Would it be worth reloading the full player software, or is that what you meant, certainly can't do any harm?

I was thinking that the problem might be with the sled, but what should I check for?

Sorry, but checking for the blatently obvious is about as scientific as it gets for the wiring without resorting to a swapout. Specifically, look at where the wires enter the docking connector for any that might be coming loose.

Good Luck, sim

Well, he does say:

Otherwise, it shuts down when the key is pulled.

...which is why I asked the question! I think you misread me - I was aware he said it won't shut down when crashed. That is one problem. However, if he turns off the ignition and the player goes out, that means either:

- he has set his sleep timeout at 0 seconds in emplode
- he has mis-wired the permanent and switched power lines.

In the second case this means that session info could be lost when he turns off the ignition. You have absolutely no idea what state the machine will be in when it comes back.

If it's crashing/hanging while playing, I would say that this is probably likely to be an overheat problem aggravating either the IDE header soldering problem, or a dodgy drive cable.

Two ways to check this: install HiJack and check the temperature to keep an eye on how hot the unit is in normal operation before a hang. Secondly, get hold of a serial dump from the player while it is in the car, preferably just prior to a hang.

One of the reasons why there is a power line filter built into the harness is to filter the main, non-switched supply to the player. Normally, this is the car's "Memory" feed to a conventional head unit. However, this is the one the empeg uses. If you have the two wired the wrong way, you could be using the switched supply to feed the player in the sled, and who knows what rubbish could come down the pipe.

I think HiJack temp readings and serial log are a good starting point.

[power]
off_timeout=60000


Set for 60 seconds sleep timeout, and yet bauble says that the player goes out immediately the key is pulled. This says he has perm/switched swapped.

Mind you though: I still don't know if he means the player "stops" by correctly sleeping with the winker LED on for 60 seconds, before switching off, or the whole shebang goes out when the key turns. So this is still supposition.

If I read the txt log: it could be failing memory (overheat?), or no available swap memory (config issue) or inability to swap to disk. However, this is a RAM disk in flash, not on the hard disk.

If the player is forced into Car(DC) mode with HiJack, do you get this behaviour at home on the AC adaptor?

What temperature does the unit run at in the car?

Have you run the memory stress test (after it has been runing for some time in the car)?

I've been running hijack and have been checking the temp pretty regularly while it's in the car and I've never seen it over 117F.

And, if it helps: I can't verify anything about how the wiring was done as I paid Best Buy to do it a little over a year ago (and it's run fine between then and now). Are the wires you're referring to labelled such that a sub-novice electrician like me could tell what he was looking at ?

All this message says is that the player has run out of memory, and the virtual memory manager is complaining about the reason why this is happening.

Yes, they are clearly lablelled, but you would have to take the sled out of the dash and leave the wires connected to the car harness so that you could check out how the connections have been made. Ideally, you would need to take voltage measurements on the connectiosn to find out what their behaviour is while the ignition is on, and off.

Alternatively, if you had a wiring diagram for the vehicle, you should be able to see from the colour scheme how it has been wired by best buy.

I don't recall you saying which car you had. If you have a VW or a BMW, they have swapped the swtiched and permanent power wire positions in the ISO connector, and this leads to problems. You can check this out in the FAQ. The quick way to test this is to answer: if the ignition is turned off, does the empeg go to sleep for 60 seconds as you have it set (winker LED stays winking) or does it just go out, phut?

I think at this stage, given that there are now so many variables being stirred in the pot, it's almost impossible to work out where the problem is. However, it is pretty obvious that it is something to do with memory management.

If I were you, I would simply re-install V2.0 standard WITHOUT HiJack or any other third party problem. If the problem persists, then it is likely you have a hardware problem and we can begin a diagnostic. Whether the problem lies in the car, or the player, we have yet to determine. But until the number of variables is reduced, we can do nothing to work out what this is and we are all just scratching our armpits.

