Rockbox Technical Forums

Rockbox General => Rockbox General Discussion => Topic started by: xxebbandflowxx on July 11, 2007, 01:43:29 PM

Title: I THINK ROCKBOX KILLED MY IPOD!
Post by: xxebbandflowxx on July 11, 2007, 01:43:29 PM
i installed it and it ran fine for about 3 minutes, then for no reason at all it shut off... it appeared to be restarting, but then a symbol looking like a low battary appeared, and it shut off again... now the freaking thing won't come back on... not with any combonation of buttons pushed, not with it plugged into my computer, nothing! its like its been bricked! but with no faint glow on the screen... it looks like it killed my battary... it's like DEAD dead...

I know i didn't do anything wrong... i'm not a noob to hacking portable devices, or anything else for that matter...

i'm taking it to Apple today... thank God i have a two year warrenty...

has anyone seen or heard this before???
Title: Re: I THINK ROCKBOX KILLED MY IPOD!
Post by: LambdaCalculus on July 11, 2007, 01:47:25 PM
Try charging it using an AC adaptor. Sounds like your battery's just drained.

If, after charging, it still won't work, then go to Apple.
Title: Re: I THINK ROCKBOX KILLED MY IPOD!
Post by: xwaydoublecode1234.rez on July 11, 2007, 01:55:53 PM
I had the same problem with my ipod...

It was not responding at all... No screen... no reset... like bricked

The solution was:  i left it for two days. The battery discharged. and than i pluged it to the USB port and it started to respond and the screen showed battery charging logo

I think it freezes at very early stages of booting... And if you listen to it attentively  you will hear some kind of high pitch noise coming out of its body... (scrollwheel area)...

that means that it is still working = discharging the battery
Title: Re: I THINK ROCKBOX KILLED MY IPOD!
Post by: LambdaCalculus on July 11, 2007, 01:59:24 PM
And if you listen to it attentively  you will hear some kind of high pitch noise coming out of its body... (scrollwheel area)...

that means that it is still working = discharging the battery

That high pitch noise sounds more like the hard drive spinning.
Title: Re: I THINK ROCKBOX KILLED MY IPOD!
Post by: xwaydoublecode1234.rez on July 11, 2007, 02:03:03 PM
No... I dont think so... I know what spining hd sounds like... 100%

Any ways... I had the same symptoms as xxebbandflowxx says... It is recoverable
Title: Re: I THINK ROCKBOX KILLED MY IPOD!
Post by: xxebbandflowxx on July 11, 2007, 02:12:32 PM
you guys are awesome...

i heard that high pitch sound but just thought i was crazy... you're right, it's not the HD its definitely power, like way back when cameras had film (lol) and you had to hold down the flash button to start it, if you ever listened closely you'd here this high pitch sound slowly gane momentum, its that same sound...

i'll do the "wait 2 day" thing and try it again...
Title: Re: I THINK ROCKBOX KILLED MY IPOD!
Post by: LambdaCalculus on July 11, 2007, 02:14:46 PM
I know the sound as well, but my ears sometimes deceive me (I'm a tiny bit deaf in one ear), so sometimes I get certain high pitched sounds mixed up. To me, sometimes a whirring hard drive sounds like a power gain.

No major mix-ups, I hope...
Title: Re: I THINK ROCKBOX KILLED MY IPOD!
Post by: xwaydoublecode1234.rez on July 11, 2007, 02:43:14 PM
So... I think that we have found a bug that is caused by Rockbox...

Need to attract developers attention IMO
Title: Re: I THINK ROCKBOX KILLED MY IPOD!
Post by: Llorean on July 11, 2007, 02:54:53 PM
If the iPod shows a low battery warning then refuses to turn on, just use the hard reset (preferably while plugged in). Turn hold on, then off again, and hold menu+select (can take as much as 30 seconds, and you may need to try this multiple times.)

When it flashes the low battery warning like that, it's a thing the Apple firmware does. You're not in Rockbox any more. In fact as far as we know, it's a glitch in the Apple flash bootloader, as it's been known to occur when iPods go into Deep Sleep (the same as shutting down) without Rockbox ever being installed at all. As far as I personally know, I've only heard of this happening on Nanos and Videos.
Title: Re: I THINK ROCKBOX KILLED MY IPOD!
Post by: xwaydoublecode1234.rez on July 11, 2007, 03:33:09 PM
Quote
not with any combonation of buttons pushed, not with it plugged into my computer, nothing!

Quote
f the iPod shows a low battery warning then refuses to turn on, just use the hard reset (preferably while plugged in). Turn hold on, then off again, and hold menu+select (can take as much as 30 seconds, and you may need to try this multiple times.)

Does this make sense? really?

This things happen only when rockbox is installed.
Title: Re: I THINK ROCKBOX KILLED MY IPOD!
Post by: Llorean on July 11, 2007, 03:40:45 PM
"not with any combonation of buttons pushed," does *not* mean you followed any specific instructions. For all I know, you just mashed buttons. What *exactly* did you try to press, in what order, and for how long?

Yes, my statement makes absolute sense. And, out of curiosity, how do you know this problem has never happened with non-Rockbox'ed iPods? Are you calling those people who have reported the same problem on Rockbox-free iPods liars? Or did you mean to say "This has never happened to me before I installed Rockbox" rather than suggesting "This only happens to anyone with Rockbox installed."

