Rockbox Technical Forums

Rockbox Development => New Ports => Topic started by: mcuelenaere on October 27, 2007, 10:04:40 AM

Title: Creative ZEN
Post by: mcuelenaere on October 27, 2007, 10:04:40 AM
Once Creative's firmware encryption is cracked, the ZEN could also be ported to Rockbox (as its functions are almost identical to the ZVM and I believe its internals are too), so I opened this thread for gathering information of the Creative ZEN.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: mcuelenaere on October 27, 2007, 11:37:25 AM
According to http://xxmycreativexx.blogspot.com/2007/09/creative-zen-uses-sigmatel-latest.html the ZEN uses a SigmaTel 3700 SoC (so no TI TMS320DM320) which means the processor+DSP combination is quite different, although their firmware format is the same. (open up an firmware update of the ZEN with ZenFirm.exe from zook and you'll see)
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: skaos on November 26, 2007, 06:25:51 AM
The Sigmatel STMP3600 and STMP3700 belongs to the same ARM-family (I think), and Sigmatel have published some Linux work on the 3600. I would guess that you could get some hardware info by looking at the Linux code: http://linux.sigmatel.com/
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: mcuelenaere on March 08, 2008, 12:39:40 PM
I have a 8gb Zen so i wouldn't mind trying to help. I'm new to this so..
but i know somethings about electronics
As stated in the posts above: first read the CreativeZVMPort wiki page which contains a lot of information which is also valid for the Creative ZEN (firmware structure etc).
Then I advice you to download CreativeWizard (see CreativeZVMPort page or epiZENter.net), extract (C)TL from a nk.bin file and decrypt it (using zook's zenutils).
Then you'll be able to disassemble it et cetera..
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: Karl_210 on March 08, 2008, 12:49:59 PM
how do you take it apart i've taken apart my sansa e250 before.
do you pull off the top?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: mcuelenaere on March 08, 2008, 12:53:38 PM
how do you take it apart i've taken apart my sansa e250 before.
do you pull off the top?
epiZENter topic about opening up Creative ZEN (http://epizenter.net/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?160777)

edit:
Battery info:
CREATIVE
3.6V Lithium Ion Polymer Battery 0.55AH
Creative PN: BAC0603R79925

KKBJGHJB
[then down the bottom]
Model No: LPC6333445

edit2:

link 2 (http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2008/03/creative-zen-disassembly.php)
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: Zeroth on April 20, 2008, 04:06:48 PM
I have a Creative ZEN 8GB model. It has a different chip, but likely very similar firmware. I have opened it, and the chips I could see, are as follows:

CPU:
Sigmatel STMP3760
BBE-TA4
UO4211
072956

Memory:
Samsung 734
K9HBG08U1M

(Two of these)

According to Sigmatel's materials, the STMP3700 class chip uses an ARM 926 as the core(300MHZ), with built in USB, DC conversion, headphone and microphone amplification. It as well, contains support for WiFi, and Bluetooth, however the Creative ZEN does not have this hardware...(yet). If you need more information/pictures, let me know! I will be happy to provide.

-Zeroth
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: mcuelenaere on April 20, 2008, 04:20:14 PM
...
I have opened it, and the chips I could see, are as follows:
...
If you need more information/pictures, let me know! I will be happy to provide.
...
Could you take some pictures and/or use a (flatbed) scanner to take some hi-res scans of the main board?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: Zeroth on April 20, 2008, 04:54:47 PM
Be glad to. Opened it while I was at work, I'll post pictures tonight. I have also extracted the firmware for the ZEN out, it looks similar to the ZVM firmware, however, I don't know how to use zenutils zen_crypt on it. What do I need to do, to decrypt the firmware?

EDIT: I just found this: http://linux.sigmatel.com/, which contains a modified version of linux and the requisite toolchain for the 36xx series chips, and likely contacts for the 37xx series chips. :D Hardware programming in this case is likely quite easy.

UPDATE: I have the scan... its very highly detailed(1200 dpi... so quite large...)  Anyway, here is the link: ZEN chip scan (http://oddco.ca/ZENscan.jpeg) Any other help I can provide, please let me know. I am familiar with C, a bit of hardware/software programming, and assembly(unfortunately, MIPS not ARM)
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: mcuelenaere on April 21, 2008, 01:16:11 PM
I made a wiki (http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/CreativeZEN) page with all the information I could find.

Since it's a wiki I would say: go ahead and edit it! ;)
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: Zeroth on April 22, 2008, 12:12:14 PM
Okay, I've found the actual firmware, using zen_utils. Most of the information to do so came from the ZVMport wiki page, thanks guys. I can confirm that it does indeed follow the same format as the firmware for other players in the creative line. I even found the same strings that were found in the ZVM firmware. I'll do some more work, after work.

-Zeroth

EDIT: Okay, so, I have identified the function of the files, they are quite similar to what is found in the ZVM project. However, only problem, I made one, very very tiny modification: I altered a few strings in jukebox2.jrs, and compiled a new firmware, using zenutils. I then tried to replace the firmware of my player with the new, very slightly altered firmware, and it did not accept it. As an experiment, I also tried using the old firmware, still using sendfirm in rockbox/utils/MTP, and that update worked.

Therefore, theres still a step I'm missing in the compiling of a new firmware. I have made no modifications to the actual firmware code, just to the strings in an associated file.

UPDATE: April 23rd, 2008
Still working on getting the player to accept a firmware archive.

UPDATE: April 25th, 2008
The player accepts signed firmware now, courtesy of Maurus. Yay Maurus! I've also taken the firmware, and disassembled it. Now to be reading the very very long firmware.  ::)
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: ctaf on May 30, 2008, 10:32:28 PM
some more info on the LCD to put on the wiki, it's a lms250gf03:
http://www.lcdsolar.com/EmpGoog/SAMSUNG/2.5/LMS250GF03.html

the usb of the device vid and pid:
041e:4157
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: mcuelenaere on May 31, 2008, 05:03:13 AM
some more info on the LCD to put on the wiki, it's a lms250gf03:
http://www.lcdsolar.com/EmpGoog/SAMSUNG/2.5/LMS250GF03.html

the usb of the device vid and pid:
041e:4157
Thanks, I've added it to the wiki.

BTW, I've read the IRC logs and if you have some questions about porting, PM me :)
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: saratoga on December 06, 2011, 12:59:27 PM
Just to update this thread, the Zen uses the STMP3760 which is very similar to the STMP3780 (I think just different amounts of SRAM and some onboard peripherals) used in the now supported Fuze+.  Most likely a large amount of that work could be reused on the Zen if someone feels like working on this port again.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on January 20, 2013, 01:02:18 PM
Hello,
I am the developer who did the Fuze+ and X-Fi 2/3 ports. The Creative ZEN uses a SoC very similar to the imx233 which can be found in the Fuze+, ZEN X-Fi2/3. Also if I'm correct, the Creative ZEN is very very similar to the ZEN X-Fi (read: basically the same). I have begun some work on the ZEN X-Fi. I think the amount of work to port to the ZEN is very moderate once the ZEN X-Fi is done, it could amount to only change a few settings/pins here and there. Both ports could even be done at the same time.

Depending on how much you want to get involved, you can try to run code on the device and play with it or even do some reverse engineering. I advise that you come on IRC in any case, I can give you many tools to avoid starting from scratch.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: richq on January 30, 2013, 06:43:43 AM
Would that apply for the Creative Zen Mozaic? There are a lot of models called "Zen", so I'm not sure. I have a Zen Mozaic gathering dust in a drawer that I'd resurrect if it could be made to run Rockbox :-)
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on January 30, 2013, 06:50:00 AM
Hello, this thread is for the Creative ZEN only, I have created a new thread for the Mozaic, feel free to post on it.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on April 10, 2013, 07:16:31 PM
I'm the owner of four Creative ZENs and would REALLY love to have Rockbox on them. :)

If there's any developer here that needs support for this, do say.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on April 13, 2013, 02:15:34 AM
Hello chrijj,
I already did quite a bit of reverse engineering on the Creative ZEN, but I'm missing the device to actually program something. Someone started to do the work but he disappeared. If you want to help, maybe you can send me one device (i'll send it back when it's done).
Thanks for your interest
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on April 13, 2013, 09:43:59 AM
Amaury, sounds good.  - thanks. I can't spare any of my own units so I'll buy another and send it over to you. Please let me know your postal address by PM.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: hamstarr on July 23, 2013, 06:05:30 AM
I'd like to help if possible :) I really like to see Rockbox on my Zen..

I can do a little c, own a Zen and have a build environment ready. So if I need to lend a hand, just let me know.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on July 23, 2013, 06:11:53 AM
... I'll buy another and send it over to you.

FTR, this was done that week.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: hamstarr on July 23, 2013, 12:21:36 PM
Grand! What a great move!  8)
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on November 07, 2013, 03:29:01 PM
Hi all,
the great day has finally arrived: you can beta test Rockbox on the ZEN! Before doing that, you must be aware that this is a preliminary software and as such it might not work at all, break your device, destroy the world, ... the usual stuff :)

More seriously though, there is a big issue at the moment which cannot really be solved: Rockbox and the Creative OS share the same disk space but do not use the same file system. Consequently, one cannot use Rockbox without reformating the entire disk use the FAT file system, which will prevent the Creative OS from working, and conversely if you reformat the disk for Creative OS, you cannot use Rockbox.

To sum up: if you want to use Rockbox, you will have to reformat the internal disk of the device and you will loose all your data ! Note that the SD card will not be touched.

Now if you still want to do that, go to http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CreativeZENPort and follow the instruction. I prebuilt the bootloader and the windows tools to perform the installation. Once the bootloader is installed, plug your device: the rockbox bootloader will appear and show up as a USB disk. If you are under Windows, it will notify you that the disk is unusable and you should reformat it using FAT. If you are under Linux, use your favourite method to reformat it.

Once the bootloader is installed and the disk formatted (you only need to do that once), you can install/update rockbox by downloading the nightly build here: http://build.rockbox.org/data/rockbox-creativezen.zip : unpack it at the root of your device, it should produce a .rockbox directory.

Please only reports serious issues: this is a preliminary software and thus many things are suboptimal at this point.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 07, 2013, 09:48:38 PM
Great news! Well done, Amaury.

I tried on Windows XP SP2 and got as far as:

http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CreativeZENPort
Quote
Formatting for Rockbox
...
The device should appear as a Mass Storage device in your host.

It did not. Windows reported finding new hardware and asked for OS restart, but after than no new hardware is showing in the usual place (My Computer).

The ZEN screen shows "Bootloader USB mode" and other lines, inc. a changing "Die temp: " line. This machine successfully connects to the Creative-firmwared ZEN.

Any ideas?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on November 08, 2013, 05:01:41 AM
Ok maybe I should have written differently: Windows correctly detected your device as Mass Storage. I doesn't show in the usual place (MyComputer) because it not formatted. To do that, it depends on your Windows version but usually go to Settings > Computer Management > Disk Management (Windows 7) or Settings > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management (Windows XP). Just look up on google :)
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 08, 2013, 08:51:12 AM
Settings > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management (Windows XP)

Thanks. I do find it there: http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/9387/gstf.png as two Disks http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/9982/ryol.png http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/1517/khm5.png.  Also FWIW I see it under Removable Storage, Media http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/2258/qiuz.png.

However Disk Management Format with default options reports failure: "The format did not complete successfully".  And the ZEN screen still says "No partition found", "Loading firmware", "File not found".
EDIT: Also, Explorer Format reports failure: http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/4720/vjxs.png
EDIT: workaround: use Explorer Format
EDIT 2013-12-06: This problem persists with bootloader V1Beta3_3f555f01. EDIT 2014-01-27: Verified on Win XP SP2 and SP3.
EDIT 2014-01-27: This problem has not shown in trials on Win7 and Mac OSX.

Perhaps related is the fact Windows shows this disk to be 3.63GB - half what I'd expect on this 8GB ZEN.
EDIT: Wrong size issue fixed: http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,13462.msg221570.html#msg221570

Any ideas?

Has anyone else tried formatting with Windows?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on November 09, 2013, 06:01:56 AM
Hi,
someone reported success under Windows but he also has incorrect disk size and I myself get a 0 byte drive under Windows. It seems there is an issue with storage under Windows, I'll try to fix this asap.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 09, 2013, 08:53:19 AM
Thanks Amaury. Perhaps success depends on storage capacity. EDIT: FWIW, I note the reduced disc size corresponds approximately to the FAT16 maximum of 4Gb.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on November 10, 2013, 06:59:01 PM
Hi again
after some investigation I found the problem (see below for the techies). So I'm going to completely change the way the disk size is computed because Creative basically screw up. I'll upload a new bootloader soon.

