Try reinstalling bootloader on Ipod 5.5G

[vsl2005]

Hello Rockboxers,

I just wanted to write the forum and share some issues I have been having with my 80GB Ipod 5.5g. Following an unspecified update using the Rockbox utility back in May I started having major problems with the unit. These included the following:

The display would freeze on startup, though the unit would resume playing and the volume control would still work. I just couldn’t navigate any of the menus.

If on the rare occasion the unit did respond, its response would be delayed, and I would have to press the menu button to get it off the Rockbox boot screen. Then it would still respond so slowly, that I would have to eventually go to the hard reset (hold Select+Menu).

The unit would sometimes startup with a blue screen with the Apple logo in a black box in the middle. Sometimes this would also be pixilated or distorted.

I would sometimes get that terrible screeching sound on startup, so learned NOT to have the earphones on when I started.

I had the auto shut off set to 7 minutes and it would work sometimes, but most often it would require a hard reset to do anything where it would then exhibit some or all of the problems I have described above.

Though the hold switch worked, I was nonetheless unable to boot to disc mode to get the Apple firmware to run.

There were other issues as well, but I could never trace them to a possible cause. I read the manual front to back several times. Searched the forums, searched the bug report files. I updated nearly daily for a while, uninstalled and reinstalled Rockbox, tried a manual install instead of the Rockbox Utility. Tried turning off the database, load to RAM, and auto shut off functions, stopped using themes. Nothing worked.

Finally, I tried uninstalling and re-installing the Rockbox Bootloader. That was about three weeks ago now and to my great relief that seems to have fixed the problems. I still have to do a hard reset once in a while, but thankfully not very often. I may still be missing something, and I welcome feedback from our Rockbox experts.

I hope this is helpful for others having similar issues. I have been using Rockbox since  2000 when I had a couple Archos JBV2’s which I absolutely loved. They finally died last year and I “upgraded” to the Ipod 5.5g. I miss my Archos JB V2’s. In my opinion, the Ipod is not nearly as reliable as those were. I am waiting for the day when Rockbox actually partners with a hardware manufacturer to create a high capacity DMP designed specifically for Rockbox.

I can dream can’t I?

Thanks again to all who have contributed to this one of a kind project!

[Chronon]

The unit would sometimes startup with a blue screen with the Apple logo in a black box in the middle. Sometimes this would also be pixilated or distorted.

That is not a good sign.  It may indicate some hardware issues or corruption of Apple's ROM bootloader.  In any event that is a sign of a problem with something that Rockbox doesn't really deal with currently (the flash ROM).  We just take over control from their bootloader and then launch our own code (after setting some hardware components in a known state).  I'm not aware of any way that Rockbox code could cause such problems.

I am glad to hear your iPod is behaving better after installing a new bootloader.  It's possible that some of the phenomena you described had to do with an old, slightly incompatible bootloader.  However, it still sounds like there's some underlying problem with your iPod (as evidenced by the strange behavior during the initial boot sequence).  It's possible that restoring or updating the Apple firmware could fix this since sometimes they flash a new bootloader to the ROM as part of an update.

[vsl2005]

I was indeed using an old version of the firmware. I updated it today to 1.3 at the cost of reformatting the drive. I have reinstalled Rockbox and the bootloader from scratch. I will run it a couple weeks and update this thread. Thanks for your feedback!

[Chronon]

You're welcome.  I'll hope for the best.   

[vsl2005]

Day 8 and Rockbox and my ipod appear to have achieved harmony. No lockups, no sluggish interface. All systems go.

The only issue of note is that the ipod required a hard reboot after idle power off for then first few days until I remembered to initialize, then update the database. After that no problems. I do not have Rockbex set to automatically update the database, though I do load it to RAM.  Now when I load more music I always do a database update immediately upon reboot.

Thanks again Chronon!

[Chronon]

That's great to hear.  Though, I am curious about the necessity of the hard reboot (following idle power off) until you initialized the database.  That's probably worth a bug report.  I will try to remember to test this later with my Gigabeat.

Anyway, I'm glad that everything is now working well.   

[vsl2005]

Well, I realize correlation is not causation, so I have been reluctant to file a bug report, especially since I could find very few others with similar issues in my research of this problem in the Rockbox forums and in the bug files. Hence my asking in my original posts if anyone else had experienced similar problems.

Congrats to the Rockbox developers for 3.0!

[Chronon]

You are quite right.  Problems can only be effectively addressed if there's a clear way to reproduce them on each player.  If I can reproduce any similar behavior on my Gigabeat I will let you know and we can push forward with a bug report.

I'm glad, at least, that your iPod is allowing you a fuller Rockbox experience now!