Creative ZEN

[ChronoSphere]

Looking at the restrictions, it make sense. Some of the jpg covers are indeed progressive, so no wonder they don't appear. They don't seem to be up to date though, as mpc uses APEv2 tags yet the covers appear.

Anyway, I am currently benching the non-scaling version using mp3 so that I can compare it to the OF later on. The last bootloader you provided to test the boot hang issue had OF boot functionality removed from what I remember. Could you please give me a link to one that can boot the OF?

Also, about the screen flickering, if it's not too much work, why don't you implement the fix and I could then run a benchmark test to see how much of an impact it really has. Personally, if the difference is in minutes, then it's worth keeping the fix.

edit:
Took a while, but here are the first results (MP3 v0):

OF: ~21h +- 18 min
w/o scaling: ~20h +-  10 min
w/ scaling: ~25h +- 10 min

A plus of 25% is quite a lot in my book, thanks for your hard work!

edit2: added the OF times. I'm assuming the CPU is not scaling in bootloader yet, but I'm a bit confused to see the battery discharge when plugged and running rockbox w/scaling.

[pamaury]

The bootloader has not been updated in a long time and doesn't provide charging. The next version will.
Thanks for the battery bench

[ChronoSphere]

I looked at battery debug info, what happens is that rockbox seemingly charges the battery to max, then stops and lets it discharge to 70%, where it then holds the voltage. Could it be that it's calibrated for a different battery or something?
I could provide a screendump to better illustrate it, but I can't seem to find out how to actually do one after activating the feature in the debug menu...

[pamaury]

Strange, I'll have a look at this issue. No it's not related to calibration.

[ChronoSphere]

I've had a strange experience today.
The player was playing music in locked state as usual, then suddenly the sound started going on and off in irregular intervals accompanied with the same type click as when you turn the player off, albeit more quiet.
After 4-5 clicks the player just turned itself off.

I turned it on immediately after that and it has worked fine for a few hours until I turned it off normally again.

[giogio]

Thanks for all the great work! Please keep on coding and testing!

Thank you very much 

[grums]

A pleasant surprise to get a chance to use my irritating 2GB ZEN with Rockbox - good work!
However, it doesn't detect a 16GB SDHC card which is inserted before boot: (not present).
If I insert the card when Rockbox is running, I get a white crash screen.
The card works fine using the OF.
I'm using the 20140428 build and have played around with the 3 bootloaders I was able to find in the thread.
Regards, Ole

[pamaury]

Can you elaborate on the white crash screen: it should display some error message, can you tell me what it is ?
Thanks

[grums]

When I insert the card on a running system I get:

*PANIC*
 microSD init failed: -2
pc:6005FA94 sp:600FCD28
bt end

- and a paper-clip reset is necessary - hope this helps.

Regards, Ole

Additional info: When I boot in Bootloader USB Mode my PC sees 2 devices with removable storage, the drive with the SDHC card cannot be formatted (No Disk).

[pamaury]

@grums: it means the card fails to initialise within the allowed time (one second). Does the card work on your computer ? Did you try other cards with the ZEN ?

[grums]

1) The SDHC card (Kingston Class 4) works on my PC.
2) An 8GB card (pqi uSDHC Class 2) works on the ZEN - both when inserted before boot and when inserted on running system (not a thorough test, just browsing the card).

Of course I'm more than willing to test a version with more relaxed timing constraints...

Update: The (failing) SDHC card also works on a GPS and a digital camera.
Update: The SDHC card (SD4/16GB) is on Creative's positive list for the ZEN.
Update: 2 more cards tested on same RB version as mentioned earlier (work OK on OF):
3) A 16GB card (Medion uSDHC Class 6) works
4) An 8GB card (pqi uSDHC Class 4) works when inserted/ejected on running system, but is not detected at boot

[grums]

Plugins?
How much effort does it take to port a plugin to the ZEN - apart from setting up a complete development system?
I'd like to take advantage of the very nice display, and the first plugins could be the text viewer and JPEG viewer (maybe it has been done?)

[pamaury]

I will upload a build with an extended timeout for SD, however the spec is very precise that the card must initialise within 1sec, so at best it would mean your card is buggy.
Porting one specific plugin is very easy, it's only a matter of deciding the key assignement. However the build system is pretty dumb and you must do it for all plugins before being able to enable them and that's a lot of work. You can use the simulator so you don't need a cross-compiler, but you still need everything else from a complete dev system: http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/UiSimulator

[grums]

1) Sounds fine - I might get the opportunity to test a 5th (u)SHDC card. BTW, can the workaround you mention be tested in the bootloader (trying to solve: card not detected at boot), or is it necessary to make a new build?
2) I don't quite understand why all the plugins have to be ported in order to test just one specific on the real hardware - how can the BatteryBenchmark plugin mentioned in this thread run?

[saratoga]

2) I don't quite understand why all the plugins have to be ported in order to test just one specific on the real hardware - how can the BatteryBenchmark plugin mentioned in this thread run?

The build system will try to build either all of them or none of them.  You can of course hack up your own plugin to build independently of the rest, but it'll be a bit of effort.