ONDIO 128/ROCKBOX 2.5, flashed/Problems with some 1 GB MMC cards

[hwneumann]

I have several 1 GB MMC cards which I use in my ONDIO Recorder. 2 cards work fine without any problem, but with 2 others the following happens:

- when starting ONDIO with MMC it displays "no .rockbox directory; incomplete installation" shortly, but than it works.

- if I put the MMC into a running ONDIO, it switches to only MMC in the file browser

- when I want to play a file from the MMC, it first displays again shortly "no .rockbox directory...", but than it plays it

- sometimes the ONDIO "forgets" all settings when starting new (wrong language etc.)

I couldn't find a hint on this problem yet.

Does anybody know what's going on here?

Thanks in advance for your help
Hans-Werner

[Genre9mp3]

I don't have much experience with the Ondio (I got one only 1 week ago) and neither had any problems with a MMC. But since (as I assume from the thread's title) you use Rockbox 2.5 (which is over a year old), why not try if you have these issues with a recent build, too?

Since these issues you have, arise only when you use 2 of your MMCs, can you be more specific about them? Did these MMCs ever worked without problems? What file format you use on them? What file format do the other 2 use?

[hwneumann]

Thanks for your quick answer And yes, of course I can tell it more detailed.

I have one ONDIO 128 Recorder and  an ONDIO 128 SP (Simple Player). On the player I have tested already the latest build without difference.

Let's look at 3 cards:

- takeMS MultiMedia Card 1 GB
- K Data MyFlash Turbo MMCplus 200x 1 GB
- ULTRON High Speed MMCplus 1024 MB

I don't have the fourth card anymore, sorry. I got the ULTRON card as a replacement for it (reclamation, because it didn't work properly with the ONDIO). But the effects were exactly the same as desribed below.

All have FAT file system (which means FAT16 under Windows, as far as I know).

You can reproduce the effects: Either a card works fine or it doesn't. No change at different tries.

takeMS and K-Data are working fine with both ONDIOs, it doesn't matter which situation. For ULTRON and the one before:

- If you start ONDIO Rec. without card and plug the card in (hot) it mounts and works fine.

- If you start ONDIO Rec. with card it displays "no .rockbox directory..." and shows an empty browser screen. You can't access both memories (not visible, file view = all), and the configuration is gone.

- If you start ONDIO Player without card and plug the card in (hot) it mounts, but you can't see and access the internal memory anymore. If you want to play a file from the card, it displays "no .rockbox..." in German shortly (configuration correct), but nevertheless plays than the file.

- If you start ONDIO Player with card it displays "no .rockbox directory..." and shows an empty browser screen. You can't access both memories (not visible, file view = all), and the configuration is gone.

I already thought about a difference between "older" and "newer" cards, as new cards are much faster. But as the last three cards were "new" ones, were one is working fine, while the others not... hmmm.

Regards
Hans-Werner

[pixelma]

Hallo Hans-Werner,

I am only a user of an OndioFM but haven't had any problems with different MMCs so far (tried old (slow) 256MB and 2GB - and an MMCplus 1GB). So I suspect that this is a problem of the particular type of card. I was told by amiconn that it would be helpful to track down the problem if you can give more detailed technical data about this one. To do this you can (as you said it works fine when hotplugged to the OndioFM) use Rockbox:

so make sure that it works fine and then go to
Main menu -> Info -> Debug (Entwicklerbereich) -> View MMC info

Maybe you can already spot differences between the working/non-working cards (besides production date and serial number). I hope this will give any hints for someone with better knowledge to solve your problems

[hwneumann]

Thanks, very good hint! I didn't know yet that there are infos even about the MMC.

Yes, I can see huge differences (although I don't really know what it means):

Tsac (?) on the working chip is 10 ms, on ULTRON 1,5 ms
Nsac (?) on the working chip is 0 clk, on ULTRON 100 clks
IRmax/IWmax (reading/writing current?)on the working chip is 35 mA, on ULTRON 60 - 80 mA;
and on blocks the working chip has 0x1EA000, ULTRON has 0x03D400.

So you think, I should try out, which ones are working? Well, this could be expensive...

Hans-Werner

[pixelma]

Hallo Hans-Werner

I pointed amiconn to this thread and had hoped that he would reply - but since he didn't I will repeat what he told me.

First I have to apologise for not pointing out that the info in the debug screen is for both internal memory (MMC0) and plugged MMC (MMC1) and that you scroll pages with "up" because the screen was designed by and for people with a clue  (which I wasn't by then). So you mixed up some info but this shouldn't be important.

Amiconn said that the details look normal and he suspects a simple electrical problem with this brand. Specifically the metallic labels of come cards seem to cause a short circuit when they get too close to the edges - there were other users who reported problems with some MMCs too in the past. So your only choice would be to avoid Ultron cards... maybe you can ask here if someone can recommend a specific type or can warn about another

Regards, Marianne

P.S. @ the Forum Admins: maybe a look into the old forums would reveal some of these reports. It would be very kind if you could do a quick search and post if there's something interesting which could help in any way. Thanks!

[hwneumann]

Hi Marianne,

thanks a lot for answering and the info

Well, I will have a look on eventual electrical problems of metallic labels of the ULTRON card (very often there are rather simple reasons like this...). But ULTRON wasn't the only one not working properly in the ONDIO. At least one other brand (I unfortunately can't recall...) didn't work with ONDIO, too. Therefore I thought this would eventually be a general problem and I posted it here.

One question: What do you mean with "old forums"? Can you tell me where they are? I shurely will search for the thread and post it here.

Thanks again and best regards
Hans-Werner

[Genre9mp3]

One question: What do you mean with "old forums"? Can you tell me where they are? I shurely will search for the thread and post it here.

Some months ago the forums were re-arranged from target specific to topic specific as they are now. This made a lot of old threads being unavailable and only the moderators/administratos had access to them. By the time Marianne posted this was the case. Recently though, it was decided that the old threads should be again on-line. You can find them here: Archived Threads.

Notice that these threads are searchable but with posting disabled.