iPod 5G Video 80GB waking up into Apple firmware instead of Rockbox

[moontan]

Dear everyone,

I upgraded from version 3.8 to 3.9.1 today and I tested the sleep timer and wake up functions in the system/time&date menu several times.

During playback I set the sleep timer to a couple of minutes and the wake-up time to five minutes after sleep.

Every time after going to sleep the iPod woke up again at the expected time but booted into the Apple firmware. I'm not sure if this would have happened in 3.8 because I never used these functions back then but I remember that manually starting the iPod sometimes (randomly?) booted into Apple, and only into Rockbox at the second attempt.

Thanks for taking a look into this. If you need any further info I'll be happy to provide you with it.

[Llorean]

Do you have the hold switch on? The hold switch is the trigger for "boot into the original firmware instead of Rockbox."

[moontan]

Wow, that might actually be it! I guess I should have read the f***ing manual Thanks for enlightening me here.

I undertook another test with the hold switch off and — of course —  it works. Very grateful for your hint.

I have a habit of keeping the hold switch on to save battery. Is this considered an unnecessary precaution?

[torne]

If it's just sitting there on a table waiting to have the alarm go off then leaving hold on isn't saving any battery

If it's somewhere that the buttons could get bumped by accident then leaving hold on will save a little power (the amount required to spin up the drive and load the original firmware, then keep the LCD running until the OF decides to go to sleep again).

I'm (slowly) working on a series of changes that will allow us to stop using the hold switch for this purpose to prevent, amongst other things, the exact problem you are having. No ETA right now, though. (it's more complicated than you might assume).

[moontan]

Hey, even though I'm only a semi-geek when it comes to understanding how computer hardware and software work I can imagine very well that these are complicated tasks indeed. And it's precisely for that reason that I'm insanely happy to know there are folks like you working on them. After all that firmware is named after what it does, and what you developers do: Rock

If I can't force myself to get rid of that hold switch habit of mine it'd be fabulous to some day be able to use my ipod as a reliable alarm clock that keeps me from missing appointments regardless of that switch being on or off. I noticed there's even someone on the issue in the bug tracker: http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/9087

Thanks for your time and effort!

[torne]

Huh, I hadn't seen that patch previously. I am working on actually changing the way buttons are used at startup entirely; that patch is much less drastic and only affects the alarm behaviour. I will take a look at that and see if it's suitable to commit sooner.