Please help me! numerous issues with firmware of CC, nubs and gvfs, plum also freezing

[___]

Hey guys!

I am getting really frustrated here. I was very enthusiastic when I received my pandora and now I am about 2 months in and ready to throw it out the window. I know many people here use it as a gaming machine only, but I was looking forward to having a portable linux machine. Now since the firmware is buggy as hell and the angstrom repos are not available for our outdated fork there are a lot of things missing that I actually rely on.

I have a CC running the latest Zaxxon 1.6 release

Issue number one:

My left nub is not working as it is supposed to. It works at first right after boot, then it's getting increasingly difficult to move the cursor to the left with it until it doesn't register movement to the left at all. Obviously I have tried everything on the wiki and also everything that supposedly works for other people:

Recalibrating: did it about a thousand times, doesn't help at all. Sometimes resetting the nub config will even completely break the left nub and it won't recover without a reboot. Complete and utter crap. Why is this not fixed yet? It is probably a software issue as many people have pointed out. Seems to be autocorrecting the nub until it's unusable. Isn't there a way to get rid of this stupid autocorrection "feature"? Must be in the nub drivers/firmware, but I thought those were open source. Maybe someone could actually deactivate this stupid hardware breaking autorecalibration.

Nub dance doesn't help either, always just makes the problem worse. Right after booting the nub will work correctly, then I am using it for like 30s and all goes to sh**.

Issue number two:

Plum DLNA has just stopped working. I didn't change anything. It was working before with my NAS that is running a twonky server. Suddenly the program just freezes my pandora without any error message. Haven't looked into the logs because there aren't any. Plum doesn't see any servers and the freeze is so bad that I can't get out of the program by long pressing the pandora button. I have to reboot everytime I am trying to trouble shoot this. Does anybody have an idea what could be causing this? It was working flawlessly before. Already tried reinstalling the pnd and deleting the configs/folders in appdata.

EDIT: Issue solved. Community Codec pack was not correctly installed because I am dense.

Issue number three:

After finally giving up on plum I decided to just mount my NAS shares over nfs. Now I find that I can't do that since all the essentials for gvfs seem to be broken/missing from the repos for some reason.

Tried gigolo and that doesn't give me any menu items to choose from what I want to connect to. Checked if gvfs is installed and if fuse is being loaded. It is. WTH? Why is this in the firmware at all if it's broken? Noone ever fixed this? I found a guide from 2010 on the gp32x boards but that information is really outdated. Apparently it's supposed to be fixed now but it isn't.

The fuse module is listed in modutils/fuse, opkg tells me both gvfs-sftp and sshfs-fuse are up to date. What is keeping gigolo from working correctly then?

Please help. If I wanted a device to play games on only, I would have stuck with my gp2x.

I do not have these issues on slackware. All seem to be software issues with Zaxxon 1.6!

 

[Mr_Loon]

The nub problem sound like a hardware issue to me, however if as you say it works fine using slackware then there is something rather odd going on.


Has the nub always had a problem?


Where did you buy your Pandora?

 

[skeezix]

Definately unusual but..

I must ask .. why not use slackware then?

jeff

 

[___]

@skeezix: yeah maybe I should permanently switch. I wanted to use Zaxxon because of the pnd support which is just plain better. then again, pnd support under slackware seems good enough.


one reason for me to still use zaxxon was because plum never worked correctly under slackware. text has weird artifacts and it seems to crash randomly. also if you pick the wrong folder and want to go back it crashes as well. at least i know that mounting nfs shares will work.


@MR_LOON: i bought the pandora from craig. it was a shady deal to begin with but i didn't know about the recent developments before becoming active on these boards. it is a refurbished unit and the nubs have been supposedly replaced. I thought he f***ed up on the repair first until I installed slackware. also thorough testing made clear that something else is the source of the problem.


This is so annoying. a lot of people have this stupid nub issue and noone with enough experience seems to be interested in solving this. I have seen a bunch of scene experts comment on this and the general consensus seems to be that it's a kernel driver issue related to the autorecalibration mechanism.


Cheers for reading! Maybe someone has a few pointers regarding gvfs and plum.