By the way, forgot to mention it: Rockbox currently doesn't charge over USB, so use the recovery mode to recharge.

Explaination of the problem:
Creative uses a custom partition table with a "total size" field which is 64-bit large, so theoretically it's fine, but in practice their format code must be broken and does the computation on 32-bit. As a result, the reported size is (disk size) modulo 2^32. For example, 16GB moduloe 2^32 = 3GB. I guess for some others values it could produce strange values. Thank you Creative.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 10, 2013, 07:12:13 PM
Amaury

I found Quick Format worked. The volume now shows as FAT, though oddly Format offers only FAT32. But Rockbox runs.

after some investigation I found the problem .... I'll upload a new bootloader soon.

Thanks.

By the way, forgot to mention it: Rockbox currently doesn't charge over USB, so use the recovery mode to recharge.

Thanks. Other user might like to know: with player off, hold Play while you press Power. Then connect charger/USB and verify the top-right battery icon shows the lightning bolt.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 10, 2013, 07:40:58 PM
Amaury wrote

> Please only reports serious issues

OK. Given Rockbox Flyspray "Operating System" (Devices) doesn't yet cover Creative ZEN, is this thread the best place for bug reports?

Chris
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on November 10, 2013, 07:42:16 PM
Yes, this thread is the best place to report issues during the "hot" development phase :)
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 10, 2013, 07:46:45 PM
Yes, this thread is the best place to report issues during the "hot" development phase :)

Thanks.

Issue 1 - Return to Files on pressing Select on While Playing Screen can cause crash.

*** UPDATE: Concluded FIXED. On Version adc5033-131121, a few hundreds operations have shown no crash. ***

Conditions: Device model is ZEN 8Gb; device unit is Chris's unit "G"; Boot version is V1Beta; Rockbox version is b170c73-131110

With default settings, on Now Playing, Select often causes crash. E.g.

1) Plug device into USB
2) Format the device using Windows Disk Management, Format... 'Perform a quick format'.
3) Copy to the device root directory the .rockbox directory, plus four FLACs and four WAVs - shown here (http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/3576/etpz.png)
4) Unplug USB
5) Wait for Rockbox welcome page, press Select
6) Press Select (enters Files)
7) Press Down to reach second track (a WAV file, shown here (http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/1682/hkt3.png)), press Select (track plays),
8a) Wait a second or more, press Select OR
8b) Wait a second or more, press Play to stop, press Select OR
8c) Press Back, press Up to reach Files, press Select.

Observed: crash. Reset and repeat from 5 gives the same every time.

Code: [Select]
Data abort at 6005F4DC
FSR 0x8
(domain 0, fault 8)
address 0xBC5A8FEB
pc:6005F4DC sp:600B3960
    A: 6005EFEC
    A: 60014714
    A: 60014E3C
bt end

Notes:

* The file set is here (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5773707/RockBoxZENtest/RBCZIssue1v3fileset.zip)

* Deleting files 3 to 6 prevented the crashing. Restoring those files did not restore the crashing. So perhaps the issue is sensitive to the hidden details of the storage, and perhaps depends on the order in which the files are copied.

*With other sets of track files, on an installation that had some theme settings changes (Bar (solid), Clear Backdrop) and had Files\Playlists\ and the single user-created Files\ sub-directory, this crash was found to occur whereas when the installation was restored to default, it did not.

* Creating the folder Files\Playlists (using the Playlist Catalogue command) reduces the incidence of crash to about 50%. Deleting that folder restores it to 100%.

* On RB Version: 1ef7b65-131119, the crash doesn't occur on the second track, but does on the fourth.  "Data Abort at" is changed to 6005F500.
  ** On this version, with some configuration changes (.cfg here http://pastebin.com/QE1xGguy ), the crash has so far not occurred.

* On updated RB Version: adc5033-131121, the crash has so far not occurred. The only perhaps related issue found is on Files, Playlists, click a playlist, one occurrence of a splash message "Error|Unable to load playlist" or similar.

Chris
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: saratoga on November 10, 2013, 07:56:35 PM
FWIW, we're in IRC right now talking, so you could report things more quickly there.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on November 10, 2013, 08:10:58 PM
@Chrisjj: can you try to entirely remove the .rockbox directory and do a fresh install ? I cannot reproduce this crash on my version. Also make sure you use the default theme (cabbie) when reporting bugs, themes tends to introduce unrelated bugs.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 10, 2013, 08:41:43 PM
@Chrisjj: can you try to entirely remove the .rockbox directory and do a fresh install ?

Have done. No change. I've added further details to the report.

Also make sure you use the default theme (cabbie) when reporting bugs

Am doing and will do. Thanks.

EDIT: see the report's update.

EDIT: see further update http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,13462.msg221281.html#msg221281 showing crash occurs on default config.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 10, 2013, 09:07:17 PM
Which existing manual is most accurate for the Creative ZEN (which AFAICT does not yet have a manual)?

I've tried e.g. http://download.rockbox.org/daily/manual/rockbox-sansae200v2/rockbox-buildch3.html#x5-240003 but it refers to items with names such as PLAYLIST (menu) and VIEW CURRENT PLAYLIST (command) which do not appear in the Creative ZEN version.

Thanks.

Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: [Saint] on November 10, 2013, 10:07:58 PM
Which existing manual is most accurate for the Creative ZEN (which AFAICT does not yet have a manual)?

I've tried e.g. http://download.rockbox.org/daily/manual/rockbox-sansae200v2/rockbox-buildch3.html#x5-240003 but it refers to items with names such as PLAYLIST (menu) and VIEW CURRENT PLAYLIST (command) which do not appear in the Creative ZEN version.


Generally speaking, that isn't going to work. Or work well at least. The reason we have device specific manuals as opposed to one giant monolithic manual is because features and controls can differ greatly between ports.

In regard to the playlist stuff you mentioned, that is a rather unfortunate oversight (of which the manuals contain many) caused by the addition of the Playlist Catalogue feature which was introduced without any documentation. Which flatly shouldn't have happened. I apologise.

I am going to do a push in the near future and look for discrepancies or failings in the documentation where and when I can, but it kinda sucks as no one likes having to do work that is cleaning up after others. I would much rather work on things that interest me, but it pains me to see  things like this happen and I can't expect anyone else to do any work that I'm not prepared to do...so thanks for bringing this to my attention.


[Saint]
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 11, 2013, 06:42:11 AM
Generally speaking, that isn't going to work. Or work well at least.

Understood. I was looking for works best, even if that's not works well :).

I am going to do a push in the near future and look for discrepancies or failings in the documentation

When there's a manual for the Creative ZEN port, I'd be able to help and will be happy to do so.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 12, 2013, 02:21:04 PM
Issue 2 - Original Firmware fails to run

Conditions: Hardware model is ZEN 8Gb; hardware unit is Chris's unit "G"; Boot version is V1Beta; Rockbox version is b170c73-131110

1) With device off, hold Back button and press and release Power button - to power on using Original Firmware as per http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CreativeZENPort : "The bootloader will boot the OF if back button is hold while powering up."

Observed: CREATIVE logo, then ZEN logo, then page showing exclamation icon and text "Firmware problem". Device is non-responsive to all buttons, requiring paper-clip reset.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: saratoga on November 12, 2013, 02:31:14 PM
Issue 2 - Original Firmware fails to run

Conditions: Hardware model is ZEN 8Gb; hardware unit is Chris's unit "G"; Boot version is V1Beta; Rockbox version is b170c73-131110

1) With device off, hold Back button and press and release Power button - to power on using Original Firmware as per http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CreativeZENPort : "The bootloader will boot the OF if back button is hold while powering up."

Observed: CREATIVE logo, then ZEN logo, then page showing exclamation icon and text "Firmware problem". Device is non-responsive to all buttons, requiring paper-clip reset.

Did you reformat it for the Creative file system?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 12, 2013, 03:33:17 PM
Did you reformat it for the Creative file system?

No, I now I see "Note that booting to the OF correctly will require to reformat the player for the OF" and when I do that, the Original Firmware works. So my bad - sorry. I retract the report.

FTR, booting Rockbox now gives "Bad checksum" - no surprise there.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 13, 2013, 01:40:24 PM
Issue 1 - On Now Playing (a.k.a. WPS), Select can cause crash.
* The file set is here (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5773707/RockBoxZENtest/RBCZIssue1v3fileset.zip)
Amaury, If you don't see the issue with that file set, let me know and I'll check it on another ZEN unit.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on November 13, 2013, 01:46:06 PM
Your link seems broken, I get a 404 error.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 13, 2013, 01:50:09 PM
Two more crash cases added to http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,13462.msg221281.html#msg221281 . The common factor seems to be the return to Files after playing.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 19, 2013, 07:44:55 PM
Your link seems broken, I get a 404 error.

Oops, my reply of a week ago seems to have go lost. Sorry.

Amaury, that link worked when I tried it. And it works now. I guess your fail might have been due to Dropbox delay. Does it now succeed for you?

Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 19, 2013, 07:45:51 PM
Update to http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,13462.msg221281.html#msg221281 re sensitivity to sub-folder.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on November 20, 2013, 08:39:38 AM
I changed the lcd power up sequence slightly in a recent commit, hopefully this should fix most of black/white screen issues.
On my ZEN the screen sometimes becomes partly white after backlight wake up, I have no fix currently, other than waiting for backlight to go off and on again.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 20, 2013, 08:56:53 AM
I changed the lcd power up sequence slightly in a recent commit, hopefully this should fix most of black/white screen issues.

I just took  http://build.rockbox.org/data/rockbox-creativezen.zip. rockbox-info.txt now says Version: 1ef7b65-131119 .

The "return to Files" crash remains - details at http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,13462.msg221281.html#msg221281 .

Amaury, did you succeed in reproducing this crash at your end?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on November 20, 2013, 08:59:58 AM
I succeeded once so far but that's not enought to debug it.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 20, 2013, 09:02:14 AM
I succeeded once so far but that's not enought to debug it.

OK, thanks. I take that to mean you don't see the 100% occurrence that I do. Would it help if I posted you a unit showing the 100% occurrence?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 20, 2013, 09:08:12 AM
Amaury, it might help to know of this difference between the two versions I have tried, when upon the Return to Files crash, I see the Data Abort page and press Power to get a reboot.

On Version b170c73-131110, I see the screen go black then the CREATIVE logo appears. Reboot has succeeded.

On Version: 1ef7b65-131119, I see either the screen go white or the lettering go very light (giving a display that could be mistaken from solid white), and then no change. Reboot has failed. To reboot, I have to reset.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 20, 2013, 09:33:44 AM
On my ZEN the screen sometimes becomes partly white after backlight wake up, I have no fix currently, other than waiting for backlight to go off and on again.

I assume "backlight wakeup" means exit from standby*.

I see Version 1ef7b65-131119 has "zen/zenxfi: implement lcd standby" (http://git.rockbox.org/?p=rockbox.git;a=commit;h=7bbdcc1c3bf87c24a5b52716471a7b6c97305813). Here standby causes the screen to go solid white. Keypress causes it variously to return to the regular image OK, or to a wrecked version which is largely white, with vertical stripes, and uncapturable by Screendump.

Chris

* By standby, I mean the state in which the ZEN enters upon expiry of the Settings "Backlight" period following a key press. This seems to be what http://download.rockbox.org/daily/manual/rockbox-ipodvideo/rockbox-buildch8.html#x11-1560008.6.2 calles "the backlight shines after a key press".
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on November 20, 2013, 10:36:36 AM
Apparently, delete the .playlist_control file seems to help to reproduce the bug. It appears that the problem might come from the sd/mmc driver.
For the lcd, I think I'm going to disable standby completely and simply turn off backlight because it is too unreliable at the moment. I don't know why this lcd is so picky.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 20, 2013, 11:37:08 AM
Apparently, delete the .playlist_control file seems to help to reproduce the bug.

Here, delete the .playlist_control file reduces the crash frequency. I'm guessing that is just because the frequency is generally sensitive to state of the storage. Once I've got the storage in a state that gives 100% crash, a change of state of the storage that has any effect can only reduce it below 100%.

For the lcd, I think I'm going to disable standby completely and simply turn off backlight because it is too unreliable at the moment.

Sounds wise, esp. since it seems to be obstructing reboot. Perhaps it is crashing the device silently (without an Abort report), thereby killing Power button service.

But I'd be interested to know: what effect does standby aim for other than just turning off backlight?

Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on November 20, 2013, 11:39:13 AM
Standby has nothing to do with backlight: it turns the lcd off to save power. You cannot see the difference since backlight is off.