Is is somewhat obvious, if you see the low battery warning, you're not in Rockbox. That's an Apple bootloader screen. That being said, none of our code is running at that point. I'm not sure how to explain this to you any more clearly than "our software is not running when you are having these problems, it's just files on the disk that have not yet been loaded."
Title: Re: I THINK ROCKBOX KILLED MY IPOD!
Post by: xwaydoublecode1234.rez on July 11, 2007, 03:54:08 PM
Quote
"not with any combonation of buttons pushed," does *not* mean you followed any specific instructions. For all I know, you just mashed buttons. What *exactly* did you try to press, in what order, and for how long?

For example: he is an n00b ipod user... he does not know the reset combination = he does not know that button combinations exist... he knows such words as "brick" "restart"... why he needs to mash the buttons as a paranoiac... ?




Quote
And, out of curiosity, how do you know this problem has never happened with non-Rockbox'ed iPods? Are you calling those people who have reported the same problem on Rockbox-free iPods liars? Or did you mean to say "This has never happened to me before I installed Rockbox" rather than suggesting "This only happens to anyone with Rockbox installed."

I mean that it happened for *me* only when rockbox was installed... Sorry if i am speaking not clear

 If you say that when you are at this level there is no rockbox influence? But how does the rb alarm works? By magic? Can you explain me, just curious


Title: Re: I THINK ROCKBOX KILLED MY IPOD!
Post by: Llorean on July 11, 2007, 04:05:08 PM
He doesn't need to mash buttons, he needs to follow the procedure for hard-resetting the iPod as stated in Apple's own support documentation. I don't know what you're asking when you say "why he needs to mash the buttons as a paranoiac... ?" These are very specific button combinations that Apple has set as a hard reset.

As for how the alarm works, Rockbox isn't actually running, but some hardware can be left a message that basically tells it "turn on at a later time." Basically, instead of just the power button being able to turn it on, also the clock can turn it on. It may seem logical that "Rockbox must be running still, waiting to turn it back on" but this is not the case.
Title: Re: I THINK ROCKBOX KILLED MY IPOD!
Post by: xxebbandflowxx on July 12, 2007, 11:25:08 AM
wow... i really didn't mean for this to get all serious... i really appreciate  the help, but you guys need to take a chill pill  :-\

to answer your questions... i did in fact "mash" buttons at first, i mean c'mon, i thought my ipod bricked... but then i tried the usual ipod command combonations: Hard Reset: select + menu, Diagnostic Mode: select + left click, and Disk Mode: select + play.... so no, i am not "an n00b"...

The Rockbox installation did cause this freeze up... it would be an unbelievable coincidence for it to just randomly do this right after i installed a foreign OS ...but good news, all is well... i decided to try it again last night and plugged it into my car's ipod dock while my car was off (no usb access, just power) and tried the "hard reset" command... it actually took a few tries, but eventually it came back on and has been working well ever since...

so thanks for all the help...
Title: Re: I THINK ROCKBOX KILLED MY IPOD!
Post by: scorche on July 12, 2007, 08:40:27 PM
wow... i really didn't mean for this to get all serious... i really appreciate  the help, but you guys need to take a chill pill  :-\

This is a technical forum.  What else would it be besides serious?

Quote
The Rockbox installation did cause this freeze up... it would be an unbelievable coincidence for it to just randomly do this right after i installed a foreign OS

As we have told you many times, You iPod was in a stage where Rockbox doesn't even touch.  It is not that big of a coincidence when you realize that you had to force your device into a full shutdown, when people typically just put the ipod into sleep in the apple firmware, so it doesn't go there much.  Do not say that Rockbox is at fault unless you have actual data and can prove it beyond just saying "it couldn't be a coincidence".
Title: Re: I THINK ROCKBOX KILLED MY IPOD!
Post by: Llorean on July 12, 2007, 09:34:40 PM
I noticed that you didn't mention toggling the hold switch before the hard reset, nor how long you held down for. Our instructions say to toggle hold on/off, and to hold the buttons for nearly half a minute, and to try it multiple times.

The iPods are finicky, and as I've stated, this bug seems to affect many Nanos and 5Gs that go into full shutdown whether Rockbox is installed or not.

You're basing your "too much of a coincidence" on an assumption that "very unlikely" means the same thing as "impossible", and the fact that it is "very unlikely" which as scorche points out is untrue: Your iPod probably was never fully shutdown before (a hard reset doesn't include a shutdown) so you have no way of experiencing whether or not this bug was present. The Apple firmware only goes into 'sleep', a very different mode in which the iPod is still on but consuming very, very little power, unless you leave it for quite a long time unplugged without pressing anything, so it's very uncommon for a user to experience full shutdown with the Apple firmware.
Title: Re: I THINK ROCKBOX KILLED MY IPOD!
Post by: sadffffff on July 13, 2007, 01:59:40 AM
its not caused by rockbox, that screen is apple's design. the reason you dont see it with the original FW is because you (almost) never hard restart that, it only sleeps.

my nano does this all the time when coming back from usb file transfer mode. just hold menu+select till it starts back up.