrupt. Unfortunately I don't know the right incantation to make this card. EvilDragon might be able to help out with that. Or it's in the wiki somewhere and I'm not able to find it right now.
 
There is also a super-secret emergency recovery mode that involves making a very special SD card used for those times when even the boot loader gets corrupt. Unfortunately I don't know the right incantation to make this card. EvilDragon might be able to help out with that. Or it's in the wiki somewhere and I'm not able to find it right now.
Is this the one?
 
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That super secret emergency recovery doesn't do more than the normal flasher, except for that the card has a few tests as well as it can be booted without bootloader.


Won't help here.


It sounds like power breaks done when the Pandora needs more current...
 
That super secret emergency recovery doesn't do more than the normal flasher, except for that the card has a few tests as well as it can be booted without bootloader.


Won't help here.


It sounds like power breaks done when the Pandora needs more current...
Needs more current? As in, it needs more power? I've tested it plugged in with battery, without battery, and not plugged in with battery, and all of them keep going into the reboot loop.


The Pandora and its battery have been sitting unused and detached from each other for about 19 hours now. I'll try it one more time in about 5 hours.
 
That is quite odd, I can only imagine that maybe the nand fubard?


I don't know, something like this is very odd and frankly I could not offer any (good) advice.


NOTE: I dont own a pandora so any thing I say should be confirmed by poeple that actualy have some sort of intelligence (and a Pandora) unlike me.


This is way out there so please excuse me if it makes no sence at all, but is it possible to boot other operiting systems? I could be wrong but MAYBE you can boot into another OS and look at the results, maybe they can offer other..... infos (hurry for bad grammar) that the pandora OS doesn't.


Just a suggestion, I wish the best of luck to you good sir.


Best Regards,


Marco.P


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EDIT: OH BOI I AM A ADVANCED USER NOW.......... yay?
 
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