I found the bug which causes the crash, it is not related to the ZEN. We have a pending patch under review, it should be comitted soon.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 20, 2013, 11:43:38 AM
Standby has nothing to do with backlight: it turns the lcd off to save power.

Ah, I see. Thanks.

I found the bug which causes the crash, it is not related to the ZEN. We have a pending patch under review, it should be comitted soon.

Well done! I'll watch for the commit.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: MRJOE8010 on November 22, 2013, 01:08:56 PM
Thanks for reviving my tired Zen, the SD card integrates perfectly into the database which is just what I was looking for.  I am having two display issues though, on all screens the background is displaying vertical lines in dim colored dots.  The WPS now playing screen is not formatted, all the info is there but the theme (CabbieV2) is not applied.  Alternate fonts and some themes seem to work well on the menu screen but even applying failsafe or default icons can cause "Data abort at 60050298". Great work so far, looking forward to getting the kinks worked out.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 22, 2013, 01:29:05 PM
Which version? I'm using RB Version ...-131119 on an 8GB ZEN.

on all screens the background is displaying vertical lines in dim colored dots.

I see similar, but only after standby.

The WPS now playing screen is not formatted, all the info is there but the theme (CabbieV2) is not applied.  Alternate fonts and some themes seem to work well on the menu screen but even applying failsafe or default icons can cause "Data abort at 60050298".

FWIW, all those features work fine here.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: MRJOE8010 on November 22, 2013, 02:10:50 PM
I'm using adc5033-131121 version on a 4GB machine. I tried 131119 initially and reflashed and reformatted to see if it was a bad install but same exact results.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 22, 2013, 06:30:41 PM
I'm using adc5033-131121 version on a 4GB machine. I tried 131119 initially and reflashed and reformatted to see if it was a bad install but same exact results.

OK. Perhaps the cause is the sd/mmc driver problem that's also causing the different crash I see, manifesting differently on the 4Gb unit. I have no 4Gb unit to try.

[EDIT: Deletion of comment about Data Aborts, crossing with saratoga's answer.]
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: saratoga on November 22, 2013, 06:32:36 PM
The ARM docs explain in some detail, but basically it means you tried to read/write to an invalid memory address. 
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on November 22, 2013, 06:34:41 PM
To be clear, there is no issue with the sd/mmc driver, the bug was cause by some other code providing wrong parameters and it has been fixed.
If you have a reliable way of triggered this new data abort with the latest revision, please post detailled explaination. As it is currently, it is too vague to be useful.

Also please avoid spamming the forum thread with known problems. I *know* there is a problem with the screen, no need to report it any further except to say that's now working. Also avoiding posting any report about data abort except if you can reproduce it and if you do, please post the *full* output of the panic, not just one random address displayed by the screen. Also mention the revision of your build at the same time, otherwise this data is useless.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 22, 2013, 09:07:38 PM
Issue 1 - Return to Files on pressing Select on Now Playing (a.k.a. WPS) can cause crash.

Amaury, on Version adc5033-131121 (since this commit (http://git.rockbox.org/?p=rockbox.git;a=commit;h=193753aa1f93ba28995a80048cbc46f1fc5cde05)) I've been unable to reproduce this problem, so it may be fixed. I'll continue to test and let you know. Thanks!
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 23, 2013, 08:32:53 AM
Quote from: MRJOE8010
display issues though, on all screens the background is displaying vertical lines in dim colored dots.  The WPS now playing screen is not formatted, all the info is there but the theme (CabbieV2) is not applied.  Alternate fonts and some themes seem to work well on the menu screen but even applying failsafe or default icons
I'm using adc5033-131121 version on a 4GB machine. I tried 131119 initially and reflashed and reformatted to see if it was a bad install but same exact results.

MRJ, In case it helps: I found a 4Gb ZEN, loaded 131119 (and the unversioned but contemporaneous firmware_zen.nk), and tried those features and various others. I got no crashes. Apart from the known LCD standby exit corruption, the only run-time issue I found upon unplugging the USB after uploading RB and audio, is RB said: "Error accessing playlist control file." I updated to 131121 and found no issues.

I wonder if your problems arise from faulty formatting. Here there is still an issue with Format. On the above test, as before, Disk Management FAT Format reported failure, so then I did an Explorer FAT32 Quick Format, which reported success http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/2905/rtti.png . Perhaps it is worth you trying the later firmware_zen.nk (V1Beta2_fb8faa10) since Amaury reported that fixes http://git.rockbox.org/?p=rockbox.git;a=commit;h=bb8dd053434cbe9c98fe5b9a1095d00ebafb7b61 a problem related to formatting, albeit not one that TMK is known your cause crashes.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on November 23, 2013, 09:48:27 AM
I updated the bootloader to HEAD, this way it now contains the fix for improper storage size detection. It is at the same address as before, cf wiki.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: MRJOE8010 on November 23, 2013, 08:58:30 PM
ChrisJJ,
I took your advice and loaded latest firmware and reformatted, both FAT and FAT32, and tested with 131120 and 131121 builds on Windows 7.  All versions had the same issues with background vertical dots and no formatting on the WPS screen.  I also tried the new firmware and a fresh reformat with the 131121 build on an XP machine with the same result. I am willing to try any ideas you might have. Thanks for your help, I'm going to try going back to stock and I will try future updates.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 24, 2013, 08:13:39 PM
I updated the bootloader to HEAD, this way it now contains the fix for improper storage size detection. It is at the same address as before, cf wiki.
Thanks - got it. (FTR, from https://www.dropbox.com/s/cgqvrwr4qb3tb8u/firmware-zen.nk, dated 2013-11-23, showing on device as V1Beta2_fb8faa1.)

That solves the size problem http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,13462.msg221249.html#msg221249 on the 8Gb device. I.e. the formatted device is shown by Disk Management as 7.44 Gb and Explorer as "Capacity: 7,975,600,128 bytes 7.42 GB". Thanks!

But I see the format command failure remains. I.e. Disk Management says "The format did not complete successfully". The previous workaround (Explorer Quick Format) remains successful.

Also note that the instruction to be sure to format as FAT http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CreativeZENPort is not performable on the 8GB model where Format offers only FAT32.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 24, 2013, 08:42:23 PM
I also tried the new firmware and a fresh reformat with the 131121 build on an XP machine with the same result.

That's the very same recipe which works here. So I am baffled as to the different results. The only possibility I can see is some undefined behaviour, perhaps related to the failure of start-up to completely initialise the device, indicated to me by the fact that here some start-ups succeed and others fail, for no apparent reason. I'm trying to gather info on this for a report, and hopefully then it will be fixed, whereupon I suggest you try again. Sorry not to be of more help.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 24, 2013, 09:12:06 PM
Issue 3 - Options (menu) and My Shortcut buttons have no effect

I'm guessing this is a bug, since http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CreativeZENPort "Keys 90%  Buttons are working but the driver could be smarter and save power." and http://git.rockbox.org/?p=rockbox.git;a=blob;f=apps/keymaps/keymap-zen.c;hb=HEAD says

Quote
Two extra groups of button may exist:
  30  * (ctl) menu, shortcut
...
  34  * target  core ctl dir vol
...  37  *   ZEN    1    1   0  0
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: [Saint] on November 24, 2013, 11:09:40 PM
chrisjj,

A friendly reminder to consolidate your posts if possible, please.

Your enthusiasm is appreciated, but please try to avoid spamming the forum needlessly as it can be somewhat irritating.


[Saint]
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on November 25, 2013, 05:10:04 AM
The button map is very very basic, it doesn't use most of the buttons and anyone willing to help on this matter is welcome.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 25, 2013, 06:06:55 AM
A friendly reminder to consolidate your posts if possible, please.

Thanks. I made the last three messages as separate messages because they are on different subjects. If you'd like such messages to be combined into one, please do say.

please try to avoid spamming the forum needlessly

Please do point out any messages of mine that you consider to be spam and/or needless. Then I'll avoid posting such messages in future. Thanks Saint.

EDIT: I found two messages from me just saying Thanks and hence in in breach of forum rule 7). Apologies. I've deleted the content and if anyone can tell me how on this forum to delete a post, I'll do that too.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 25, 2013, 06:25:21 AM
The button map is very very basic, it doesn't use most of the buttons

Thanks. I find eight buttons work, and only these two don't.

and anyone willing to help on this matter is welcome.

I've updated http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CreativeZENPort to accord. I'm happy to help any coder with design and documentation on this.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: MRJOE8010 on November 25, 2013, 11:46:27 AM
Chris, I think the bootloader is not initializing the video drivers correctly on my machine, I get vertical multi-color dots even during boot up, RockBox skin is visible on menu and sub screens.  I put .jpg and .bmp files on internal and SD drives and the file manager doesn't see them, it locates and opens folders and .mp3 files without any problem.  4GB ZEN build 85578cd-1311255 and latest firmware.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: saratoga on November 25, 2013, 11:49:14 AM
Set the view option to all files. Its in the manual.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: MRJOE8010 on November 25, 2013, 07:02:31 PM
I set file options to "All Files", .jpg file are now visible in the listing but do not open/display nor do .txt etc.  Also selecting "Properties" from any file does not display any info, it returns to listing. Thanks.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: saratoga on November 25, 2013, 07:48:52 PM
I set file options to "All Files", .jpg file are now visible in the listing but do not open/display nor do .txt etc.  Also selecting "Properties" from any file does not display any info, it returns to listing. Thanks.

Plugins are disabled since they haven't been ported yet.  Hence, you can't actually open the files other than audio. 
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 25, 2013, 08:03:40 PM
Plugins are disabled since they haven't been ported yet.  Hence, you can't actually open the files other than audio.

I wonder though why you cannot get the properties of files that are audio e.g. FLACs. I get this same failure as MrJoe. And also on .M3Us.

PS MrJoe, I PMed you.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on November 26, 2013, 10:56:51 AM
I have done some rework of the lcd, trying to get it more stable. You are welcome to try with HEAD. I expect no more "vertical white lines". On the other hand, it might happen that the lcd stays black on init (after the bootloader) or after blacklight off, if that happen, please report.

NOTE: do NOT, I repeat do NOT report about issue about the lcd staying black in the bootloader, this will not get fixed by this commit this it doesn't change the bootloader. If for some reason the bootloader doesn't properly init the screen, reset the player. You can tell if it's the bootloader because the bootloader prints some version information, if you don't see those, it means the bootloader failed and you should not report.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 28, 2013, 09:42:54 AM
I have done some rework of the lcd, trying to get it more stable. You are welcome to try with HEAD. I expect no more "vertical white lines".

I've now tried this update. I didn't previously get the vertical white lines fault, so I don't know if the update fixes it.

On the other hand, it might happen that the lcd stays black on init (after the bootloader) or after blacklight off, if that happen, please report.

It does happen, so here's my report.

Issue 4 - Lock-up with black screen

Conditions: Device model is Creative ZEN 8Gb and 4Gb; device units are Chris's units G,J,L; Bootloader version is V1Beta2_fb8faa10; Rockbox version is cbed7ec-131126

Description: Sometimes upon Rockbox program launch, the device goes unresponsive to buttons, showing a black screen.

Steps:

1) With the device off, press and hold the Power button to start the device.
2) See the start-up text (white on black, from the bootloader), up to the line "Executing"

Expected:  success - Rockbox start screen (logo on yellow), then main menu.
Observed: sometimes success, other times failure with a black screen, backlight on, no response to buttons, and response to reset only.

Further steps:

3) After a successful start, keep Power held.

Observed: the device restarts, and repeats this cycle until it fails as above.

Notes

* This is 100% reproducible here, on all the three units I've tried.
* Also plugging/unplugging USB sometimes leads to the same locked-up state.
* The issue is present also on Rockbox version adc5033-131121
* On a black screen, "backlight on" is seen as a faint glow, intensity changing markedly with change of angle of view.
* pamaury  wrote (http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,13462.msg221482.html#msg221482): "For the lcd, I think I'm going to disable standby completely and simply turn off backlight because it is too unreliable at the moment." This gets my vote! I think it best to first get the port to a stable state, and only then add extras such as this small optimisation of power consumption.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on November 28, 2013, 09:55:36 AM
Note: At http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,13462.msg221482.html#msg221482 pamaury wrote: "For the lcd, I think I'm going to disable standby completely and simply turn off backlight because it is too unreliable at the moment." This gets my vote!
Thanks for the report ! Unfortunately even doing this won't fix the problem because the current driver doesn't use standby mode anymore (only on and off) and even if the it left the screen on at all time, it would still need to initialise the screen anyway on boot and this is where it fails. So it seems the problem is not gone.

