iPod 5.5 and my car kit

[chileboy]

Ah, okay, the way you described it before sounded like you could access that cable. What exactly does the player think happens when you plug it in? Does it go into USB mode?

When I plug it in running RB, it displays "Accessing iPod" for about 30-40 seconds, then it says "error: unsupported iPod/software" and goes back to whatever it was doing (remember, it also controls my phone, etc. via Bluetooth, and any other devices that might be plugged in or running BT audio).  I can't then browse it as a USB device, either.

If I'm running the OF, it doesn't display any message at all when I plug it in - but after about 5-10 seconds I can access its menus and browse my music via the normal Artist, Genre, etc.  It also remembers where I left off - i.e., if I have a playlist loaded and simply turn the car off, when I next plug it in, it will resume playback where it was interrupted.

I suspect the head unit is not using the accessory serial port at all, and is probably operating over USB, so adding extra tracing/logging to iap.c won't get you anywhere (but it may be worth trying this just to prove whether or not it uses IAP at all).

Well, I'm a neophyte as you know, but if you tell me how to do this - only if you have the time - I will do so, recompile and post the results...

It's *probably* doing weird SCSI requests or something similar, which will require a variety of odd hacks to our USB stack to get at

Even better!  Where do I start?   

[torne]

When I plug it in running RB, it displays "Accessing iPod" for about 30-40 seconds, then it says "error: unsupported iPod/software" and goes back to whatever it was doing (remember, it also controls my phone, etc. via Bluetooth, and any other devices that might be plugged in or running BT audio).  I can't then browse it as a USB device, either.

But what does the ipod do? Does it start charging? Go to USB mode?

[chileboy]

Oh, I'm sorry torne 

Yes, the player goes into USB mode...and yes, it does charge.

[torne]

If it goes into USB mode and stays there, but the head unit just refuses to do anything with it, then I suspect it's not using IAP/serial at all, and it's probably communicating over USB. As far as I know nobody on the project has ever experimented with anything that communicates that way, so we have very little as a starting point (unlike serial IAP which we know at least a little about). From things I have read around the internet I believe it's probably using it as a standard mass storage device, but it's sending nonstandard SCSI commands over that interface - this is how iTunes does time synchronisation at least, and it's a nice flexible method that can send bulk data conveniently

So, probably the thing to do is to enable (or add) any logging of unknown commands/etc in the USB core and USB mass storage drivers and see if it reports anything that's not a usual disk access. I can't easily give you more specific directions on how to do this right now, though, since I don't know that code particularly well and I don't have access to my development system. You may want to come to our IRC channel (#rockbox on Freenode) and see if anyone there can suggest where to start

[chileboy]

So, probably the thing to do is to enable (or add) any logging of unknown commands/etc in the USB core and USB mass storage drivers and see if it reports anything that's not a usual disk access. I can't easily give you more specific directions on how to do this right now, though, since I don't know that code particularly well and I don't have access to my development system. You may want to come to our IRC channel (#rockbox on Freenode) and see if anyone there can suggest where to start

OK, understood torne - thanks very much for all of your input, I really do appreciate it - maybe I can ultimately contribute something of value.

[torne]

No problem; as we've suggested before to people with these problems, if you want to lend your car to a rockbox developer we'll probably work on it