Hi, I have a MkIIa. It's been great. I got bitten by the short battery life of the factory supplied remote battery, but replaced it. I didn't run into this for so long, because I don't really use the remote. Too distracting when driving.

But, lately, I have needed to. My volume knob quit working. It's a 2a, it's not a slipping problem or anything. It simply does *nothing*. Yes, I installed the Mk2 kernel.

I tend to not think it is a hardware thing, because the rotary switch looks and feels normal, and has not been tampered with.

On the other hand, I tend to think it might not be a software problem, because the remote volume works, volume using the front panel arrow keys via the menu works, which I have gotten very adept at using.

Obviously it must fall into one of those two categories and I am just not seeing it. What is odd is, clicking the volume knob in does bring up the sound settings. Holding it in after installing a HiJack kernel works as well...

Any ideas?

Could be the rotary decoder part thinga-majing. Probably separate from the knob press switch, so one could work without the other.

Is the volume the only thing affected? Ie, does it move among menus and such?

/Michael

well, no. no other functions of the knob are working; pressing the knob works, turning does not. not for volume, not for other sound settings, not in the menu.

It displays all the symptoms of a hardware problem, but it did not follow a typical path to get there. it did not degrade with time. one day, it just quit working, while i had been using the player.

What could cause this switch to just die like that?

Some speculation:

Looking at the datasheet for the (or a similar) encoder, it looks to have a Y style setup of switches, ie a common tab and two branches. I think you need to provide voltage the common branch and then check for pulsing (and in which order) on the branches to determine activity and direction. If the empeg uses a dedicated little circuit for this it could have broken somehow. Or if the feed drops out, or one or both branches, solder joints, circuit board track, component...
Lot's of other things than the actual rotary encoder can be the culprit...

/Michael