 

[skeezix]

One of the problems in our community as always, since before day zero, been a lack of hands. The comment I used to throw around when everyone was asking for this and such was .. 'you can only squeeze so much juice from an orange". Without going into the history of it all, suffice to say all time is donated time, and right now most of us in the original team are busy with real life. Notaz is still active but only so much he can do. Other people throw time in here or there to improve or fix ,and still other people have forked and gone other roads (like with Debian, slack, ubuntu, android, etc.). But a single person leading eaching charge, can onyl do so much.. and all of them are split many ways.

It comes 'kit and parcel' with small indie project By which I mean, feel free to help out the next guy, that si what keeps our community together. It can be frustyrating when answers to 'uncommon' tasks dont' come out quick, like in larger communities (liek raspberry-poi or whathaveyou.)

The nubs are a bit of an odd beast, only so much can be done in software.. they power up, and they go from there. But I have a terrible memory from sleep dep, so regarding those issues I'm hoping someone else with memory can comment

As to plum and dlna .. maybe ask the plum packager of the pnd, or go to plum lists; it is our of scope for the distro/OS .. it pretty much has nothing to do with any of that; you coudl flash to an older SZ version in case you suspect that something changed and broke in a newer SZ distro, which would make it relevent (like incompatible library change or something.) Or perhaps you had codec pack installed, and do not now, or something like that. Perhaps the pnd packager can help with enabling logging or something useful .. there _should_ be logs for somethign like that.. dlna apps _always_ are funky Did you check the /tmp/pndrun* type logs?

I've never used gigolo, can't comment; some people have used it, so it used to work.. hopefully someone can help.

Keep at it This is what happens witn an indie device, that is a computer.. it is not a console all rolled up into a happy bundle. (And even with those, you run into issues when Sony removes features over time, etc. Even the big guys have their issues

jeff

 

[edgex004]

Sorry to hear about all your issues at the moment. I never really got Gigilo working the way I wanted to, so for my SAMBA shares, I just utilize something like:

mount -t cifs -o username=guest,password= //192.168.0.100/files /mnt/temp/ 

(copied from TrashyMG in this thread)

Honestly, this gives my Pandora better read/write access to my shares than any of the Apple devices in my house.

I know SAMBA and NAS are different, but in this thread Linux-SWAT suggest the same thing for nfs, but specifying nfs instead of cifs.

 

[skeezix]

NAS is just a network mounted disk, that talks variosu protocols; SMB is one protocol (like NFS, etc.) So a NAS offers an SMB or NFS or (etc) mount.

DLNA and UPNP are protocols for auto discovery, streaming, standards for categorizing etc; honestly, its a huge and ugly mess. Considering the base protocol is just http if memory serves .. why isn't it an htpt file listing, and an htp get to steeam, with server doing optional transcoding? But the spec is big, the servers big and complex, and almost none of it actually works together. Big disaster, and nothing to do with pandora per se. Big devices like iphones are a total disaster in the same regard .. vlc on ios? 'buzz player'? all those various players.. well, some will work with one dlna server, others will work with another; will they find audio? video? do tey support mkv or just avi? server doing auto transcoding, but does it detec t an xbox or an iphone? ... the list of woe goes on and on, its amazing it works at all.

So yeah, on Pandora, I generally try to dodge streaming pain and just mount and go; but pandora wifi is not really viable (For me anyway) for streamning video content; in the end I tend to go off the wire, or use SD; I've got dual-32GB on the Pandora, which is a fair amount of video content ..or get a USB ethernet hack and be done with it. (I use ethernet-over-powerline in my place, which is like 100baseT ethernet .. fast enough but not steamty fast, and reliable as hell unlike wifi ) But then I'm not sittnig around watch video on pandora.. I'm using pandora or r-pi to stream from network onto a TV.

You know, so the rugrats can watch their Dora.

jeff

 

[edgex004]

@Skeezix: thanks for the run down. That explains why plum never found any media for me even after mounting the drive. I didn't bother with it much as playing mounted media in the player of my choice has always worked perfectly fine for me.

 

[___]

Thanks alot for the elaborate answers. I didn't mean to demand for devs to fix the nub thing or anything, just wondering why noone really picked up on the issue as it seems to be quite important.


The fact that pandora is a diy project and that it is community driven really is the reason why I prefer the device over any android tablet or whatever else there is.


