Unbricking My Pandora

[atomicthumbs]

I need help unbricking my Pandora. I changed nothing except installing Elements onto the SD card (which shouldn't really make a difference), but now it gets almost to the end of the loading bar during bootup and stops.

How can I unbrick my Pandora, or figure out what's causing this? I'd prefer to do diagnostics first (is there some way to see the console while it boots?), since I have a Windows computer and installing Linux and/or a VM environment to do EXT2 stuff would be a pain right now.

 

[mali]

Unbricking is simple, just reflash(for instructions see Tweaks Thread). I can't answer the question what's causing your problem and how to diagnose, though.

 

[torpor]

If its 'stopping' at the end of the boot process, it could be that its really fsck'ing a filesystem .. so leave it on overnight and see if it doesn't just fix itself.

 

[EvilDragon]

ubifs is pretty sturdy, does rarely break.

Try booting without an SD Card, maybe that one has a fucked up filesystem

 

[Pleng]

I need help unbricking my Pandora. I changed nothing except installing Elements onto the SD card (which shouldn't really make a difference), but now it gets almost to the end of the loading bar during bootup and stops.

How can I unbrick my Pandora, or figure out what's causing this? I'd prefer to do diagnostics first (is there some way to see the console while it boots?), since I have a Windows computer and installing Linux and/or a VM environment to do EXT2 stuff would be a pain right now.

You can boot into a console by doing the following:

Make a file named boot.txt in root of SD with this:

setenv bootargs ubi.mtd=4 ubi.mtd=3 root=ubi0:rootfs rootfstype=ubifs rw rootflags=bulk_read console=tty0 vram=6272K omapfb.vram=0:3000K init=/bin/bash

then holding down the right shoulder button on boot and booting from the SD card.

(thanks to Notaz for that, by the way)

 

[atomicthumbs]

booting without an SD card in does the same thing. just freezes at the end of the progress bar, with the screen eventually becoming black.

You can boot into a console by doing the following:

Make a file named boot.txt in root of SD with this:

setenv bootargs ubi.mtd=4 ubi.mtd=3 root=ubi0:rootfs rootfstype=ubifs rw  rootflags=bulk_read console=tty0 vram=6272K omapfb.vram=0:3000K  init=/bin/bash

then holding down the right shoulder button on boot and booting from the SD card.

When I do this, it doesn't let me do anything because ubifs is mounted readonly. can't fsck or anything.

 

[torpor]

setenv bootargs ubi.mtd=4 ubi.mtd=3 root=ubi0:rootfs rootfstype=ubifs rw rootflags=bulk_read console=tty0 vram=6272K omapfb.vram=0:3000K init=/bin/bash

How do we reverse this?

I've got the same problem - my 2nd Pandora won't boot past about 1cm towards the end of the bootup indicator, just sits there .. so I came to this thread to find out how things are progressing .. I've got no clue what to do to debug my Pandora from the single-user mode, though ..

 

[atomicthumbs]

I reflashed and now it works properly (no surprises there).

 

[Mjlink]

Has your SD card been out late partying? Was it given to you by a man in a black hoodie the last visit to the airport?

No worries.

BRICKPROOF

Right?

Peace & Pandora,

Link

 

[Pleng]

booting without an SD card in does the same thing. just freezes at the end of the progress bar, with the screen eventually becoming black.

You can boot into a console by doing the following:

Make a file named boot.txt in root of SD with this:

setenv bootargs ubi.mtd=4 ubi.mtd=3 root=ubi0:rootfs rootfstype=ubifs rw rootflags=bulk_read console=tty0 vram=6272K omapfb.vram=0:3000K init=/bin/bash

then holding down the right shoulder button on boot and booting from the SD card.

When I do this, it doesn't let me do anything because ubifs is mounted readonly. can't fsck or anything.

OK Thanks, I'll feed back to notaz

 

[chuckr]

If its 'stopping' at the end of the boot process, it could be that its really fsck'ing a filesystem .. so leave it on overnight and see if it doesn't just fix itself.

