Support and General Use > Audio Playback, Database and Playlists
Faulty playback on Ipod Nano 4Gb 1st Gen
Llorean:
I think a notice like "Warning: Some users of iPod Nano may experience playback issues. Keep a backup of your old build before updating. If you are one of these users, Rockbox needs YOUR help, see FS####" might be okay.
But I really do fear that without some sort of stronger encouragement to help, it will be a very, very long time before this is fixed. The problem I have is with the idea that an explicitly "working" build should be made available, as that suggests it's "Rockbox without the bug." We've already had one person file a bug report on a 700 revision old build, and I'm almost sure he knew better anyway.
LambdaCalculus:
I know this was referred to before, but I think one of the biggest problems that we have is that we get a lot of users that just don't care about what we do or what Rockbox is about. There seem to be a lot of kids coming in to use Rockbox just to show off Doom and Game Boy games on their iPods to their friends, and personally don't give a rat's ass about the developers or what we do to improve the project.
This was also mentioned before as well: few of the many iPod users are also developers, or even have programming experience. But to hell with that. I'm learning C again because I want to contribute something back. Rockbox freed my iPod from its restraints. I've got Vorbis playback. I've got FLAC playback. I've got some games to fiddle with. But best of all, I've got an open source project that's fun to tinker with, and to learn from! I even picked up my Archos to help further test the project. I'm looking to help start a new port for another device: the Dell Digital Jukebox. To me, this project means a LOT, and I want to help these guys out in any way, shape, or style that I can.
Every day that I use the iPod video (for 30GB) build means that I'm doing my part by testing SVN builds. So far, every single build that I've used since December 28th, 2006 have been quite solid and stable. Sure, there's the occasional hiccup or two, but they have solutions already. My Archos has been as solid as a tank since day one with Rockbox.
If these guys ever need help with finding bugs, testing SVN builds, or information for new ports, I'm here to help them out. I'm part of this community, and I want to do my bit for it!
Chronon:
--- Quote from: Llorean on September 06, 2007, 05:23:07 PM ---I'd rather inconvenience people for a little while in the hopes that someone will be inconvenienced enough to take one of the steps (work on it, or loan his player for an indeterminate period) than leave the problem in existence indefinitely.
--- End quote ---
Tough love, eh Llorean? ;)
I can dig that.
I had been planning to give this nano to someone as a gift in a couple of weeks. But perhaps I can make other arrangements and send this one to that interested developer.
Llorean:
Honestly, the instant there's a problematic Nano in the hands of Amiconn or whichever other developer takes an interest, I'll be all for posting a giant sign saying "NANO USERS: The current build is unusable for day to day use on many Nanos. If yours experiences strange bugs, please use this build (a link to one made from 13990, or one with the changes to circumvent the problem) but do not file any bug reports for other problems the build may have, as it is outdated code."
I'd just rather have people see clearly that this is a problem, and it needs to get solved, rather than just look away and cover their ears and hope, which is what it feels like they want to do. People are willing to give you output from the debug screen, but as soon as you mention that someone needs to actually work on it, the response is "Well, I'd rather just go back to an old build and let someone else do it."
I know it's a bit cynical, but we've all seen issues sit around for incredible amounts of time without anyone having the time or ability to look at it, and while this one is more serious than most, it's also a case where at the moment there's not really a likelihood that developer *can* fix it if the current situation holds.
The possibility still remains that a developer can study how the Apple firmware initializes things and learn what's necessary from that, but it may also be that nothing useful is learned, or that after something is learned it will need testing, and tweaking, for some time, which will again require almost immediate access to a problematic Nano.
I want to see your Nanos playing music more than anyone, but I want that to be because Rockbox is capable of it again.
Surely any Nano shipped off to an interested developer will be returned once things are fixed, and I'm almost as certain arrangements can even be made to cover shipping, the problems are simply that
1) We need someone with a problematic Nano willing to part with it (we have plenty of people willing to part with Nanos, but they all seem to work fine)
2) We need a developer to agree to receive said Nano and investigate. I think the most likely bet for this is Amiconn, as I've said, but I don't want to sound like I'm volunteering him for it, just that he seems to have taken some interest already.
The best thing to do if you're one of the people with a Nano and are willing to consider it is to go to the IRC channel, and talk with the people there.
Chronon:
I posted a message in the channel mentioning that I had one of these units and said that interested parties should PM me on the forums. We'll see what happens.
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