Ipod Video 30 gig strange disc activity

[Trance Dog]

Hi!

I've been using Rockbox's version from summer 2007. Finally, I've decided to update to the current built, and now my Ipod is pretty much non-functional.

As soon as I boot, a strange hard disc activity starts. Seems like it keeps on scanning. Ipod can't play music for as long as this scan continues, and it takes a very long time.

By the time it finished doing that (15 minutes, approximately), it was able to play back a song but about 40% of the battery have drained (from 100% down to 60% in less than half an hour!).
Then I decided to go back one song, and here we go again, the same thing.

Steps taken: cleared all the settings, then removed Rockbox completely and installed the fresh copy from scratch. Also, performed the scan disc on my PC.
Nothing helped.

Booted into Apple's interface, everything is fine, no indication of an abnormal behavior.


Please, help me.
Thank you!
 

[GodEater]

Did you update the bootloader as well ?

[Trance Dog]

I've applied the bootloader which is currently available for download on rockbox's download page for my version of Ipod.

[jwiegman]

I'm experiencing a very similar problem.  I've been using Rockbox for about 2 years now and today's upgrade exhibits some very strange disc activity.

Mine boots fine, plays my FLAC files fine, but frequently when I skip forward to the next song, the disc scanning starts, causing severe skipping in the FLAC file.

Even when I pause the disc scanning continues (my auto-skip buffer is set to 30 seconds).  I haven't waited to see if/when it stops.

[jwiegman]

Forgot to mention... I'm on a 5.5g 80gb iPod.

[Trance Dog]

My friend, looks like you and I are in deep troubles.
I am on a 5.0 Ipod 30 gigs.

Hope that the programmers either get on this problem urgently by releasing a fix or advising what went wrong or provide with older versions of the software, prior to 11/07.

I have a feeling that somehow it is trying to intialize the database (I have this feature disabled as I don't ever need it).

I may be wrong but I don't see a reason why it would try to scan the disc every time there is a file access.

[jwiegman]

I initialized my database completely, but I have the Auto-update disabled, which is what I would think be spawning such a large amount of disk scanning.

Oh well... I'm leaving on vacation for a week so I'll try upgrading once I get back.

[Trance Dog]

Enjoy your vacation (I know it will be hard without the ipod :-))

Hopefully, by the time you return there will be a solution in place.

Is anyone else available to help?

Still no one who can look into this or make a suggestion?



Too bad :-(

I really love Rockbox, been using it for nearly 2 years. It would be a shame if I had to go with something else instead.

[Llorean]

I've merged your two posts. You haven't apparently read the forum guidelines. Please do so before posting again.

Considering you're the only two people who have this problem, and there's plenty of people with 5G iPods who don't, you really need to do something like testing older revisions to figure out which one, exactly, introduced the problem.

[Trance Dog]

I am not sure what you are talking about. And whatever it is, that does not explain what is happening here. After spending my entire day with this nonsense, I am frustrated enough and need some answers. And who wouldn't be angry and pissed if an expensive piece of equipment is in a vegetative state and there is no help from the same people who caused the unit to be what it is now?

I would gladly come back to the older version if it was available. Seems like the best version was more than a year ago. Since then it is nothing but annoying bugs (which I've tried to overlook while everything else worked, but enough is enough).


So, I am asking again: is there anyone who has any idea why this has become an issue all of a sudden?

[Llorean]

If you don't know what I'm talking about, how do you know it's not the answer?

I said it clearly enough. To be clearer: You're a tester. This is unreleased software, you CHOSE to test it. You have no right to be angry at anyone but yourself for installing it: We didn't twist your arm. So you can quit ranting about how angry you are, and help us track down the problem, or you can continue imagining that I'm lying about nobody else having reported this problem and tracked it down yet, and rant at me again for not giving you an answer, when I'm asking for your help in finding it.

What I suggested is that you go back through older versions to figure out exactly which version started the problem for you. Because, as I also said, there are hundreds of people not experiencing this problem, and it's IMPOSSIBLE for someone not experiencing this problem to do the testing necessary to figure out which change started it.

[Trance Dog]

You've accused me in not reading some forum guidelines...

As long as you guarantee that those quidelines will give me the exact answer to my problem, I will read them...
Otherwise, I am not going to waste my time reading something I absolutely have no interest or business about.
I also said: there is no older version available, it all goes as far as December 2007....


Yes, I chose to test it, and I understand the chances but I am not thrilled by this "go f... youself" attitude taking place as soon as I've got a real problem...
I am sorry if I sound harsh but please, imagine yourself in my shoes....
I am not the one who wrote the code.

I've described the problem
I've explained all the steps performed to troubleshoot the problem
I've used the oldest version available on the web-site

What else can I do?

Read the guidelines???

[Llorean]

You agreed to follow the forum guidelines when you registered: You posted in our forums. That makes knowing the guidelines your business. You don't get to ignore them just because you think your question is more important than being respectful in the asking. You don't get to set conditions on whether you read the guidelines or not. These are the conditions: You follow the posting guidelines, or I say "You didn't follow the guidelines, and you told me you were ignoring them willfully, so now I'm going to ban you. Feel free to seek help somewhere else."

You can TEST OLDER BUILDS. The code is available back to the very first version of Rockbox. I wouldn't have told you to test older ones if it was impossible. It does require you to learn a few things, specifically how to compile. It's not as complicated as it sounds.

But you HAVE to understand, you can't expect someone to magically know the answer to a problem that is almost entirely unique to your iPod. It's entirely possible you're just experiencing some sort of hardware failure. The disks in the iPods rarely last too long, and yours is apparently two years old. That's more than long enough for a disk of this sort to fail.

But I'm not writing it off as a failed disk: I'm telling you how to diagnose further. But you're too fixated on "You guys messed up my iPod." Our code works. It works for hundreds of people. I never said "Go F yourself." I said "If you want help, you're going to have to pitch in, because this is something we can't do for you."

If you think that's the same as "Go f yourself" then perhaps you should stop and reread exactly what has been said, and try to cool down. You have no "right" to use Rockbox. If you can't abide by the terms and conditions of our forums, I'll remove your ability to post here, and you can go back to the Apple firmware. If you honestly want to solve this problem, you can start reading what I'm ACTUALLY saying, and not what you've decided I must've meant.

There's a wiki page called SimpleGuideToCompiling. If you need further help, please ask specific questions.

[Febs]

Also, performed the scan disc on my PC.

1.  What options did you use with scandisk?  If you haven't already done so, try running chkdsk /f /r to check both the to check for sector errors as well as file system errors and to correct any errors that are found.

2.  Can you confirm that you are using a build for the 30 GB iPod Video, and not the 60/80 GB iPod Video?  (I think that using the wrong build would cause problems different from what you describe, but I'd nevertheless like to eliminate it as a potential issue.)

And please, lose the attitude.  I'll try to help you, and I'm sure others will as well, but be aware that this problem appears to be unique to your iPod and one other (I can't reproduce it on mine, for example), so the only way that it is going to get solved is for you to cooperate with us in helping to track down the issue.

[Trance Dog]

I am sorry I've lost my cool which does not really happen too often.
I guess I was just tired after an awfully long day and, as a result, let my frustration out on you, undeservingly so.
I appreciate the patience with me and actual willingness to help.
I am performing chkdsk right now. After that I will try to compile an old build to see if it helps.
I will post updates as I achieve anything (or none at all).