I can't see anything in the iHP-100 screen after installing RockBox!

[OMA]

Hello everyone.

I've just discovered and installed Rockbox, but now I'm having a little problem.

Installation in my iRiver iHP-100 (the first version of the later renamed H-100) went fine, though I had to manually use the "fwpatcher.exe" utility, because the automatic installer ("rbutilqt.exe") only copied the ".rockbox" files to the player, but for some reason didn't patch the "ihp_100.hex" file! (I did a binary check and the hex file was untouched). I had to patch it manually with said patcher. After doing that, I could copy the patched file to the root of the player and upgrade the firmware with from the General menu in the iRiver.

The process went fine, but after booting into RockBox, the menus are really hard to read! Maybe this was because these menus are intended for color screens? But this shouldn't be like that, since this firmware is supposed to be the version for H-100 players, which have grayscale screens.

Anyway, I could solve this by blindly clicking icons (I could see the icons but the text was next to unreadable), and I found one labeled "Clear Backdrop" which made the screen readable (but I couldn't read that label until AFTER clicking that option, so I had to find it blindly).

I think these little quirks should be fixed, so new RockBox users don't have to go through that:

1. The automatic installer utility should actually patch the firmware. In my case it didn't after specifying the location of the file (it did install the ".rockbox" files, though). The hex file I provided was this: http://www.rasher.dk/rockbox/iriver-firmwares/H110(EU)-v166.zip (the unzipped hex file, not the zip)

2. The menus should be readable in a greyscale screen. The RockBox version I used was 3.5 stable, and I selected the proper model in the automatic installer (iHP100 / iHP110).

Apart from that, Rockbox seems to be pretty cool! Thank you for your hard work!

[bluebrother]

Patching the firmware file works fine for me. Please post the system log (in Help / Troubleshooting / System Trace) after trying to patch the firmware.

[OMA]

I've attached the whole System Trace from the Rockbox Utility.
Hope it helps.

As I said, I could successfully patch with the Firmware patcher, but not with the Rockbox Utility.

Any ideas as to why the screen was unreadable when booting the first time? I suppose the default theme loads in the first boot, and it shouldn't be a theme intended for color screens (at least in the case of the H-100).

[AlexP]

Any ideas as to why the screen was unreadable when booting the first time? I suppose the default theme loads in the first boot, and it shouldn't be a theme intended for color screens (at least in the case of the H-100).

Yes, the default theme loads, and no it isn't a colour one.  It could be that somehow the default contrast is wrong though.  Try putting a line saying:

contrast: xx

where xx is a number from 00 to 63 in the config.cfg file in the .rockbox directory.

[bluebrother]

I've attached the whole System Trace from the Rockbox Utility.
Hope it helps.

The system trace does not show any attempt to patch the firmware file -- did you try to do so? I.e. try patching the firmware file and then save the trace before closing Rockbox Utility -- the system trace won't get saved when closing it.

[OMA]

Yes, the default theme loads, and no it isn't a colour one.  It could be that somehow the default contrast is wrong though.  Try putting a line saying:

contrast: xx

where xx is a number from 00 to 63 in the config.cfg file in the .rockbox directory.

Thanks, I'll take note in case it happens again after flashing, but for now the system works pretty well after I managed to clear the backdrop by clicking blindly.

The recordings with this are pretty good and you have a lot of options. Great job! 

The system trace does not show any attempt to patch the firmware file -- did you try to do so? I.e. try patching the firmware file and then save the trace before closing Rockbox Utility -- the system trace won't get saved when closing it.

Ah, I see. That trace I sent is from a different day to when I tried to patch the firmware. I thought it was saved like a log. I'll try to do it again getting the trace before closing.