Maybe I need to debug this crap myself. dlna/upnp seemed to be such a nice protocol, but since none of my devices can utilize it in a useful and stable way, I think I am going to get rid of twonky and just stream my data over nfs. all my computers and devices are linux based anyway. too bad that SZ does not let me mount nfs share though. I did try it in a shell but as I said the packages needed seem to be broken or missing, so gigolo seemed like a good alternative to get gvfs running.


I'll figure it out somehow.


the nub issue will probably never be solved. I can hack around on linux machines, have been using *nix as a user for over ten years, but debugging a low-level driver problem is completely out of my ballpark and since the gurus haven't been able to fix it, it's probably too complex and time consuming anyway.


I wish someone just had an idea about my problem with gvfs/fuse though, as other people have got it running.

 

[skeezix]

Are you sure nfs is not included? ie: I never cared about gigolo etc, but mounting NFS via the shell should be okay. I can't imagine its not in the firmware or codec pack. (could well be, but _nfs_ is a cornerstone imho, should be there. But I forget

jeff

 

[Mr_Loon]

I thought he f***ed up on the repair first until I installed slackware.

In your shoes I'd ask Linux SWAT in the Slackware thread how Slackware handles the nubs differently to Super Zaxxon. This could be a really useful thing to know and may save a few needless RMAs.

 

[MrConfusion]

the nub issue will probably never be solved. I can hack around on linux machines, have been using *nix as a user for over ten years, but debugging a low-level driver problem is completely out of my ballpark and since the gurus haven't been able to fix it, it's probably too complex and time consuming anywa

Assuming I've understood things even remotely correctly the problems cannot come from a driver that is easily modifiable. Basically, since you got slackware, just check this out yourself: kernel-sources/drivers/input/misc/vsense.c

Even if you don't "debug" it as such you can see that there's not much done to the data in this driver: This is something that reads the bus and passes the values that were read to the kernel almost as is - "reranging" the data does not count in my eyes... (check vsense_work).

If there are improvements to be done, they are likely to be in the firmware of the nubs. But that is not accessible (as far as I know) without access to a bit of extra equipment and also, I've understood that whatever is in that chip currently is closed source(?).

As for differences between Slackware and SZ environments... sorry, I find it really hard to believe they would exist. Theoretically it is of course possible that the kernel vsense driver version you use in Slackware has this one weird initialization/read line just a little bit differently (from your point of view: "right"). But currently I'm under the impression that even if LinuxSwat would recompile the kernel, the sources would be exactly the same and there are no recent changes:

http://git.openpandora.org/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=pandora-kernel.git;a=history;f=drivers/input/misc/vsense.c;h=e57b9ac139f85e812b9852c0ecb11ea59fa2d185;hb=HEAD

If anything, you could have either a very old kernel, or a very old Slackware.

In theory one could compensate for the autocalibration in the kernel driver but the fact is that at best it would be a terribly unreliable hack: You would try to "compensate for a compensation" ("calibrate on top of a calibration", whatever). That rarely works. And although it might, with any luck, be a solution that works for the person who wrote it and understands what is going on, it would never work for anyone else... You get a warm tingle in your belly that you've "improved" it, but give it to other users and you end up with a flood of bugreports...

Some kind of a manual "reset my compensation" thing/extension to the modified driver would be inevitable, most likely.

The proper way to fix any issues would be to hit the firmware. And that opens up a whole new ugly bundle of issues, for starters, you leave the comfort of purely digital domain, just check the threads on icp2 nub issues! :mellow:

(Yeah, I gave it 20 mins, then waited until my nub started moving the mouse pointer downwards slower than upwards, went "yahoo" when my compensation did "something" then went "bugrit" when it, after the firmware nub calibration did it's magic, steadily went to lower right corner and decided to stay there. And that was the end of that endeavour for now...)

 

[___]

problem with plum is solved now! just me being an idiot. i reinstalled the community codec pack and it works now! I was absolutely certain, that I installed it when upgrading the last time but apparently I did miss that.


Thanks to skeezix for pointing that out! I wish there had been an error message though. anyway, on to that nfs problem!

 

[FBnil]

Hi, try this tip from E.D.:

http://boards.openpandora.org/topic/15197-left-nub-broken//URL]

As for the numbers in "menu" -> "system" -> "pandora input tester"

Do the numbers (representing the input variables from -32 to 32) stay on 0 0 when you do not move the nubs? How about when shaking the pandora?