The good news is, though, that your procedure works on mine: after a couple reboot I always get a black screen. This should help me a lot fixing the issue. That's a great point :) I still have a couple ideas on what could go wrong in the driver, assuming it's a lcd driver bug.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 28, 2013, 10:11:10 AM
even if the it left the screen on at all time, it would still need to initialise the screen anyway on boot and this is where it fails.

Understood, but my suggestion arises from my suspicion that RB's action on Backlight period expiry contributes to the fail on next start-up (boot). Re Evidence, on the recent version suffering the Backlight period white screen, that start-up fail showed occasionally and much higher frequency following a white screen. Re Mechanism, perhaps the start-up initialisation is incomplete. So re Debugging, perhaps this might help you identify that incompleteness.

The good news is, though, that your procedure works on mine: after a couple reboot I always get a black screen. This should help me a lot fixing the issue. That's a great point :) I still have a couple ideas on what could go wrong in the driver, assuming it's a lcd driver bug.

Great! I'll watch for news. Thanks again A.

EDIT: BTW, it might help to know of an as-yet-unreported issue that might be relevant. Occasionally Rockbox start screen has the wrong colours e.g. yellowish replaced by bluish, but black not affected. This suggests the display unit's colour inversion control bit is wrong (interpreting RGB as BGR), having not been initialised. (FTR, an alternative possible cause is here  (http://www.rockbox.org/irc/log-20131128#20:23:02)). If this persists, I'll make a detailed report.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: MRJOE8010 on November 29, 2013, 09:10:00 AM
Occasionally Rockbox start screen has the wrong colours e.g. yellowish replaced by bluish, but black not affected. This suggests the display unit's colour inversion control bit is wrong (interpreting RGB as BGR), having not been initialised

I am also experiencing this, Rockbox background is displayed green, and also on a couple of occasions the entire screen shifts to the right on all screens with left border starting mid-screen.  Neither condition are reliably repeatable.  4GB Zen 131126 build.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 29, 2013, 09:21:53 AM
I am also experiencing this, Rockbox background is displayed green, and also on a couple of occasions the entire screen shifts to the right on all screens with left border starting mid-screen.

EDIT: Which Rockbox background, specifically? The Rockbox logo background? The menu background?

Also, do you sometimes see the image reversed top to bottom, or left to right, or both?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: MRJOE8010 on November 29, 2013, 02:58:44 PM
Rockbox logo screen at start up is displaying with background color change, I am still having the issue that no colored theme screens are displaying as well as vertical multicolored pixels on all screens from start up.  All graphics and colors display perfectly on OF. 

Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 29, 2013, 08:46:27 PM
Interesting. Those dots are uniformly 1024 bytes apart in LCD pixel data sequence. That suggests to me an error in some data sequence e.g. the data is in 1024-byte blocks and there's one byte missing or added. Since the text is intact, this fault would seem to be in the background bitmap or the rendering thereof.

Joe, could you try taking a screendump? http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/ScreenDump . (I find this produces a stream of dumps rather than just the one, so inserts the USB and then remove it before changing the screen.)

And what theme is this?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: MRJOE8010 on November 29, 2013, 10:05:41 PM
Chris, this is stock CabbieV2 theme.  Curiously Screendump doesn't show the dots which I why I attached the photos.  I would be happy if the display looked like the Screen dumps below.  The boot and Rockbox logo screen are too quick to catch in a photo but the dots are visible from first boot and persist through all screens and all versions I have tried so far.  I am also currently experiencing crashes when removing USB.  I'm using the latest version of the bootloader and Rockbox cbed7ec-131126. Thanks.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on November 30, 2013, 08:14:25 AM
Chris, this is stock CabbieV2 theme.

Thanks. The menu screen looks like stock cabbieV2, but the WPS looks like rockbox_failsafe. Could you post a screenshot of the WPS?

Curiously Screendump doesn't show the dots which I why I attached the photos.

Thanks - that's valuable info. The corruption I got on restore from backlight period (now fixed) was likewise absent from screendumps. I take this to indicate the corruption is not in the RB frame buffer but in the transfer to the LCD. The fact the text is intact rather than sheared suggests byte substitution rather than addition/deletion.

the dots are visible from first boot

Start-up here shows successively
 
 1) grey CREATIVE logo on black
 2) black
 3) white text on black, first line "Boot version:" ...

Which first shows the dots?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on November 30, 2013, 12:15:12 PM
Here is a modified rockbox with another init sequence: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xa246g1zk1lyoag/rockbox.zip (https://www.dropbox.com/s/xa246g1zk1lyoag/rockbox.zip)
Can you try it and tell me if it's better ?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: MRJOE8010 on December 01, 2013, 12:36:12 AM
Chris, the Creative and black screens display normally (no dots), the dots first appear on the "Boot..." screen, screenshot below.  The WPS screen has consistently only displayed the default layout.

pamaury, I installed the updated Rockbox 131130 there is no change on the display, I tried to get a dump of the WPS screen but multiple attempts on different boot ups and different screens inserting/removing USB but only captured the menu screen.  USB did not reliably connect from menu screen, not a problem from off state.  Thanks for your continued work.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on December 01, 2013, 07:52:37 AM
Just to clarify the situation: the problems in the boot screen are normal and expected since you didn't change the bootloader. So at the moment, the discussion only applies to everything else: menu, WPS, ...
Do I understand correctly that the build I provided you still have a problem in those screens ?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: MRJOE8010 on December 01, 2013, 09:29:32 AM
Yes, there is still no change to the theme on the WPS screen across any of the builds I have tried including the lates 131130 build.  I have not been able to capture the WPS on a screen dump switching through the screens and inserting/removing USB.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on December 01, 2013, 05:41:39 PM
I still don't have a solution to the LCD problem but at least I have implemented charging, so it should now work on all stmp3700 targets. Obviously the bootloader won't charge until the next bootloader release, so you need to boot into rockbox to charge.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on December 01, 2013, 07:29:21 PM
Chris, the Creative and black screens display normally (no dots), the dots first appear on the "Boot..." screen, screenshot below.

Thanks Joe. I take that to mean the cause is absent from the Creative code, and present in the bootloader and Rockbox code.

The WPS screen has consistently only displayed the default layout.

The WPS you showed here (http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=13462.0;attach=6384;image)?? Then I'm surprised. My default WPS looks like this (http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/6475/s02d.png). Does it change if you reset using Settings, Manage Settings, Reset Settings?

I have not been able to capture the WPS on a screen dump switching through the screens and inserting/removing USB.

That too is strange. Here the Screendump facility captures WPS fine.

I still don't have a solution to the LCD problem but at least I have implemented charging, so it should now work on all stmp3700 targets.

Great! Thanks. I'll test it.

EDIT: It works. Previously the device would charge in the bootloader but not in RB - now it charges in both. Thanks again pamaury for the great work.
FTR, the change is here (http://git.rockbox.org/?p=rockbox.git;a=commit;h=3f55f01e9210c2c5f83d623dbc7412001303e884), the build is here (http://download.rockbox.org/daily/creativezen/rockbox-creativezen-20131202.zip), the version is 3f55f01-131201. Note: there's disagreement between dates in filename and version.

Obviously the bootloader won't charge until the next bootloader release

I find different. The current bootloader (V1Beta2_fb8faa1) charges fine, and IIRC the very first one did too.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on December 02, 2013, 10:07:56 AM
New try at LCD fix:
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on December 03, 2013, 10:13:48 AM
New try at LCD fix

I've tested this through a few hundred boot cycles. No change. I.e.

Procedure: Press and hold Power button.

Observed:

* most boots succeed (RB logo appears and since Power is held, device reboots)
* some fail upon RB start (immediately after "Executing..."), showing black screen, no response to buttons, and (with play Resume) no sound
* none fail upon bootloader start (immediately after CREATIVE logo)

After fail and reset, the boot often immediately fails again. Here, fail frequency is higher than upon boot on Power button above.

Conditions: ZEN 4Gb "J"; Bootloader version V1Beta3_3f555f01; RB version rockbox-zen-lcd-fix.zip 9ff1819-131202; default settings.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: MRJOE8010 on December 05, 2013, 01:24:35 AM
I have also tested 131201, 131202 and 131203 builds with similar results to chrisjj's... 131203 seems most stable, with most bootssuccessful and playback normally, some still hang after RB logo or crash after begining boot sequence.  I have noticed an increased problem with crashing after disconnecting usb both booting directly to usb or connecting usb after successful boot.

Chris, you mentioned "Bootloader version V1Beta3_3f555f01", the latest from the download link is version: V1Beta2_fb8faa1 is this a new bootloader? I would like to try this version to see if it affects the screen issues I have been experiencing.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on December 05, 2013, 09:16:47 AM
131203 ... some still hang after RB logo or crash after begining boot sequence.

I get neither. What I get is hang after the bootloader text, but before the RB logo.

I have noticed an increased problem with crashing after disconnecting usb both booting directly to usb or connecting usb after successful boot.

I too get hangs there, though I don't know if the frequency has increased. I also get them on RoLo, if I answer Yes. Probably one in five times.

Chris, you mentioned "Bootloader version V1Beta3_3f555f01", the latest from the download link is version: V1Beta2_fb8faa1 is this a new bootloader?

Yes:

http://www.rockbox.org/irc/log-20131202#16:39:00 .
16:39   pamaury   chrisjj: could you do me a favor and try a new bootloader: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lylxog0szynnxtm/firmware-zen-v3.nk

I would like to try this version to see if it affects the screen issues I have been experiencing.

Worth a try I think, even though:

http://www.rockbox.org/irc/log-20131202#16:49:13
16:49   chrisjj   No change so far - BSoD remains. Conditions: ZEN 4Gb "J"; Bootloader version V1Beta3_3f555f01; RB version rockbox-zen-lcd-fix.zip 9ff1819-131202; default settings.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: MRJOE8010 on December 06, 2013, 01:53:18 AM
I tried the Bootloader version V1Beta3_3f555f0 with RB ...131203, there is no change in performance.  Still have the same display issues, vertical dots after Creative screen, no theme on WPS screen.  I get fairly consistent crashing after USB removal. I am still not able to open any file type other than .mp3, all files are visible and the RockBox background displays on all screens except WPS but no other image or theme will display or load.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: saratoga on December 06, 2013, 04:10:19 AM
Which audio formats don't play?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on December 06, 2013, 10:06:54 AM
no theme on WPS screen.

That's really strange. Your screenshot shows what looks like rockbox_failsafe, so I wonder if you've got a left-over config file of some sort. Could you try deleting all the files and then copying .rockbox directly from a distribution .ZIP?

all files are visible and the RockBox background displays on all screens except WPS but no other image or theme will display or load.

Does the start screen's Rockbox logo appear?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on December 06, 2013, 10:20:19 AM
I think this discussion is going nowhere, MRJOE8010 please continue the discussion on those bug reports and/or create new ones for new problems:
Also, are you sure the File System is formatted properly ?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on December 06, 2013, 10:46:20 AM
Also, are you sure the File System is formatted properly ?

How may one verify the file system is formatted properly?

It would be particularly valuable for me, because the here official format procedure has never succeeded in formatting a device without an error. I've tried four units, 4 and 8Gb and all bootloader versions up to V1Beta3.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on December 06, 2013, 10:48:40 AM
Ah that's very interesting. With Windows I wrote down the procedure on the wiki, I think you can always right click on the drive in "Computer" and select format. However if it fails this might indicate another issue, maybe a problem with the storage driver ? Can you try to format with another computer or Linux if you can ?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on December 06, 2013, 11:02:25 AM
Ah that's very interesting. With Windows I wrote down the procedure on the wiki

My original report of failure is here http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,13462.msg221249.html#msg221249 , now updated.

I think you can always right click on the drive in "Computer" and select format.

I think not. You have to first do the failing Disk Management format and then do Explorer Quick Format.

However if it fails this might indicate another issue, maybe a problem with the storage driver ?

I have done hundreds of formats using the OF without any failure.

Can you try to format with another computer or Linux if you can ?

Will do.

Meanwhile, if anyone has got the RB port official format procedure for Windows to work on the current bootloader (V1Beta3_3f555f01), please do report here. Thanks.