I don't think I'll be able to run the memory test in the way you suggest because the buttons stop responding after the player starts stuttering. And because I don't know how to run this test. Is it a part of hijack ?

No, it's a part of the player bootloader/diagnostic.

As soon as your player hangs, take it out of the sled and get it to a serial connection. Re-boot it on AC. As soon as you stick the plug in, hit Ctl-T as the boot loader starts up. You may need to do this a lot to get it. There's a section in the FAQ about how to do this. This will run through a hardware diagnostic and do a looping memory test. Make sure you have the correct connection settings (115k 8N1 No Handshaking).

The more I think about this, and having just re-read your initial post, it seems to me you have either got a duff drive cable or the IDE soldering issue. It would be worth taking the lid off and the drives to have a look at the board with a magnifying glass to see if you have the problem.

If it is IDE related then turning on the Disk Indicator should help in the diagnosis.

Well, I'm posting shamefaced today; it seems I was the cause of the problem: after I got home last night and checked the cable and solder points as well as I could (all seemed OK) , I re-loaded v2.00. My player ran fine all the way in to work this morning (about 30-40 minutes). I'm thinking the problem must have had something to do with the way I jacked up the emphatic install.

Anyhow, humble thanks to everyone who replied and were patient with a Linux-impaired owner.

Bob

It is still curious / unusual that you would not see the problem with AC, though. I am glad it is working for you, though!

Yeah, that was the point that had me stuck. I still don't understand it. But since it's working, I'm not going to complain too loudly.

Unless he had ;@DC starting emphatic.

True, but he posted his config.ini above. There were no signs of any AC / DC specific programs.

Actually... I'm in St. Louis, or near it... and I've had this stuttering issue too. But mine only seemed to start after I had installed Empire and the files needed for Palantir. Basically when mine does it the song will play slow or just start stuttering completely and no controls will work to allow going to next song or shutoff or anything. I have to pull the player and put it back in and all is OK. I just recently did a drive upgrade (about 2 months ago) but I don't think this is the issue as it never had the problem before the Empire install about a month ago. And I have my player in work with me 8 hours a day on AC power and have never had the problem rear it's ugly head... but never made a connection until this post that it only happened in the car

I have a theory which may be completely whacked but I'll throw it out. I have a 96 Acura with no tinted windows. When I'm in certain areas, the "laser" alert on my radar detector goes off... Well, it is set off by bright sunlight. I have found this out. The sun puts out IR as well as a lot. What I wonder (but have not been able to prove) is that something in the Ir_translate function is being triggered by the sunlight... AS Kansas City and St. Louis are in the same climate. I mean, it's a whacked theory but it seems odd to me that a unit less than 300 miles almost due west from me is also having the same problems...

Just a thought...

Try adding
[Startup]
ReserveCache=4
to you config.ini

I reproduced this. Here's the interesting thing. It only started happening when I moved the disk tray from one player to another. I did not reinstall. Watching the serial port, I see the try_to_free_pages message in car mode, but not home mode. The player is in a dock the whole time.

The problem is I can't manage to run ps while it's in car mode to even see what the difference is, it destroys itself too fast.

I wonder if setting the car rate high enough that it can clear the messages will fix that.

And in fact once I set the car_rate high enough, it's fine. And I bet the only difference is where the serial port output goes in home mode versus car mode or somesuch. Gah.

Well, good enough. I'm not going to worry about it.

Somehow I must have missed this thread originally, but my advice for in-car stuttering is to simply up the serial port rate to match that used on AC power: 115200 and see if the problems "go away". Unseen messages spewing over serial have baffled many folks in the past, and since the car rate defaults to a paltry 4800 they can totally kill the kernel.

Cheers

Eh, the right answer is to make the kernel not tell me that (try to free pages) message more than once. Once I lost, I lost;-)

Yeah, I figured setting things to 115k would fix it, but I wanted to see if there was a difference since I got no messages in home mode. Nope. Good enough.