 

[___]

Hey FBnil, thanks for the answer. I'll describe my problem again: I boot the OP. Left nub is working as it should. After about 30s of use the cursor starts to move sluggishly towards the left or doesn't move to the left at all anymore. I do the nub dance as suggested by E.D. until the left nub recalibrates itself and the cursor doesn't move at all to the left even if it did so just sluggishly before. I then go into the nub configurator gui and select "reset nubs". If I am really lucky the functionality of the left nub will be restored for another 30s or so. Most of the time the nub will only register movements to the right, even after resetting the configuration. Sometimes it will start registering movement to the left as movement to the right only.


In the test menu I will get a range of 0 to 32 in both cases. Blue dots stay at 0 0 if I do not touch the nubs and shaking also doesn't make them move.

 

[Mr_Loon]

Hey FBnil, thanks for the answer. I'll describe my problem again: I boot the OP. Left nub is working as it should. After about 30s of use the cursor starts to move sluggishly towards the left or doesn't move to the left at all anymore. I do the nub dance as suggested by E.D. until the left nub recalibrates itself and the cursor doesn't move at all to the left even if it did so just sluggishly before. I then go into the nub configurator gui and select "reset nubs". If I am really lucky the functionality of the left nub will be restored for another 30s or so. Most of the time the nub will only register movements to the right, even after resetting the configuration. Sometimes it will start registering movement to the left as movement to the right only.


In the test menu I will get a range of 0 to 32 in both cases. Blue dots stay at 0 0 if I do not touch the nubs and shaking also doesn't make them move.

Are you saying that this does not happen when you use Slackware?

Did your left Nub always behave this way?

Does this always happen?

 

[FBnil]

Ok, this is what I want you to do:

"menu", "Settings","Pandora Nub configuration".

Here, we set both nubs to "mouse movement". Make sure the settings say (my defaults): 124,20,20,7,7.

Then write nub settings.

Now, in this mode, where both nubs are now mouse cursors. In order to click, you will have to use the stylus to tab on the screen.

(you can always swap these keys and see if making them do something else, then putting them back into mouse mode does trigger something to work again)

move around left nub until you get the error (not able to go left). Now try the right nub, which, sinds you have not used it, shoud be able to go left. Please tell me that works (if it does then you have one to compare setting values with the other)

Now, from the commandline, you are able to read the numbers too:


for i in `find /proc/pandora/nub0`; do echo $i;cat $i;done

(use nub1 for the right nub)

But back to the problem. If it is the OS, then copy these 2 configurations, they are in /etc/pandora/conf

First su to root with "sudo su", then typing your user password.

Then "cd /etc/pandora/conf"

There you should have an empty file called nub_profiles.conf and a nubs.state file

Interestingly enough, this file did not change when I messed around just now, and might as well be the reason why you have bad defaults...


mouse
124
7
7
20
20
mbuttons
124
7
7
20
20
1
1

As for pressing the button "read nub setting", I see that scrollspeed changes after some use. What are your settings there?

More reading material: http://pandorawiki.org/Nubs

As you can read from the last part of the text, it could be you have one of those early nubs.

So a very dirty workaround is writing a script that writes 1 then 0 to /sys/bus/i2c/devices/3-0066/reset each 20 seconds or so, and run that as a background process. (i can make one if you want)

*(what happens when it stays on 1? so write 1, sleep 1 second, write 0, sleep 1 second, write 1....) will it stop the recalibration?

 

[KillRoXx]

Definately unusual but..

I must ask .. why not use slackware then?

jeff

your really driving slackware that hard. id stick with openbox but il think about slackware later.

as for the defective nub. send it back in.

 

[___]

Definately unusual but..

I must ask .. why not use slackware then?

jeff

your really driving slackware that hard. id stick with openbox but il think about slackware later.

as for the defective nub. send it back in.

??? Openbox is a window manager, slackware is a linux distribution. You can install slackware and use openbox running SL. Sending it back in is not an option for me yet. I would like to find out what is really wrong. Also I plan to upgrade my OP CC to the 1ghz revision, so i'd get new nubs regardless.