And if anyone can answer "How may one verify the file system is formatted properly?", I'd be grateful.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: MRJOE8010 on December 07, 2013, 01:54:03 AM
pamaury, I just re-read the bootloader instructions in the wiki and noticed that there are two variants for the Zen firmware.  I am in the US using the prebuilt version of firmware-zen.nk for Windows.  Is this the EU version, and if so could that be a possible cause of the lcd issues only I seem to be experiencing? Thanks for your hard work and I'm sorry to have been a bother.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on December 07, 2013, 06:54:28 AM
MRJO8010:
Actually there is a simple to check that: boot into recovery, select "format" (you will loose all the data) and try to boot the OF. If the LCD works correctly in OF it means in makes nod difference (since this is the EU firmware). I expected both kinds to have the same LCD though.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: MRJOE8010 on December 09, 2013, 01:18:10 AM
pamaury, the screen does work properly booting into OF. Thanks.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: ChronoSphere on January 19, 2014, 04:29:24 PM
Seeing this build's progress is a pleasant surprise considering my clip+ recently died. This gave me a reason to revive my old Creative ZEN. I must say, for an "unusable" build, it doesn't behave that differently than the clip+ one (not counting the manual installation). So far it's been smooth sailing, except for a crash when I attempted to insert the SD card while in browser mode (but to be honest, I've been having the same issue sporadically with the clip+ so...) which hasn't resurfaced yet.

In any case, this was the kernel panic:
Code: [Select]
*PANIC*
microSD init failed: -2
pc:60060390 sp: 600FCA48
bt end

Can you do anything to remove the loud click/booming sound on power up/shutdown? It sounds the same as pulling the plug on active speakers instead of turning them off, if you don't know what I mean.

Another (I guess cosmetic) bug I noticed is that the charging indicator stops its animation once you connect it to the PC, the charging is still working though.

I'll be following this thread and am willing to assist with any tests needed, thanks for working on this!
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on January 27, 2014, 07:31:54 PM
Re the failure of Windows format:

this might indicate another issue, maybe a problem with the storage driver ? Can you try to format with another computer or Linux if you can ?

More tests done: virtual Win XP computer fails, Win 7 succeeds and Mac OSX succeeds. Original report http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,13462.msg221249.html#msg221249 updated.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on January 27, 2014, 07:35:46 PM
loud click/booming sound on power up/shutdown

I too get that.

am willing to assist with any tests needed

If you've tried formatting on Win XP, I'd be interested to hear if you got more success than I.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: ChronoSphere on February 04, 2014, 04:36:07 PM
If you've tried formatting on Win XP, I'd be interested to hear if you got more success than I.
Well, FWIW formatting works on my VMed winXP SP3. I tried formatting it once when it was already rockbox-formatted and once when it was creativeOS-formatted. Both went fine. It was detected as a removable drive with corrupted filenames in the latter case, but it did format fine.

The button map is very very basic, it doesn't use most of the buttons and anyone willing to help on this matter is welcome.
If "help" in this case means suggestions how to map them, here is how I'd do it:

- play/pause/back/joystick middle key as they are now
- the "menu" "options" key should bring you the "quickscreen" menu (where you can set a quickaction for up/down/left/right), long press to main menu.
- the shortcut key (to the left of play/pause) could jump to the "shortcuts" menu.

Might be a stupid question, but can I view what changed between revisions somewhere?
Processor frequency scaling is still not implemented, is it?

edit: The "Disk usage" section on the wiki has a typo btw: "In its current state, the port can really work along with the OF because of the file system". Should be "can't"
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on February 07, 2014, 08:08:19 AM
Frequency scaling is not implemented, I didn't have much time recently but at least I found what causes the "Black screen of death". You can have a look at the most recent changes on the front page of rockbox.org (http://rockbox.org) or have a look at the repo http://git.rockbox.org/?p=rockbox.git (http://git.rockbox.org/?p=rockbox.git) but it's not specific to the ZEN, it's the entire project. Look for commits containing "imx233" mostly.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on February 07, 2014, 06:46:38 PM
- the "menu" key should bring you the "quickscreen" menu (where you can set a quickaction for up/down/left/right), long press to main menu.

I think that's the key normally called the Options key - top right. Not to be confused with the Menu/Back key - top left.

Might be a stupid question, but can I view what changed between revisions somewhere?

I've found no way of getting a list of the RB changes to a specific port.  One can manually inspect daily builds. Though Creative ZEN is missing from the Daily Builds page, this URL will provide the list: https://www.rockbox.org/dl.cgi?bin=creativezen .

edit: The "Disk usage" section on the wiki has a typo btw: "In its current state, the port can really work along with the OF because of the file system". Should be "can't"

Thanks for the defect report. Now fixed.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on February 10, 2014, 05:23:24 PM
Here is a new try at fixing the LCD issues: the code is already in the trunk but it needs a bootloader update. You can help by tring this new bootloader: note that for size reasons this build doesn't support dualbooting, so it's mainly for testing purposes: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nlgm4857t0d8btr/firmware-zen-beta.nk (https://www.dropbox.com/s/nlgm4857t0d8btr/firmware-zen-beta.nk).
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: ChronoSphere on February 10, 2014, 06:14:50 PM
I like the quick booting speed of this bootloader. Considering dual OS doesn't seem likely anyway, why keep the option to boot there anyway?

As for the LCD itself, one thing I noticed is that now it doesn't flash white while switching between bootloader and rockbox screens. There is still a white flash on wakeup from idling though. I did about 20 boots so far and no black screen hangs so far. I'm using a 4GB model btw.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on February 10, 2014, 08:24:56 PM
Here is a new try at fixing the LCD issues: the code is already in the trunk but it needs a bootloader update. You can help by tring this new bootloader: note that for size reasons this build doesn't support dualbooting, so it's mainly for testing purposes: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nlgm4857t0d8btr/firmware-zen-beta.nk (https://www.dropbox.com/s/nlgm4857t0d8btr/firmware-zen-beta.nk).

Thanks for that. Where is an acceptable place to report bugs in this release?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on February 11, 2014, 05:23:09 AM
I guess here since this is a crucial issue which is blocking the port. Apparently ChronoSphere and I don't suffer from the black screen issue with this new bootloader so it would be helpful if you could test on your devices and report. Make sure to use the latest build (always we had a problem with the website this night so I'm not sure they were actually built).
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: ChronoSphere on February 13, 2014, 05:18:42 PM
Several days and boots later, no black screens here.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: Exether on February 18, 2014, 04:46:21 AM
Hi there, I'm new member,

I decided to register and post to contribute and to thank everyone for the awesome Rockbox port to the creative Zen, and especially Amaury for taking care of this, despite lacks of time. Your work counts a lot for me, I really love my Rockbox Zen(s) !

I upgraded the bootloader with the last version, and the device (4Gb) encounters no more hangs at startup. As mentioned before, there is no more white splash screen also.

Black screen of death was my main concern versus the daily use of my device. It seems to be fixed now, hurra ! (yep, I feel enthusiastic !)
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: benshepherd on February 21, 2014, 07:32:35 AM
I can't install Rockbox on my Zen. I feel I am probably doing something stupid or missing a step. Here's what I've done, following the steps on the wiki page (http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CreativeZENPort):
On the Recovery Mode screen, I only have three options: Clear Data, Format All, and Reboot. Apparently there should be a Reload Firmware option, but I don't see it. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on February 21, 2014, 07:36:44 AM
Hi,
you are doing things in the wrong order: first you restart the ZEN into recovery mode, then you select "reload firmware", then you use sendfirm to send the firmware and then you format.
I have never heard of a ZEN without the "Reload Firmware" option, maybe try to use sendfirm directly see if it works.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: benshepherd on February 21, 2014, 07:46:06 AM
With apologies for the terrible quality:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3i8b3u65b0xaktp/Photo0176.jpg (https://www.dropbox.com/s/3i8b3u65b0xaktp/Photo0176.jpg)

The text on blue on the second line says "V1.04.01".

(Amaury Pouly) Edit: url tag was ill-formed
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on February 21, 2014, 07:50:37 AM
Ok now I understand, you have the ZEN MX which is different from the ZEN. I have began some work on the ZEN MX but it's not finished/working yet and it uses a completely different install method.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: benshepherd on February 21, 2014, 08:01:32 AM
Ah, I see - thanks! I was a bit confused about whether there was a difference; that's cleared it up. I'll keep an eye out for progress updates. Let me know if you need a volunteer for testing!
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: tp11 on February 25, 2014, 07:25:10 AM
I tried the port and it is more stable than I thought. Apart from the screen "corruption" playing music seems to be working perfectly. I am not sure if my ears are correct but the sound quality seems to be better than with Creative firmware.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on February 25, 2014, 08:38:29 AM
Hi, thanks for the feeback. Can you be a bit more precise about this screen corruption (or take a picture) ? About the sound quality, this is absolutely possible since current we use the default audio parameters. The good news is that I have found a table on how to setup the audio parameters correctly so maybe I can increase the audio quality by using more correct settings.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: tp11 on March 01, 2014, 09:23:54 AM
Hi, thanks for the feeback. Can you be a bit more precise about this screen corruption (or take a picture) ?

Here's a video. And how to reproduce it: start the device, lock the screen (screen goes blank) and unlock.  I am using rockbox-creativezen-20140224.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4Ln7bDUo-4
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: Exether on March 01, 2014, 03:43:25 PM
Hello,

I have exactly the same screen corruption as on the video on a 4Gb Zen of mine.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on March 03, 2014, 06:01:20 PM
I have committed a fix for the screen, actually it's because I forgot to commit half of the errata by mistake last time. I hope it will work this time.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on March 08, 2014, 01:05:50 PM
Hi all,
I have committed the new frequency scaling code and enabled it on the ZEN (and XFI). I don't expect any major problem here except that when switching frequency the screen might flicker once. Unfortunately, I don't see a way to fix this without compromising the battery life or performance. If you run in any serious issues, please comment so it can be fixed or reverted depending on the severity. Also if someone feels like doing a battery bench (even if approximated since we don't have plugins at the moment), it would be greatly appreciated.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: ChronoSphere on March 11, 2014, 08:15:13 PM
Thanks for the commits!
Do we have a battery bench of the non-scaling version? Or do we only want one of the one with frequency scaling enabled?
From what I saw, the non-scaling version manages approximately 10-12h with mpc@160kbps, but I'd be willing to do more tests.

An issue that was present prior to the display and frequency scaling commits, or rather, two:

- some covers either fail to display or only display in grayscale. Is there a size limitation for covers in rockbox? My covers are all 500x500 jpg@80% quality
- when going forward or backwards through the now playing list too fast, the controls sometimes hang and the player stops responding to any input. The music is still playing. After some time the commands are executed in very fast succession and the player is responsive again.

The two might be related if the code attempts to load the cover and fails, resulting in some kind of delay, just guessing.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on March 12, 2014, 04:08:50 AM
Hi,
ideally, I would love to know: OF battery life, Robkox battery life (before and after frequency scaling), if you have any such figures for the OF, please share.
About your issue:
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: ChronoSphere on March 12, 2014, 10:44:18 AM
Looking at the restrictions, it make sense. Some of the jpg covers are indeed progressive, so no wonder they don't appear. They don't seem to be up to date though, as mpc uses APEv2 tags yet the covers appear.

Anyway, I am currently benching the non-scaling version using mp3 so that I can compare it to the OF later on. The last bootloader you provided to test the boot hang issue had OF boot functionality removed from what I remember. Could you please give me a link to one that can boot the OF?

Also, about the screen flickering, if it's not too much work, why don't you implement the fix and I could then run a benchmark test to see how much of an impact it really has. Personally, if the difference is in minutes, then it's worth keeping the fix.

edit:
Took a while, but here are the first results (MP3 v0):

OF: ~21h +- 18 min
w/o scaling: ~20h +-  10 min
w/ scaling: ~25h +- 10 min

A plus of 25% is quite a lot in my book, thanks for your hard work!

edit2: added the OF times. I'm assuming the CPU is not scaling in bootloader yet, but I'm a bit confused to see the battery discharge when plugged and running rockbox w/scaling.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on March 18, 2014, 06:54:12 AM
The bootloader has not been updated in a long time and doesn't provide charging. The next version will.
Thanks for the battery bench :)
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: ChronoSphere on March 18, 2014, 06:32:03 PM
I looked at battery debug info, what happens is that rockbox seemingly charges the battery to max, then stops and lets it discharge to 70%, where it then holds the voltage. Could it be that it's calibrated for a different battery or something?
I could provide a screendump to better illustrate it, but I can't seem to find out how to actually do one after activating the feature in the debug menu...
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on March 18, 2014, 06:49:39 PM
Strange, I'll have a look at this issue. No it's not related to calibration.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: ChronoSphere on March 28, 2014, 07:15:10 PM
I've had a strange experience today.
The player was playing music in locked state as usual, then suddenly the sound started going on and off in irregular intervals accompanied with the same type click as when you turn the player off, albeit more quiet.
After 4-5 clicks the player just turned itself off.

I turned it on immediately after that and it has worked fine for a few hours until I turned it off normally again.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: giogio on April 22, 2014, 12:04:19 PM
Thanks for all the great work! Please keep on coding and testing!