This seems as good a place as any to add that my Pandora, after working fine for a few days, I left it overnight with the power plugged in, and now it gets to the point of the progress bar being about to the 40% point, and the screen goes blank. I tried pulling my two flash memories and rebooting, no change (with a 10 minute wait). I then tried pulling the power, then I saw the same progress bar to 40% and blank screen. I know you said WAIT, but could you please supply (even a ridiculously liberal) max period to wait before assuming something is REALLY wrong? 30 minutes isn't long enough (so far). My Gentoo Linux box, it has a 600 G filesystem, but it never runs longer than 15 minutes even after a bad shutdown, so I really would appreciate your experience as to how long it might really take.

Beyond that, god, I hate to admit this, but while I did see the user manual, and it did tell me to start the Pandora, but nowhere does it say exactly HOW to start it (what key sequence). I don't know what the switch at the front left (the one with 2 detent positions and 1 momentary position) is set to work as? I mean, what do the 3 different positions DO? I don't know if the ordinary ON state is to the left or right. What does the button labeled "Start" do? Is the name supposed to be so obvious that it needs no explanation? I did see how to use the PANDORA button to do a hard reboot, but that's the only way I know to use the hardware (I've been using the Linux software "shutdown" command because I know that one). If there's a section of the user manual that defines what the several Pandora-specific buttons do, I can't find it. This probably means it's front and center, very obvious, and I'm doing a good imitation of a blind man, but could you point out where that is? After laughing (yes, these really are simple questions). I'm too used to my bigger systems, I guess.

 

[WizardStan]

This seems as good a place as any to add that my Pandora, after working fine for a few days, I left it overnight with the power plugged in, and now it gets to the point of the progress bar being about to the 40% point, and the screen goes blank.

This sounds like the "screen brightness has been saved as 0 and then restored automatically when you next boot up" feature/bug rearing its ugly head again. Feature because it's supposed to save your brightness and restore it, bug because it's not supposed to save a brightness of 0 (ie, LCD off)
Hit the brightness-up button (I think it's FN-I. Someone correct me?). You may need to log in blind (enter your user name and password) before you can do that though. Someone who's actually experienced the bug will be able to tell you more.

edit:

I don't know what the switch at the front left (the one with 2 detent positions and 1 momentary position) is set to work as? I mean, what do the 3 different positions DO? I don't know if the ordinary ON state is to the left or right.

middle is regular position. Slide it up and it turns the Pandora on (and then returns to regular position). Push the Pandora button and slide it up and it does a reset. Slide it down and it is hold, meaning no keys will activate. This is for MP3 playback mode so you don't accidentally push any buttons while it's in your pocket and you're listening to music.

What does the button labeled "Start" do?

It's for emulators for systems that had a start button, like the SNES. It is also CTRL when used as part of the regular keyboard (or is it ALT, and the SELECT button is CTRL. I forget now and I'm feeling too lazy to look it up. It's one way or the other )

I've been using the Linux software "shutdown" command because I know that one

Good. Near as I can tell that's the only way to initiate a real shutdown.

Any other problems?

 

[chuckr]

This seems as good a place as any to add that my Pandora, after working fine for a few days, I left it overnight with the power plugged in, and now it gets to the point of the progress bar being about to the 40% point, and the screen goes blank.

This sounds like the "screen brightness has been saved as 0 and then restored automatically when you next boot up" feature/bug rearing its ugly head again. Feature because it's supposed to save your brightness and restore it, bug because it's not supposed to save a brightness of 0 (ie, LCD off)
Hit the brightness-up button (I think it's FN-I. Someone correct me?). You may need to log in blind (enter your user name and password) before you can do that though. Someone who's actually experienced the bug will be able to tell you more.

edit:

I don't know what the switch at the front left (the one with 2 detent positions and 1 momentary position) is set to work as? I mean, what do the 3 different positions DO? I don't know if the ordinary ON state is to the left or right.

middle is regular position. Slide it up and it turns the Pandora on (and then returns to regular position). Push the Pandora button and slide it up and it does a reset. Slide it down and it is hold, meaning no keys will activate. This is for MP3 playback mode so you don't accidentally push any buttons while it's in your pocket and you're listening to music.

What does the button labeled "Start" do?

It's for emulators for systems that had a start button, like the SNES. It is also CTRL when used as part of the regular keyboard (or is it ALT, and the SELECT button is CTRL. I forget now and I'm feeling too lazy to look it up. It's one way or the other )

I've been using the Linux software "shutdown" command because I know that one

Good. Near as I can tell that's the only way to initiate a real shutdown.

Any other problems?

