Strange new issue that I noticed today in my 95 VW golf.
I put the player on standby, and then unstandby-ed it a few minutes later.
It took a couple of seconds longer than I expected to come back, and when it did come back it was displaying the battery icon. The icon went away after a few seconds, and the player responded normally.

This was with the car running. And is infinitely reproducable.
I also tried it with the car off, and with my spare player too.
Same results every time. Always the battery icon right off standby.
Never had this problem before.
Nothing has changed in my car as far as my install goes, just thought it was kinda weird.

Anybody else ever experience anything similar?

Oh yeah, and I'm also having a weird problem where the volume will adjust a few notches up or down on its own. I know its not the remote, cause thats in the house. It only happens occasionally and I dont know whats causing it.
Oh well...

Cheers,
Zachary V.

Do you have big external amps? Perhaps when you come out of standby it turns on the amps, and that current draw is enough to drop the voltage. As to why it is just starting now, perhaps your alternator or battery are about to go. You could disconnect the remote wire from the amps and see if the player still reacts the same way.

i noticed something similar to this also. although mine only does it when first inserting in the dock (car running already), letting it boot, then when i power it on i notice the battery icon there for a few seconds and goes away. This just started happening this past week or so, never did it before.

I've just got one Kenwood external amp.
Same one I've always had, and its not even all that powerful.

Your comment about the battery may be something though.

I've been wondering when my battery was gonna go.

Its the same battery the car came with back in November of 1994.
By all rights it should be dead as a doornail by now.
7+ years on a stock VW battery!?

Would a dying battery trigger the icon though, even if the car is running?

Z~

That does sound similar.

But do you not get the icon if you go to and from standby without un-docking the player?

Z~

Would a dying battery trigger the icon though, even if the car is running?

It could do.

The amplifier starting up (when the player comes out of standby) can be a pretty good "shock" to the system -- a sudden request for, say, an extra 25 amps of power. Think of your battery as a reservoir to supply this extra demand until the alternator can take over the load.

If the battery can't do it, then you will get the symptoms you describe.

Try coming out of standby with the engine at 2000 RPM or higher, see if that makes any difference.

tanstaafl.

i have noticed this new exact same problem. car's system hasnt changed at all since installing the empeg, and the empeg never displayed this behaviour, till recently. last thing i did was : updated hijack. cant remember what version i am currently running (still on 2.0b11) but now when waking the empeg from standby to on, it will delay a noticeable 3/4 secs and the battery icon comes on. never did it before. i have an Optima yellowtop 750cca 52amp/hr battery, so i do not believe current is an issue, especially since the unit was fine before. my voltmeter reported a steady 13.4V one time, and empeg still delayed its start and put up the battery icon. in fact i may downgrade to an earlier hijack and see if this goes away - will try this later tonite and post here - unless im wrong and this is not hijack related.

I just starting noticing this after I upgraded to 2.0b13 a few days ago. I also have Hijack v283 which I updated from v261 at the same time. The icon stays on for a few mintues after I start the van and the empeg and then goes away. I'm not sure about the delay, I'll watch for that in the morning. It never did that before the update.

I turned the empeg on while doing 75mph on the highway, RPM's around 3000 and the battery light still came on. There's a 3-4 second delay of nothing, then the display comes on along with the battery icon which stays on for few seconds and goes away.

Sure sounds like a wiring or supply-voltage problem to me.

this is definately not a wiring problem. As others have said, they have only just gotten this recently after upgrading. It wasn't doing this before and my wiring is just fine.

i thought it was at first and was very worried - since my empeg gets its power direct from the 4gauge feed straight from the battery (same feed that goes to the amps) - now that i see others have experienced it, i feel that its not an isolated case of poor wiring/unbeefy electrical system.

on my one, when you press a button to wake it, the slowly pulsing LED goes off completely, entire unit is fully dead for those 4 secs, before coming on - as if it needed to drip-fill a bank of capacitors before getting enough power to turn on - do you guys get the same thing (LED cuts off completely...)?

nah, I've been seeing this effect after upgrading to 2b13 as well. Haven't changed anything except the software.

I'll look for that today. I'll also try turning it on after I have been driving a bit and see if it happens. I always bring mine up from standby. It's easier to turn it off since I have to open the drivers door after turning the key off to get it to stop playing.. So far the display is coming on with the battery icon in the left corner and it disappears after a couple of mintues.

I get the battery indicator for about 10 seconds after starting engine. Before b13 I only used to get it if I turned the ignition off and then restarted car within my 60 second timeout.