Thank you very much  ;D
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: grums on April 28, 2014, 04:27:47 AM
A pleasant surprise to get a chance to use my irritating 2GB ZEN with Rockbox - good work!
However, it doesn't detect a 16GB SDHC card which is inserted before boot: (not present).
If I insert the card when Rockbox is running, I get a white crash screen.
The card works fine using the OF.
I'm using the 20140428 build and have played around with the 3 bootloaders I was able to find in the thread.
Regards, Ole
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on April 28, 2014, 04:29:42 AM
Can you elaborate on the white crash screen: it should display some error message, can you tell me what it is ?
Thanks
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: grums on April 28, 2014, 07:54:34 AM
When I insert the card on a running system I get:

*PANIC*
 microSD init failed: -2
pc:6005FA94 sp:600FCD28
bt end

- and a paper-clip reset is necessary - hope this helps.

Regards, Ole

Additional info: When I boot in Bootloader USB Mode my PC sees 2 devices with removable storage, the drive with the SDHC card cannot be formatted (No Disk).
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on May 01, 2014, 07:21:02 AM
@grums: it means the card fails to initialise within the allowed time (one second). Does the card work on your computer ? Did you try other cards with the ZEN ?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: grums on May 01, 2014, 02:36:38 PM
1) The SDHC card (Kingston Class 4) works on my PC.
2) An 8GB card (pqi uSDHC Class 2) works on the ZEN - both when inserted before boot and when inserted on running system (not a thorough test, just browsing the card).

Of course I'm more than willing to test a version with more relaxed timing constraints... ;D

Update: The (failing) SDHC card also works on a GPS and a digital camera.
Update: The SDHC card (SD4/16GB) is on Creative's positive list for the ZEN.
Update: 2 more cards tested on same RB version as mentioned earlier (work OK on OF):
3) A 16GB card (Medion uSDHC Class 6) works
4) An 8GB card (pqi uSDHC Class 4) works when inserted/ejected on running system, but is not detected at boot
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: grums on May 06, 2014, 05:55:09 AM
Plugins?
How much effort does it take to port a plugin to the ZEN - apart from setting up a complete development system?
I'd like to take advantage of the very nice display, and the first plugins could be the text viewer and JPEG viewer (maybe it has been done?)
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on May 06, 2014, 07:04:28 AM
I will upload a build with an extended timeout for SD, however the spec is very precise that the card must initialise within 1sec, so at best it would mean your card is buggy.
Porting one specific plugin is very easy, it's only a matter of deciding the key assignement. However the build system is pretty dumb and you must do it for all plugins before being able to enable them and that's a lot of work. You can use the simulator so you don't need a cross-compiler, but you still need everything else from a complete dev system: http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/UiSimulator (http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/UiSimulator)
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: grums on May 06, 2014, 02:41:55 PM
1) Sounds fine - I might get the opportunity to test a 5th (u)SHDC card. BTW, can the workaround you mention be tested in the bootloader (trying to solve: card not detected at boot), or is it necessary to make a new build?
2) I don't quite understand why all the plugins have to be ported in order to test just one specific on the real hardware - how can the BatteryBenchmark plugin mentioned in this thread run?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: saratoga on May 06, 2014, 02:48:11 PM
2) I don't quite understand why all the plugins have to be ported in order to test just one specific on the real hardware - how can the BatteryBenchmark plugin mentioned in this thread run?

The build system will try to build either all of them or none of them.  You can of course hack up your own plugin to build independently of the rest, but it'll be a bit of effort. 
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on May 07, 2014, 11:41:52 AM
Here is a build with an extended delay for SD init: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8uzv7xnvhsgfh32/rockbox_zen_extra_sd_delay.zip (https://www.dropbox.com/s/8uzv7xnvhsgfh32/rockbox_zen_extra_sd_delay.zip). The timeout is set to 3 seconds.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: grums on May 07, 2014, 03:56:58 PM
Thank you - it fails in exactly the same way as described earlier, when the card is inserted.
A boot with the card inserted also fails to detect the card - but is that because the bootloader hasn't been replaced? Thank you for your efforts.

@Saratoga: I (clearly) don't know this build system, but how did CronosSphere in reply #137 manage to run the BatteryBenchmark plugin - if the rest of the plugins are not ported?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: [Saint] on May 08, 2014, 12:25:40 AM
@Saratoga: I (clearly) don't know this build system, but how did CronosSphere in reply #137 manage to run the BatteryBenchmark plugin - if the rest of the plugins are not ported?

S/he didn't, I'm guessing.

I can understand how you could parse it that way, but, there is more than one way to skin a cat, as it were.

They could have simply charged the device and watched the clock, or checked the information presented in System -> Running Time, or "guestimated" from System -> Debug -> View battery.


[Saint]
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on May 08, 2014, 05:58:03 AM
For reference, here is what a minimal keymap change looks like: http://git.rockbox.org/?p=rockbox.git;a=commit;h=d489444119f6c734d7065cd52833f37fd7f739e8 (http://git.rockbox.org/?p=rockbox.git;a=commit;h=d489444119f6c734d7065cd52833f37fd7f739e8)  This one is for the ZEN X-Fi3 but the principle is the same: go through all plugins, fix them.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: ChronoSphere on May 10, 2014, 07:50:13 AM
@Saratoga: I (clearly) don't know this build system, but how did CronosSphere in reply #137 manage to run the BatteryBenchmark plugin - if the rest of the plugins are not ported?
He timed it by hand, that's why the times are in +/- :P
Considering the OF doesn't have a bench plugin, I had to do it for the OF anyway.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: saratoga on May 10, 2014, 12:36:25 PM
For battery benchmarking the OF I recommend using the line in on your PC and some recording software. When the battery eventually dies, check to see when the recorded audio goes silent.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: ChronoSphere on May 10, 2014, 07:19:07 PM
That's a good workaround, but wouldn't the different resistance between using line in and the headphones throw the measurement off? I'm not an expert on those things though.

Oh and the firmware has been rock solid so far. What is still missing until it can be counted "stable"?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: [Saint] on May 10, 2014, 11:10:07 PM
Oh and the firmware has been rock solid so far. What is still missing until it can be counted "stable"?

From rockbox.org:

Quote
Stable ports

Rockbox runs well on these players, has a complete manual and is supported by the installer:


[Saint]
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: varogami on May 22, 2014, 10:26:41 AM
Hello, I'm trying rockbox on my creative zen, and I love it, it's a great work. I have some questions, I'm using this git commit

commit 4b181b4517fad106ab1ffbdab01adac9cf8e4bee
Author: Jonathan Gordon <rockbox@jdgordon.info>
Date:   Wed May 21 18:39:56 2014 +1000

and rockbox for zen "rockbox-creativezen-20140520.zip"
and I have Debian/Wheezy linux

is it normal that "sendfirm" do:

Device 0 (VID=041e and PID=4157) is a Creative ZEN.
LIBMTP PANIC: could not inspect object property descriptions!
LIBMTP PANIC: could not inspect object property descriptions!
Sending /home/andrea/workspace/rockbox/rockbox/myfirmware-zen.nk
Sending file...
Progress: 25215078 of 25215078 (100%)
Error sending file.
Error 2: PTP Layer error 02ff: LIBMTP_Send_File_From_File_Descriptor(): Could not send object.
Error 2: (Look this up in ptp.h for an explanation.)
ERROR: Could not close session!

The firmware work even with errors.

Another questions is, how to make a database statistic like "most listen"?
how to help for testing?
I see it needs battery testing but I can't help because my battery work bad with original system, I don't think I can give good information.

Thanks
varo
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on May 23, 2014, 05:03:42 AM
Hi, yes sendfirm can report errors and yet the update work. This is because here it reports errors on other operations (like close session). Usually this happen if you device is also used by another MTP tool or daemon.
I think the database tracks the number of times you listen to a song and you sort by most listened, but I admit I never use it so I'm not sure.
At the moment, what is really missing are keymap for the plugins, and a port of the manual. Unfortunately they are both painful to do. Appart from that, just using the device and reporting problems is a good way to help, if you find reproduceable bugs.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: [Saint] on May 23, 2014, 09:45:12 PM
The Database will capture a great number of playback statistics (including most/least/never played tracks) under the "History" sub-menu, but in order for this to function "gather runtime data" *must* be enabled.


[Saint]
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: varogami on May 25, 2014, 12:07:34 PM
@pamaury
To make a manual did we need to complete rockbox system like installation with rockbox utility? Or simply can we use the instruction in wiki of "zen new port"?
How make keymap of plugin? I immagine it needs compile plugin and config with creative keymap, but I don't find plugin source. I tried to compile ui-simulator and make it plugins of other players but it return on error on elf header.

@[Saint]
thanks, I thought that it disable in rockbox zen source code
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: saratoga on May 25, 2014, 02:26:06 PM
How make keymap of plugin? I immagine it needs compile plugin and config with creative keymap, but I don't find plugin source. I tried to compile ui-simulator and make it plugins of other players but it return on error on elf header.

Take a look at the commit for the Zen XFI 3:

http://git.rockbox.org/?p=rockbox.git;a=commit;h=d489444

The changes for the Zen are likely to be very similar, although the specific keys won't be precisely the same.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on July 17, 2014, 09:45:23 AM
Hi all,
since no one wanted to do the job, I created the keymap for all the plugins and enabled them. So you can now use your favorite plugin. Beware, I didn't test most of the plugins, I just create want I thought was a sensible keymap. So if you think it is not optimal in some cases, please report this here and provide an  alternative proposal. I cannot list the keys here, it would be too long, but just know that:
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on July 19, 2014, 02:51:59 PM
Hi, yes sendfirm can report errors and yet the update work. This is because here it reports errors on other operations (like close session). Usually this happen if you device is also used by another MTP tool or daemon.

FWIW I have made many runs ensuring no other process accessing the ZEN, and go no errors.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on July 19, 2014, 03:30:27 PM
I guess here since this is a crucial issue which is blocking the port. Apparently ChronoSphere and I don't suffer from the black screen issue with this new bootloader so it would be helpful if you could test on your devices and report. Make sure to use the latest build (always we had a problem with the website this night so I'm not sure they were actually built).

Is the latest built build suitable?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on July 20, 2014, 04:30:48 AM
Your quote is useless, it's doesn't tell when issue you are talking about about. As far as I know the only issue left with the port is screen slight flickering on cpu boost, which is really minor. Also nobody has benched OF versus Rockbox on battery life.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on July 20, 2014, 07:29:15 AM
Your quote is useless, it's doesn't tell when issue you are talking about about.

I'm talking about the issue you describe in that quote as 'the black screen issue' . I can't find a FS entry for it.

As far as I know the only issue left with the port is screen slight flickering on cpu boost

I'd thought the following open issues were still open:

FS#12917 - [ZEN/ZEN X-Fi] LCD problems (http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/12917)
FS#12918 - [ZEN/ZEN X-Fi] Crash after USB unplug (http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/12918)

but it is great to hear they are fixed. Thanks.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on July 20, 2014, 12:32:28 PM
I installed on my device called ZEN JOE (4Gb) following http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CreativeZENPort , using firmware https://www.dropbox.com/s/cgqvrwr4qb3tb8u/firmware-zen.nk and RB http://download.rockbox.org/daily/creativezen/rockbox-creativezen-20140720.zip .

Note: the .nk file is about 250x the size the last beta I used.

When I followed:

* Power off your device
* Plug the USB cable and wait for the Rockbox bootloader to show up and enter USB bootloader mode

I got a white screen on the device.

* The device should appear be detect as Mass Storage device in your host.

It didn't. This is Win 7.  So I repeated, and then it was detected. The screen has coloured dots.

When RB booted, it gave Data abort at 6004D60C.

I deleted the non-RB files (music). Same fail. I reformatted ( http://i.imgur.com/Dyoqpzt.png ) and recopied RB. Same fail.

Any ideas?

