ok, after an annoying amount of running from room to garage and back, and flashing in between, heres what ive found

at last post i confirmed that with 2.0b11 and hijack 278 there is no prob. with 280 there is the prob. i then went up to 2.0b13 (no hijack) - problem gone! i do believe some people have posted saying they had this issue after going to 2.0b13 - not so for me.

then i put hijack 286 onto my new working 2.0b13 - problem back again. mark brought back 279 so i tried that - problem gone again.

so it is an issue from 279-280. i looked at marks code attachment and nearly went immediately insane so i closed the browser window promptly...

i also saw that there is now 288 as the latest since yesterday, so i grabbed that as tried it as well, no luck, still battery icon rah rah.

my amps have a long turn on delay so i cannot tell if music starts immediately as the unit is awakened (even tho the display/LED are both fully dead...) so i cannot comment on that - however after doing it over and over i do feel that the sound comes on LATER, when the battery icon problem occurs, than when all is working normally. this isnt concrete tho.

anyway it seems to be an issue between 279 and 280 that has not yet been resolved in versions up till the latest (288 at time of post)

oh yeah - i did the 'force DC" modes and all that, it doesnt happen on AC power - only when docked in car.

mark if that narrows it down for you and youre bothered to have a nosey into it, you now have the controls sir

I can also confirm that it happens between 279-280.

I never saw the scrambled screen that the changes were supposed to fix, so I would prefer it without

For me it is a full 10-11 seconds before the music starts up.

The scrambled screen fix was not a part of v279-v280. It stays.

-ml

Ill second that confirm.
279 OK
280 No Ok...

Okay, now I'm (almost) as confused as poor Tony.

To make it easier to poke at the problem, I dug out a spare docking sled, and just wired up the yellow+orange to +12V and the black to GND. The aim here being to reproduce the in-car behaviour exactly, without having to wire-up the serial port behind the dashboard of my car.

Well.. no problemo. Works perfectly, in/out of standby.

Ugh.

To add fo the confusion - I think I see this here at work, in a docking sled with a dummy plug to put the player in AC mode. So I don't think it's a car-only issue.

It's fine at bootup, but if I put the unit into standby, then wake it again, the display doesn't appear for 2-3 seconds, then it appears with the battery icon for another 7-8 seconds.

No messages appear on the serial.

Like you, I have yellow and orange both tied to +12V and black to 0V. Amp control output, and the mute and lights inputs are all unconnected. Audio out and serial are through the docking connector, Ethernet via the socket.

Hijack v288.

Anything else you want to know?

Could it possibly have something to do with the difference between 1-drive-units and 2-drive units? Or the difference between Mk2 and Mk2a units?

For reference, I have two drives in my player, it's a Mk2, and I don't have the problem even when in the car.

Good thinking. I have the problem in the car.

Beta 13, Hijack 288, Mk. 2a, 2 drives.

Also have the problem in the car.

Beta 13, Hijack 288, Mk. 2a, 1 drive(30GB).

Dunno.

However, I did just notice that with the version I'm playing with now (no significant difference in the related parts, though), I only see the battery icon and delay when the engine is off.

In/out of standby with the engine running is just fine, thank-you.

So, I'm dropping the investigation.

On the off-chance that my slight tweaks since v288 may have fixed something, I'll leave them in for v289 (5-10 minutes from now).

Cheers

Just tried HJ 289. Still have the same behavior. No change.
Battery icon and delay with car running or with car off.

My empeg is a mk2a also. Single drive 20GB.

Z~

Well, just for good measure I just tried my second unit (2 drive mk2a) in the car, and it works fine with/without engine running.

So I'm done with it, at least until it shows up again on my own units.

Cheers

i have a 2drive mk2a with the prob

anyway thanx mark for trying to help solve the prob

I've had another look at this, and I don't think it's related to the drives at all. I tried it in the car this morning, putting the player to sleep in tuner mode, and when I woke it up again I got the mysterious behaviour - blank screen for about 2 seconds and battery icon for a further 7 or 8 but without the disk icon appearing. Since the car's engine was running, the disks weren't active, and I never used to see this, I doubt that the supply voltage really is too low (though I don't have my multimeter handy).

I wonder if it's possible that the code that checks the supply level is confused by something. I don't know how it works in either hardware or software, but is it possible that thread scheduling or interrupt masking (including servicing higher-priority interrupts) is somehow making it difficult for the player to get a correct reading for a period of time?

Something else I thought of:

I seem to remember that Mark does not use initial=xxxx in his config.ini, do you lot that are having problems? I know I am.

I just wonder if there is some delay due to the initial codes???

....Nope just tried removing that and it doesn't help. It would make sense that it is something to do with the button illumination. I don't have lit buttons. Anyone else?

For the record, my player has

• disk icons on
• notify on
• no initial command
• restore Car visuals on
• stock non-illuminated) buttons

Mark,

Do both your units have the button hack??

One of mine does and one doesnt.
Both display the same behavior in exactly the same way.

Z~

Nope, just one of them.

Still waiting for more button kits from Brian for the others.

Cheers

For the record, I completely disabled (in the source code) the buttonLED illumination code, and it made no difference for me.

Cheers

Has anyone solved this problem or had theirs just up and fix itself or anything? I'm still getting this and I miss the days where it would just come out of standby and immediately continue where I left off without having to wait a good 5 seconds or so for the screen to fade in, battery icon to pop on and finally for the sound to come through.

I am running Version 2 beta-13 with hijack 292.

Still happening here.
I choose to ignore it.
Well, as best I can, which is not so good.

You could run HJ 279...
That version for some reason doesnt cause this issue to occur.
Z~

How did I miss this thread? I was this close to stopping in the shop to have what I thought was a failling battery replaced. The bbs saved me the cost of a new optima ... drinks are on me!

You could run HJ 279... That version for some reason doesnt cause this issue to occur.

And you're absolutely sure that 279 prevents the problem 100 percent of the time, while 280 causes the problem 100 percent of the time?

And you're absolutely sure that 279 prevents the problem 100 percent of the time, while 280 causes the problem 100 percent of the time?

I admit that this is the result of limited benchtop testing, but I did run HJ 279 for quite a long time after this thread ran its course. Couple of weeks at least. Never saw the battery icon once. Put 292 on a couple of days ago when I found that weird crashing bug with the auto changing visuals.
Have had the icon regularly since.
Conclude what you will.

Z~

Yeah, I almost bought a new battery too.
My empeg actually made me start to doubt my multimeter.

Must've been jealous.

Z~

Still happening here, and I'm just putting up with it.

It annoys me briefly every time it happens, but as soon as music appears(*) I'm happy again. I'm just like Homer Simpson, really. Ooo, look - shiny!...

(*) Is "appear" the correct word for audio? Bitt?

I did stop by the auto shop and had my battery checked.. but it checked out fine so I was puzzled. Now I know otherwise..

Well, since you asked ....

``Appear'' usually refers to a physical manifestation. So, out of context, someone might think that ``music appearing'' might refer to the sheet music being delivered. But, in your context, I think we understand what you mean. And I can't come up with a drop-in replacement. The closest I can think of would be ``emanate'', but I think it would sound a little awkward without a qualifying adverbial phrase (that is, ``as soon as music emanates'' vs. ``as soon as music emanates from the empeg'' or ``from the speakers'').

This is certainly picking nits, though.