Does Rockbox have a problem with flat battery?

[WJ Kington]

I posted this on mistic river forum, someone suggested the rockbox people might have an explanation?  Any ideas of what happened? -

I had my Iriver for only 2 months, the last month I have been running rockbox (it's great). But then the player died. I have read on Iriver forum others who have experienced the 'pale white screen of death'.

I had left it plugged into the computer USB for a couple of days (even while the computer was off), and evidently this ran the battery to flat. Then it would not start at all, except for the occasional appearance fo the 'pale white screen of death'.

Following threads on mistic river forum, and after all the obvious attempts to revive it (recharge, reset button, booting in iriver firmware etc.) I took it apart and disconnect the battery and then reconnected it (I had read somehwere this helps?). Anyway, nothing... So then I left it plugged into the USB again. Nothing... but later it suddenly connected to my computer.

I removed rockbox software and disconnected it then tried to restart it. Rockbox boatloader started, then it switched off. I booted in Iriver firmware (play plus record on startup). Hooray! it worked. I formatted the player and re-installed rockbox including bootloader.

OK so I think rockbox had something to do with it, didn't like a flat battery of something. But I can't do without rockbox, as a musician recording on Iriver, I find it essential.

Anyhoo, that's my story. I share it with you as this, or similar issues, seem unfortunately too common, and I wanted you to know how I got my player working again!  - any ideas what happened?  how can I avoid this in the future?

[Llorean]

Please, in the future, make sure you're posting in the right place by checking the stickies before you post.

[bluebrother]

Rockbox currently doesn't support charging from USB (but there's a patch in the tracker for this). Charging itself is done in hardware, but I have no idea how it behaves with the player turned off. So I only can suspect your player running out of battery simply as it wasn't charging (assuming the player doesn't charge via hardware over usb when turned off) and / or the PC when turned off drawing power from your player -- maybe the PC is faulty at that part?
Anyway, is there a reason why you didn't use the wall charger? Should be faster anyway.

Also, Rockbox has issues when shutting down the player on low battery. Usually this shouldn't be a big deal as you usually can connect the wall charger.

[WJ Kington]

Actually, I tried the wall charger with no luck.  I wasn't trying to charge the player in the USB, I was just downloading data and forgot to remove it again.  I think the problem was, once the battery was used up, it would not charge up again.  When plugged into the wall charger, the screen would remain blank, even when left plugged in to the charger for several hours.  Later it connected to the computer unexpected while connected through the USB (at this stage I was trying everything).  The only way I could get it working properly from there was to remove rockbox and rockbox boatloader, which made me think it had something to do with it.

[jknox]

Actually, I tried the wall charger with no luck.  ...When plugged into the wall charger, the screen would remain blank, even when left plugged in to the charger for several hours.

If the batteries are very flat, then yes - it appears that the processor is held in reset (which is reasonable) but the charging circuit is also disabled.  Most "smart chargers" now know to do this (not attempt to charge a shorted cell), but they also usually try to trickle charge enough to start the regular charge cycle.  I can't find any indication tha this works on the Jukebox.  

Recommend just pulling the batteries and charging them externally if this happens.