On a different unit, ZEN G (8Gb) , there are no coloured dots and RB runs fine. Except the start-up BSoD issue remains. As previously reported, about one in five RB start-ups fails with a BSoD requiring reset.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: giogio on September 04, 2014, 02:48:19 PM
Is it possible to make the "option" button (top right)  as context menu option?
I find it very uneasy to use long press on central button to access this menu and hope to see this little improvement soon
=)
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: varogami on September 26, 2014, 04:13:17 AM
I have 2 bugs:
1) when I plug usb with Zen power down begin with "charging status: charging" then "charging status: topoffng" and finally "charging status: disable". On "charging status: disable" discharging the Zen
2) on Database->History->Most Played. I get "dir buffer is full"
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on September 27, 2014, 05:21:49 AM
Hi, about 1), does it happen when the battery is fully charged or always ? It looks like 2) is more likely a database bug which unfornately is common because the database is quite unmaintained.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: varogami on September 27, 2014, 06:05:26 AM
Hi, about 1), does it happen when the battery is fully charged or always ? It looks like 2) is more likely a database bug which unfornately is common because the database is quite unmaintained.
1) after the battery is fully charged but my battery is a little broke, full is 84% and sometimes I get wrong percentage.
The values sometimes not are linear, when the zen is fully charged oscillate on 83%/84% and other little bug for old battery I think
2) ok
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on September 27, 2014, 06:07:32 AM
Discharge after full charge is a known bug. I will eventually squash it out...
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: jln on November 01, 2014, 08:15:39 AM
hi

http://sh.one.pl/rockbox-zen-mpg-black-lines.jpg

is mpg playback black interlace lines known issue? - the way in fact video is 320x120 (half of lines invisible black) - on photo elephant movie (320x240) from rockbox web.
(this one. http://download.rockbox.org/mpeg/elephantsdream-q6-320x240-830kbps.mpg)

the bottom OSD is displayed corectly, so it looks as it comes at decoding layer?
(lcd works fine anywhere else, manu, games)

any video I try never works correctly.

Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on November 01, 2014, 08:17:28 AM
Hi,
to be honest I have never tried to play a video, so it is possible that the YUV blitting function is broken and no one noticed ^^
I'll try it on mine to check.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: natanelho on November 27, 2014, 01:53:58 AM
i have the creative zen and i thought to rockbox it. are there still bugs in this port? can i get the OF back if RB wont work?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on November 27, 2014, 02:45:43 AM
Yes you can always install the OF back, and yes there are a few bugs left, mainly one: sometimes the device will crash and display a white screen, some people have it, some don't.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: natanelho on November 27, 2014, 06:15:59 AM
are there "deadly bugs"?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on November 27, 2014, 07:00:32 AM
I don't know what you mean by deadly, it will not kill your device if that's the question, you'll need to reset it though. Like I said, it's very dependent on the device, on my device I get one white screen every week perhaps, some seem to get it every hour. I don't know how to fix that bug for the moment.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: natanelho on December 08, 2014, 02:47:32 PM
so how to install it? where can i find info about installing rb on my zen?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on December 09, 2014, 09:14:47 AM
It is all written on the wiki page http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CreativeZENPort (http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CreativeZENPort).
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: giogio on February 06, 2015, 03:03:30 PM
In which file is there the buttons configuration? I'd like to make use of the unutilized option button for context menu, as it should be, instead of long press on center button.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: saratoga on February 06, 2015, 04:39:45 PM
The keymaps are in apps/keymaps.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: giogio on February 15, 2015, 12:55:47 PM
I pushed a modified version of the keymap. This is the link for review:  http://gerrit.rockbox.org/1149
Thank you
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: FireKeeper on October 30, 2015, 06:41:50 PM
hey guys!

is the SD card works fine for you? mine doesn't seem to work properly if i boot up with the card slotted it. i have to disconnect and reconnect the card to get it to work. it works fine after this, but still, it's very annoying. any settings/fix for this?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on November 01, 2015, 03:41:07 PM
Hi,
I was not aware of this problem. I'll try on it on my ZEN to see if it suffers from this problem.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on December 14, 2015, 05:37:09 PM
the start-up BSoD issue remains. As previously reported, about one in five RB start-ups fails with a BSoD requiring reset.

Anyone know if this is fixed? The port is otherwise awesomely good and I'd love to be able to use it for real.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on December 15, 2015, 09:26:48 AM
Hi,
I don't think there has been much progress on the matter: my last commit on this issue is about one year old and I believe the status is the same: it works for some and is very unreliable for others.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on December 15, 2015, 09:48:15 AM
I believe the status is the same: it works for some and is very unreliable for others.

On the units I've tried, the results vary for RB boot failing every time (with Data abort at 6004D60C) and about one in five RB start-ups fail with a BSoD requiring reset.

If the failing every time unit might help your debugging, do say, and I'll verify with the latest build and post it to you.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: brendonla on January 22, 2016, 05:00:13 AM
Took four hours of trial and error of loading the bootloader into the Creative Zen and then figuring out that the Rockbox software has to be extracted from zip archive directly to the internal memory after proper formatting, but wow was this totally worth it!

Enjoying this with my Vsonic VSD5 IEMs. There's plenty of life left in this old horse thanks to Rockbox.
Thank you to the dev(s) who worked on this RockBox port!
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: natanelho on April 08, 2016, 11:52:24 AM
wow that maked my 16GB zen usable again! THX!
btw is there a way to make 2 partitions- one for the OF and one FAT32-formatted for RB?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on April 08, 2016, 12:01:29 PM
Hi,
unfortnately, there is no easy way for rockbox and creative to share the storage. If I remember correctly, Creative uses a nonstandard partition record, so in theory I could create a rockbox-only partition, so that the OF and rockbox both work. However this approach has some downsides:
If there are enough votes for this approach, with some suggestion on how to choose the rockbox versus OF ratio, I can implement it.

One possiblity for rockbox versus OF size: the bootloader could provide a menu (when pushing some button on boot), which let you choose between, say, 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. The bootloader could then resize but then both OF and rockbox partition would be erased (ie loss of data). Also that would mean investigating how to format an OF partition but hopefully it can be done.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: ZOS474 on July 25, 2016, 01:59:06 PM
Thanks to the incredible work here, I have upgraded two of my old 8gb Creative Zens to rockbox and am beyond happy with the results (database covers both the internal memory and the SD card - I have 32gb on both - and all the songs are found & very important for me, I can change the left/right sound balance!)  Since I had to dig around to put the procedure together, I thought I would reproduce exactly what I did to get mine working.  I am using Windows 7 64 bit, but I expect the procedure should be similar for other windows versions.

01. Download the following firmware files and store them in an easy location on your computer hard drive (you can scan earlier forum posts to understand history of these)
   https://www.dropbox.com/s/nlgm4857t0d8btr/firmware-zen-beta.nk (https://www.dropbox.com/s/nlgm4857t0d8btr/firmware-zen-beta.nk)
   https://www.dropbox.com/s/9vwc4qdyh0c6e0p/sendfirm.exe (https://www.dropbox.com/s/9vwc4qdyh0c6e0p/sendfirm.exe)
   https://www.dropbox.com/s/t96injmo9d2jhgt/MTP_DLL.dll (https://www.dropbox.com/s/t96injmo9d2jhgt/MTP_DLL.dll)
02. If needed, disconnect your Zen from the computer
03. Shut off Zen by pressing reset button (with paperclip inserted into hole bottom of unit) - you can't just toggle the on/off button
04. Start up by holding the play button down and toggling the on button
05. Select Reload Firmware & select Yes to erase firmware.
06. When done, connect with USB cable to computer
07. Open DOS windows into the directory on the computer that contains sendfirm.exe and firmware-zen-beta.nk (navigate to the directory in windows explorer, then keep the Shift key down and right-click in the open area on the right side.  From the drop down menu select Open Command Window Here.)
08. In the DOS window type: sendfirm firmware-zen-beta.nk (this is the latest version as of 7/25/16 and is dated 2/10/2014.) When you get a message that the firmware was sent succesfully, close the DOS window.
09. The Zen should now show up as a drive in Windows (if you have an SD Card installed, it will show as 2 drives.)  The following refers to the main Zen Drive (it may be easier if you eject the SD Card until you are done so you dont accidentally mistake it for the main drive.)
10. You might get a message from Windows asking to format the drive - if you do then click yes otherwise right-click the drive in windows and select format.  Use the default settings to quick format with FAT32
11. Get the latest zen rockbox package at http://www.rockbox.org/dl.cgi?bin=creativezen (http://www.rockbox.org/dl.cgi?bin=creativezen).  As of 7/25/16, the latest rev is 0f89b04 and package is rockbox-creativezen-20160725.zip
12. Extract the package to the zen drive (it should all be grouped under .rockbox as the main directory - I open the zip file in 7Zip and drag the whole folder over so all I see on the zen drive is .rockbox with everything else stored under that.)
13. When all copied, eject the unit from windows (as you would a normal hard drive i.e. click on the 'Safely Remove' icon on the taskbar) and then reboot Zen (turn off then turn on again.)
14. When all running OK then you can install alternate fonts & themes - to do this shut zen down then connect the USB cable to get into native disk mode.  If you connect the usb cable while zen is on it will connect into music copy mode instead.
15. To install themes: go to http://themes.rockbox.org/index.php?allthemes & choose any of the 320x240 resolution options that look good.  They will download as zip files and will have .rockbox as the root directory.  Extract these so they merge into the .rockbox structure on the zen drive (I do this by just dragging the .rockbox directory in the zip file onto the zen drive in windows explorer - it then asks if I want to merge with the existing folder and I say yes.)
16. The procedure for installing fonts is similar - get the font pack from http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/RockboxExtras

I hope this helps!
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: saratoga on July 25, 2016, 02:13:03 PM
We ask that people not post instructions to development threads when we have a wiki that has instructions.  Would you instead improve the wiki instructions?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on August 22, 2016, 11:01:47 AM
Thanks to the incredible work here, I have upgraded two of my old 8gb Creative Zens to rockbox and am beyond happy with the results.

Do you have the problem that I found on every unit I tried? "about one in five RB start-ups fails with a BSoD requiring reset."

Since I had to dig around to put the procedure together, I thought I would reproduce exactly what I did to get mine working.  I am using Windows 7 64 bit, but I expect the procedure should be similar for other windows versions.


Thanks. Well Done!
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: dodddummy on October 23, 2016, 10:12:27 AM
I've installed Rockbox on a creative zen and it works well.  Thanks!  There are a couple of things that seem like minor bugs but I'm not sure where to post them.

1) When I connect to my computer via USB the screen says, "Discharging", but it's clearly charging.
2) 'Battery' keeps cycling between 83% and 96% when it's finished charging. What does this mean?
3) I'm not sure this is a bug but it's different behavior than my Sansa e280 v2.  But when I used headphones that also have mic, the volume is much lower when plugged in fully.  I have to unplug it a millimeter or 2 to get full volume.  As I said, the e280 doesn't have this issue.

I've been using Rockbox for ages and it's a great project. 
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on December 12, 2016, 05:50:02 AM
Hi all,
I manage to reproduce the LCD problem on my ZEN X-Fi and traced it back to a hardware bug. I have implement a tentative workaround in
http://gerrit.rockbox.org/r/#/c/1428/ (http://gerrit.rockbox.org/r/#/c/1428/)
which completely solves the problem on my device. I'd like to get the feedback of more testers. Here are builds with the patch, note that you need to install a new bootloader because this is where the problem usually happens. As usual follow the instruction from https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CreativeZENPort (https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CreativeZENPort): download the firmware_zen_lcd.nk file and upload it using sendfirm.
NOTE: for size reasons, the bootloader is singleboot (ie you can't boot the OF), this should not be a problem since you can't really dualboot unless you reformat anyway.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on December 12, 2016, 10:54:33 AM
Hi all,
I manage to reproduce the LCD problem on my ZEN X-Fi and traced it back to a hardware bug. I have implement a tentative workaround in
http://gerrit.rockbox.org/r/#/c/1428/ (http://gerrit.rockbox.org/r/#/c/1428/)
which completely solves the problem on my device. I'd like to get the feedback of more testers. Here are builds with the patch, note that you need to install a new bootloader because this is where the problem usually happens. As usual follow the instruction from https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CreativeZENPort (https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CreativeZENPort): download the firmware_zen_lcd.nk file and upload it using sendfirm.
  • new bootloader: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7ebre030vx3qp1h/firmware_zen_lcd.nk?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/7ebre030vx3qp1h/firmware_zen_lcd.nk?dl=0)
  • new build: https://www.dropbox.com/s/i04b1468tci9ju1/rockbox_zen_lcd.zip?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/i04b1468tci9ju1/rockbox_zen_lcd.zip?dl=0)

Many thanks. Swift tests show success on one unit and fail on another. I'll do thorough tests on more units and report.

Notes for other testers:

* Not mentioned in the install instructions is that (ISTM) you need to launch Reload Firmware with USB unplugged, then when asked to start download, plug in USB.
* Firmware filename differs from the previous version.
* To rapidly cycle the boot sequence, hold down the power slider.

Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: RufusA on December 14, 2016, 12:27:33 PM
Excellent work / effort Amaury - as ever!

I had a pre-owned Zen knocking round in a drawer (which I'd had to enlarge the reset hole to headphone size, due to the frequent LCD issues on boot); since installing this revised bootloader / rockbox it's not hung once out of 30 starts. Previously it was nearer a 50:50 failure rate.