As I get it for such a short time, I'm not sure if it is connected with the above posts or not.

ok here are my findings so far. i found that i am currently on hijack 280 (i had forgotten heh). problem happens all the time, reproducable. my last update was from hijack 278. reloaded this on. tested - problem gone! did all kinds of things to get it to happen - no go - it turned on instantly and with zest each time. ok, reloaded hijack 280 back on. instantly - problem again.

i notice that, with 280, when it happens, the display seems to "fade in" from black (more descriptively, it "fades in" center first, then it works towards the left and right sides, far left and right coming in last) - this 'fade' happens only in about 1 sec tho.

with 278 on, the screen lights up instantly. no fade, pops to full brightness straight away, no battery icon, no problem.

anyway thats what ive got for now. its late so im scheduling the latest hijack, and 2.0b13 emplode and developer image to download overnight and see what happens. i'll try 2.0b13 first with no hijack, then again with hijack, may also experiment with the different versions of 278 and 280.

can definitely say that somethings affected the unit in hijack 280 that 278 seems to leave alone.

however if im misinterpreting, or if someone else can back this up or argue against it im curious to find out!

Worth trying hijack 286 or any from 283, Mark Lord cleaned things up for beta 13. Seems smooth.

I just did the exact same test as lofreq, with the same results.
I flashed HJ 286 and did the standby/recover thing and I got the 3-4 second delay, the slow screen fade in and the battery icon.

I then flashed HJ 253 (unfortunately the only older version I had before 281. And it appears all the old HJ versions are no longer downloadable from the hijack website) and I got a much quicker return from standby, and no battery icon.

Something definitely changed somewhere.
If somebody wants to send me HJ 278 and 279 I can try those as well.
So it would appear that this is not a result of wiring (phew) but a change in the code?
Maybe it only effects certain cars though? Due to different wiring schemas?
I dunno... Just know its broke in my 95 VW.

Zachary

v278 on the way in mail.

With 282 I get about 6 seconds worth of battery icon - that's after booting to stand-by in a car that's already started.

/Michael

Hmm, can we narrow it down further? I'm guessing either v279 or v280.

v282 Updated for v2.00-beta13 kernel changes (very minor).
v281 Fixed LBA48 bugs.
v280 Rewrote much of the ButtonLED Illumination code.
v279 Fiddled with reboot code.

I just tried HJ 278 courtesy of mtempsch and I DO NOT get the battery icon.
If somebody wants to send me 279 Ill give that a try too.

Zachary

Well I tried it today. I get the 4-5 second delay with a blank screen. Another 6-7 seconds with the battery icon and no sound. Another 3-4 seconds with the sound starting up slowly. I tried this off and on all day from just starting the van to doing it driving on the expressway and it was the same every time. So I guess you guys have figured out that it is something in Hijack.

Hey Mark!!

Someone then please explain why it doesn't happen on my player with Hijack and beta 13?

Because you're lucky

I certainly am not.

The Force DC/Power Mode is not enough to reproduce it. The unit has to be on REAL DC power through the docking connector.

Happens for me too, as ov v2-beta13.

-ml

Right, doesn't happen in my car either.

But I take it that you know what's going on and I don't need to worry about it?

I think he said it does happen for him.
Didnt he?

>Right, doesn't happen in my car either.

Now that's odd, really odd.

Maybe it's just another name colour thing.

I don't really know what's going on, but I have a theory.

Attached to my next posting is the actual Hijack changes that were new in version 280 -- the problem presumably goes away when using Hijack versions older than v280.

Pretty much the ONLY change that could affect any of this is the new code in v280+ that prevents scrambling of the display controller by having two threads trying to talk to it simultaneously. As of v280, there is a locking mechanism around that code, forcing new writers to wait until the current writer finishes up, and then some.

Perhaps the new player software issues a whole bunch of display controller commands in a row after returning from standby, such that the locking code forces it to wait slightly on each command, adding up to 3-4 seconds or so.

Note that the AUDIO starts immediately, but the display controller -- brightness and buttons -- doesn't become fully functional for a few seconds.

Harmless, but somewhat distracting.

We could fix it by keeping a queue of display controller commands in the kernel, and having a hijack thread to service them over time or something, so that the original caller need not wait for conflict-free access.

Personally, I'm going to ignore it and hope it goes away.

-ml

Attached are the diffs from Hijack v279 to v280.

If anyone wants to confirm (1) no issue on v279, and (2) delay on v280, I have restored those versions to the Hijack site. You'll have to manually edit the URL to get them, but they're there.

Cheers