Pandora in unstoppable loop


claregj

Still Fresh
Joined
Apr 7, 2009
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Dear friends, my beloved Pandora is very sick.


It has its original software (Hotfix5) in the NAND, and I usually run it from SD card.


It is one of those with bad original wifi, and has a usb dongle supplied.


Running from SDcard worked well for two or three earlier hotfixes, but


while running Hotfix7 Beta1.1 with kernel 3.2 it went into this unresponsive and


unstoppable state. It shows on its screen a blue pandora box 1.5 cm across for about


7 seconds then offs it for about 7 seconds.


It flashes up a start screenthe one with the name of the version (Hotfix5) very briefly


about 14 seconds apart, but sometimes delays longer than that. Sometimes the screen


gives stripes or a blank area. The only way to stop it is remove the battery.


(Another problem is that I can't charge the battery.)


So - what should I do?


I triedl to flash NAND with SuperZaxxon-B1.zip; but am unable to make the SDcard


on the Pandora. I used Linux on PC.


When I tried it, on several occasions I was able to read bits of text which said


something like "boot.scr" (Thus I thought it had at least in part read the card.)


and another like "start kernel Legacy.." Not good at all.


Hoping for some help,


claregj
 
based on your somewhat not-so-clear explanation, i would recommend couple things.


one, reflash with a panasonic sdformatter formatted card, after redownloading the latest hotfix, and checking the md5 to make sure its complete


2. put a folded piece of paper between battery, and battery cover so it pushes it in and stays in place. while youre doing this, check battery for bulge seeing as you may have been on hf5


3. try running pandora without battery, and just charger
 
If it still says "Hotfix 5" somewhere, then the update clearly didn't really happen.


So you might only have flashed the kernel or something like that.


You shouldn't have any special needs to create a SuperZaxxon-Flashcard, just a properly FAT32-formatted card which has everything from that archive extracted in root.
 
Hi DaMummy and ED


I have followed all the suggestions, and never at any stage did the rhythmic display of blue boxes stop.


I formatted two cards on WinXP with sdfmt3_1 But no change in the behaviour with either one.


To populate the cards I used Linux, I don't know how to do it on Win.


Using the same SuperZaxxon-B1.zip as before for one (HN)


root@bt:/media/0041-9FD0# ls -l


total 307904


-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2190834 2012-02-18 11:09 bootf.tgz


-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 5045500 2012-02-18 11:09 boot.scr


-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 999 2011-12-25 01:03 README.TXT


-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 307980288 2012-02-21 09:18 rootfs.img


-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 117 2012-02-21 09:15 rootfs.md5


and using files from http://openpandora.org/firmware/ to follow instructions in pandora-flash-kit.zip


for the other. (DS)


root@bt:~# ls -l /media/FCD9-BB58/


total 307872


-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2161117 2012-03-16 23:56 bootf.tgz


-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 5045500 2012-02-18 11:09 boot.scr


-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1333 2010-07-01 21:26 README.TXT


-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 307980288 2012-03-16 23:57 rootfs.img


-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 117 2012-03-16 23:59 rootfs.md5


It is not obvious how long the right shoulder button needs to be held, but if it is held a long time


the prompt is repeated so I made an attempt to read what it said; which I think was (for card DS):


reading boot.scr


5045500 bytes read


executing script at 8200000


Total of 1 word were the same


HW ECC selected


NAND read device 0 offset 0x0 size 0x20000


131072 bytes read ok


Total of 131072 bytes were the same


X-load already flashed skipped


Booting Kernel from Legacy Image at 82021000


I now find that trying to do this with no battery in, the screen blanks after the first couple of lines (except for the blu boxes of course.)


battery now 4.01v, the other 3.98v.


I had a short try for the last part and after a few more lines it says loading kernel image ok ok


However it keeps looping, never gets to ask for login.


Still hopeful..


claregj
 
This happened to me when the Pandora had no space on the NAND.


Double check to see if you are putting the OS installer on SD 1 and holding the R button as soon as you turn the Pandora on. The menu should appear / during after the first box splash screen.


Also I would like to point out that my Pandora wouldn't boot off SD 1 today because of the SD card having the read / write switch in the middle so it was doing neither :p check this too :p
 
Hi Wally, - also in Australia! I grew up in Melbourne.


I don't think I am quite with you on this. What I am trying to do is "Replace the firmware" as at pandorawiki.org/Introduction_to_firmware, using a zip file. What I was doing earlier was using a pandora-rootfs.tar.bz2 as at pandorawiki.org/Running_Linux_from_an_SD_card . I was using Option 2 from there as it seemed simpler than the PND method. However the current problem is basically that it wont turn off. The instructions say if it won't turn off you have to have the battery out and then add it in with the R button pressed; a bit awkward. However it seems that it is supposed then to get on with loading but mine just keeps doing its own thing. I have found a zip for Hotfix5, Once I have figured out how to charge a battery I think I will try that :)


cheers, claregj
 
Thank you Link, I *was* getting a bit discouraged; have not solved the charge battery problem. However there is still just about 4v there, and I believe that Hotfix 6 can manage a Wifi dongle for a Pandora with defective wifi, so it would be more sensible to use it. It is possible that I may get some charge into the battery while trying. It put on its red light and I may have got a slight increase in voltage when I did briefly try Hotfix5, but was still getting blue boxes all the time, so decided not to keep going as previously I had lost battery voltage.


Did you have that repetitive blue boxes effect when you had a full NAND, and/or when flashing it?


I am grateful for the link, as I didn't find it myself. Just now my mobile broadband connection is patchy; it is usually better in the early morning so I will try then.


Thanks again, Claregj.
 
There are pandoras in the wild which work without battery and with power adaptor connected only. This is an accidently working feature and not designed to do so, if it's not working it's not a fault. But if your pandora does, you could relax the battery situation for the flashing procedures.
 
Did you have that repetitive blue boxes effect when you had a full NAND, and/or when flashing it?
My Pandora would freeze at the blue splash screen during startup sometimes, or the green screen with the experimental kernel attempts.


If you Pandora will work OK without the battery and the power adapter plugged into the Pandora, as double7 said above, might be ideal for a reflash if your battery isn't holding a good charge.


Good luck, let us know how this goes!
 
Hi all, especially Double7 and Link;


Sorry, I thought I repled to these a couple of days ago, and later found that I had not actually sent the mail. However until now I had nothing to report.


This is not particularly good news, except for a moment, trying the Hotfix 6, I thought it reported "writing to NAND" which I dont remember seeing before. However it then faded the writing and proceeded with repetitive blue boxes.


I was doing it without the battery, and previously writing had faded quickly that way.


So I watched it closely looking for the initial screen; no joy there, I waited and watched a number of times but never saw anything but Hotfix5 in the top right corner.


So I added the battery and let it run for about 3 hours and checked the battery and it had charged to 4.12v.


I then tried again to flash it, but never again saw anything about writing to NAND. I got the same repetitive boxes, sometimes vertical streaks and an occational screen with Hotfix5 in the top right corner.


So I will put it aside in case the rest it had did it good; and have another try at making a holder to charge the battery -


regards, claregj
 
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