So whatever you did, has worked for me!

Similar 100% success with my X-Fi, which was failing around 1 in 5 and again hasn't hung in 30 starts.

Many thanks for all your hard work and tenacity - Rufus.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on December 14, 2016, 07:00:45 PM
Issue 3 - Options (menu) and My Shortcut buttons have no effect

I'm guessing this is a bug, since http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CreativeZENPort "Keys 90%  Buttons are working but the driver could be smarter and save power." and http://git.rockbox.org/?p=rockbox.git;a=blob;f=apps/keymaps/keymap-zen.c;hb=HEAD says


As of this new build http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,13462.msg238539.html#msg238539 :

 * ZEN Options (menu) operates Rockbox context menu. Great!
 * ZEN My Shortcut button still does nothing AFAICS.

Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on December 15, 2016, 10:32:31 PM
Hi all,
I manage to reproduce the LCD problem on my ZEN X-Fi and traced it back to a hardware bug. I have implement a tentative workaround in
http://gerrit.rockbox.org/r/#/c/1428/ (http://gerrit.rockbox.org/r/#/c/1428/)
which completely solves the problem on my device. I'd like to get the feedback of more testers. Here are builds with the patch, note that you need to install a new bootloader because this is where the problem usually happens. As usual follow the instruction from https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CreativeZENPort (https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CreativeZENPort): download the firmware_zen_lcd.nk file and upload it using sendfirm.
  • new bootloader: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7ebre030vx3qp1h/firmware_zen_lcd.nk?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/7ebre030vx3qp1h/firmware_zen_lcd.nk?dl=0)
  • new build: https://www.dropbox.com/s/i04b1468tci9ju1/rockbox_zen_lcd.zip?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/i04b1468tci9ju1/rockbox_zen_lcd.zip?dl=0)

I'm interpreting "the LCD problem" to refer to the two closely related problems I reported here:

"Issue 4 - Lock-up with black screen" (http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,13462.75.html).
Quote
Description: Sometimes upon Rockbox program launch, the device goes unresponsive to buttons, showing a black screen.
[...]
* Also plugging/unplugging USB sometimes leads to the same locked-up state.

Testing the new version found BSoD on boot between 1 in 100 and never (depending on unit), and BSoD on USB plug/unplug never. Details below.

I think that puts Creative ZEN Rockbox firmly in business! A great achievement Amaury! Well done and many thanks.

Chris




TEST EQUIPMENT

Creative ZEN units that all work fine with the OF. Previously the 2014-07-20 version of Rockbox firmware and player (Boot version: V1Beta2_fbf8aa1) was tested on most of them and in all such cases but one, worked without major problem except this BSoD..


TEST SETUP

1 Using this method (http://web.archive.org/web/20161215143946/https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CreativeZEN) install:

45697a0bf-161212

2 Copy an audio file to the device and play it (to avoid USB unplug causing "Error accessing playlist control file" and then *PANIC*)


TEST PROCEDURE for boot

I used a clip to hold down the power ("On/Off/Lock") button, and another to facilitate reset access.

1 Ensure the unit is fully charged
2 Ensure no connected charger (to evade the Rockbox check that mistakes the charger for a USB host) or USB to PC.
3 Power-on the device
4 In Settings, General Settings, Display, LCD Settings, Backlight, set On (to avoid any test non-fail halt causing a blank display)
5 In Settings, General Settings, Display, LCD Settings, Brightness, set 10 (to maximise charge life)
6 Attach the clip to hold down the power ("On/Off/Lock") button. The device boots and reaches the Rockbox menu, and then shuts-down and repeats. (Cycle duration is ~6s.)
7 After two hours (i.e. inside the charge life), verify that the device is still cycling through boot and main menu.

If this verification succeeded, the test result is Success, else it is Fail.

8 After a fail, to restart, release the power button (simply pressing reset fails), press reset, and then restore the clip holding down the power button.


TEST RESULTS for boot

* Unit P (2Gb): Success.

* Unit N (4Gb, suffering from a regular scatter of coloured dots on Rockbox, but not OF). Fail.

Fail is on first cycle, every time. Showing Data abort at 6002C7C0. After restoring the Creative firmware and the reinstalling Rockbox firmware, again fail, but showing Data abort at 6004c494.

* Unit L (8Gb): Fail. First 100 cycles usually succeed.

* Unit G (8Gb): Fail. First 100 cycles usually succeed.

* Unit T (16Gb): Fail. First 100 cycles usually succeed.

* Unit AC (32Gb): Success.


TEST PROCEDURE for USB

1 Power-on the device
2 Plug-in USB connected to PC
3 Verify the device display shows the USB plug picture
5 Unplug USB
6 Verify the device display shows main menu
7 Repeat from 2.


TEST RESULTS for USB

* Unit P (2Gb): Success.

* Unit AC (32Gb): Success.

Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on December 15, 2016, 10:35:03 PM
On a new install of Rockbox zen_lcd on a Creative Zen:

1 Reset device
2 Plug-in USB and wait for device to say "Bootloader USB mode"
3 Unplug USB and wait for main menu
4 Plug-in USB and wait for device to show USB plug pic
5 Unplug USB and see "Error accessing playlist control file" pop-up
6 While pop-up shows, plug-in USB

Expected: Device shows main menu
Observed: Device hangs (EDIT: with LED lit), showing

*PANIC*
usb_storage_initconnection(): OOM
pc:6006CDC0 sp:600EC6B8
        A: 6006AF38
        A: 6006B50C
        A: 6004E43C
bt end

Workaround: First play a track!
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: viggen66 on January 10, 2017, 10:24:12 AM
Pamaury,

Excellent work, never had a boot hang after your bootloader update, awesome accomplishment.  8)
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on January 10, 2017, 06:26:06 PM
never had a boot hang after your bootloader update

FTR, which .rockbox Version are you running?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: ch3mn3y on March 03, 2017, 01:47:44 PM
I seem to not be able to flash any nk file. When sending firmware_zen_lcd.nk there is Error occured during sending!, and when trying to install older firmware_zen.nk, there is Error while opening firmware_zen.nk! + Error occured during sending!

I'm doing it on Win8.1, but I have done it before on the same machine, so not sure what's wrong?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on March 03, 2017, 01:50:55 PM
I seem to not be able to flash any nk file. When sending firmware_zen_lcd.nk there is Error occured during sending!, and when trying to install older firmware_zen.nk, there is Error while opening firmware_zen.nk! + Error occured during sending!

I'm doing it on Win8.1, but I have done it before on the same machine, so not sure what's wrong?

Maybe you forgot to erase the previous firmware ? As explained in https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CreativeZEN (https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CreativeZEN), you need to power off the device, press the play button and power on (keep holding). You get the recovery menu, select "Reload firmware", then send the file.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: RufusLoacker on March 04, 2017, 03:26:05 AM
I seem to not be able to flash any nk file. When sending firmware_zen_lcd.nk there is Error occured during sending!, and when trying to install older firmware_zen.nk, there is Error while opening firmware_zen.nk! + Error occured during sending!

I'm doing it on Win8.1, but I have done it before on the same machine, so not sure what's wrong?

Maybe you forgot to erase the previous firmware ? As explained in https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CreativeZEN (https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CreativeZEN), you need to power off the device, press the play button and power on (keep holding). You get the recovery menu, select "Reload firmware", then send the file.

I'm having the same problem, and even the Creative firmware loader doesn't recognize the device as connected. TRied multiple combinations of erasing firmware/plugging it in, different usb ports...
I'm on Windows 10

 I fear I may have bricked it lol
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on March 04, 2017, 05:07:43 AM
So, let me be more precise:
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: RufusLoacker on March 04, 2017, 01:11:46 PM
So, let me be more precise:
  • can you access recovery menu (by holding play button on boot) ?
  • did you select "Reload firmware" in it ?
  • when you plug the device after that, does Windows detect a device ? (it does not necessarily appear as a drive)
  • did you try to uninstall the device in windows device manager ?
  • have you tried another usb cable ?

Unfortunately, yes to all, but to no avail.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on March 04, 2017, 01:14:54 PM
Can you come on our IRC channel (https://www.rockbox.org/irc/ (https://www.rockbox.org/irc/)) ? That would make things simpler to debug.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: humei8 on March 15, 2017, 06:44:55 PM
The reason why one runs into 'error' when using sendfirm.exe to send .nr file on Windows 10 is one of driver issue. The MTP driver on windows 10 is disabled by default somehow. Therefore zen x fi is not recognised by Windows 10 in the first place, not to mention sendfirm.exe.

The solution is:
(1) Go to C:\Windows\INF
(2) Type "wpdmtp.inf" in search bar provided to the right of the address bar in Windows 10.
(3) Once you found it, just right click on it and select install. It will take a very few seconds.
(4) Connect your device to the pc.

Done.
Once I finished such procedures, the windows immediately popped one message saying 'installing driver for x fi'. This was found out using google.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: chrisjj on March 16, 2017, 07:35:38 AM
Therefore zen x fi is not recognised by Windows 10 in the first place, not to mention sendfirm.exe.

The solution is:

Thanks for the report.

Do this problem and solution apply to ZEN, as well as to ZEN X-Fi?
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: pamaury on March 19, 2017, 08:43:55 AM
Hi humei8,
thanks for this useful information. I wonder why Microsoft disabled it by default. Or maybe they introduced a new API that is active by default.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: RufusLoacker on March 19, 2017, 06:33:54 PM
I did what humei8 suggested, but didn't work, so I manually downloaded and installed the MPT package from microsoft (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=19153). Again went to Device manager, right clicked on the CREATIVEZEN icon (it had a yellow warning triangle) and clicked "Update driver software". Clicked "Browse my computer for driver software", then clicked "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer".

There I had two choices between "MTP Device" and another one similar, but in my language (Italian). The first didn't work, so I did the whole process again but selected the other option and it worked flawlessly!

I wrote everything I did because I don't know exactly what made it work lol. Hope this helps.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: humei8 on April 07, 2017, 06:01:38 PM
I have installed Windows 10 creator update 1703 using the windows 10 update agent. It seems that Microsoft has sorted out the MTP issue because my nexus 6 phone was eventually recognised. Before that even Nexus 6 did not show up as mass storage device when choosing connecting using MTP mode.
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: charonme on June 26, 2022, 12:37:46 PM
I got an error while trying to upload the bootloader from linux:
$ ./sendfirm64 firmware_zen_lcd.nk
libmtp version: 1.1.3

Device 0 (VID=041e and PID=4157) is a Creative ZEN.
error returned by libusb_claim_interface() = -6LIBMTP PANIC: Unable to initialize device
No devices.

even though I could see the drive mounted and accessible.
I then tried it from windows and it worked.
However when the ZEN is turned off or on there is a very loud pop in the headphones that wasn't there with the original firmware. Is there anything in settings that could help?

Also I noticed the blue switch led only lights up briefly during startup, but then it goes dark even when the device is on.
Also the datetime setting doesn't survive restart (other settings do)
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: elezzar on August 09, 2022, 12:47:50 AM
I seem to not be able to flash any nk file. When sending firmware_zen_lcd.nk there is Error occured during sending!, and when trying to install older firmware_zen.nk, there is Error while opening firmware_zen.nk! + Error occured during sending!

I'm doing it on Win8.1, but I have done it before on the same machine, so not sure what's wrong?

Maybe you forgot to erase the previous firmware ? As explained in https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CreativeZEN (https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/CreativeZEN), you need to power off the device, press the play button and power on (keep holding). You get the recovery menu, select "Reload firmware", then send the file.

I'm having the same problem, and even the Creative firmware loader doesn't recognize the device as connected. TRied multiple combinations of erasing firmware/plugging it in, different usb ports...
I'm on Windows 10

 I fear I may have bricked it lol


Im having much the same issue i believe mine is stuck in some sort of error state and there is no screen and not recognized by USB i can't reset format or send the firmware, this happened right when i tried to run doom on it screen went black and i waited for awhile then i tried to reset and now its not responding to anything "bricked" if anyone has any suggestions i would very much appreciate it (thank you)
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: Bilgus on August 09, 2022, 06:23:04 PM
you will likely have to wait till it runs down or disconnect the battery
Title: Re: Creative ZEN
Post by: ShinjiMikami on May 04, 2023, 02:09:31 PM
I have several doubts with this model of Creative ZEN and other questions, for example any MP4 player or Creative media player that integrated FM radio with RDS?
The Creative ZEN dont have RDS.And is compatible with the games?

Please, answer me in this new thread ;):
https://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,54540.0.html (https://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,54540.0.html)