I was thinking about how bright I was to guess what that Fn-I key labelling meant (I'd guessed brightness) but I hadn't realized it would take a login. Once I did that, and used Fn-I again, voila!! screen is back, and you are my hero!

I also probably need to make really clear that my haranging about what keys do was meant to provoke one of the OP team to write up a complete keyboard description. I mean, it's really, sorely needed, wouldn't you agree? There are still a lot of things I don't really know about controlling the Pandora.

Oh, I might be getting picky here, but your description of the power switch is very appreciated, but note that the switch travels left-right, NOT up-down.

 

[WizardStan]

Oh, I might be getting picky here, but your description of the power switch is very appreciated, but note that the switch travels left-right, NOT up-down.

You are correct, sorry. I was thinking "same as the PSP" when I was writing it and forgot where the switch was
On that note, once it's on, a single flick will drop it into "low power" mode, which is a lot like sleep mode. Flicking it again brings it back to full power.

 

[Chaser]

Ah the screen brightness bug, we love you.

I am about to bug test it by going low power with lid closed below 5% battery. Upon a reboot on the charger I expect this to be back, despite the relevant hotfix. In which case I will post a bug report.

If I don´t post again, either something went horribly wrong or I´ve forgotten my password!
In either case rejoice.

 

[chuckr]

I thought I'd gotten past my sartup problems, but nooo... sitting here playing with my new wifi router, and I decided to login/logout again. I got not just one failure, but 2! First I got past entering my password, the xfce gui came up, neaerly finished, then the screen went black, a blinking white character-mode cursor showed up in the left top of the screen, then it rebooted. This repeated twice more (I tried doing a hard reboot, then a power-down-reboot without change) then, with no seeming reason, it changed failure mode, and the last 5 attempts tell me its stabilized to this new failure mode: after showing me the "Zaxxon" screen prior to asking for the password, at the point that the progress bar is at about 98% done, it reboots itself. This isn't a brightness thing, it never gets to the point of asking me for the password. I've tried first doing the hard reboot, then a power-down-reboot, but no change. I also tried removing the flash. It's not a delay mode thing, its endlessly rebooting itself just as the progress bar gets to the 98% point.

Any suggestions cheerfully accepted. I used to have a friend (call him JP) whom I LOVED to give new programs or hardware to, because if there was any way to break it, he'd be sure to find it, and that saved me from a lot of embarrassing moments in front of burned users. Now, finding myself in ol' JPs shoes (myself finding all the failures) I begin to maybe wonder if it bothered him like making these negative comments bothers me. I can say that the folks I've shown this to are flatly amazed, and the OP crew better be ready for customer demand, when this product finally hits it's stride (manufacturing-wise).

 

[chuckr]

shoot, I hadn't read all of the others in this thread, I guess I have the same problem that the other guy had. I'm going to let it fsck for an hour, which seems ludicrously long enough. Sorry I missed the other posts.

 

[God Ginrai]

Oh, I might be getting picky here, but your description of the power switch is very appreciated, but note that the switch travels left-right, NOT up-down.

You are correct, sorry. I was thinking "same as the PSP" when I was writing it and forgot where the switch was
On that note, once it's on, a single flick will drop it into "low power" mode, which is a lot like sleep mode. Flicking it again brings it back to full power.

On another note, HOLD mode doesn't actually DO anything. Or at least that's the case on my Pandora.

-God Ginrai

 

[chaosmage]

Gah, just got this issue (Edit: where it booted to a black screen and blinking cursor and then wouldn't do anything) last night... fixed by reinstalling the firmware. And then when I loaded, it renamed the 1st SD card to something like _PNG(and two symbols). Which kept me from reading that SD usefully until I rebooted the Pandora... I still have a renamed SD, but it seems to work.

I made sure to back up my work on Elemental to my other SD, though. Just in case. Finally got creating a PND working, so I'll be able to release the new version very soon! (working out some issues with saving atm)

An interesting note... when it gets to that blackscreen/cursor mode, the Wifi light turns on and stays on.

I love that the Pandora is UNBRICKABLE. You guys are geniuses.

 

[paulguy]

Would be nice to have a built in text mode boot option, so if it does hang, you can see what it was doing when it happened, or see if it's actually doing something but showing no graphical progress on the progress bar. Also, possibly an "interactive" mode, like most distributions have where you can select to do or enable things one by one.