1) The altered code for the headlight-sense is not working right.

When I turn on my headlights, the backlit buttons go completely black and stay that way. Then the display dims, but then pops back to full brightness after a couple of seconds and stays that way.

Turning off my headlights does not restore the backlit buttons to the proper brightness.

2) The Tone controls don't come back after a reboot.

When I go into the tone controls in the car and adjust bass +6db it sounds correct. But then I turn off my ignition, go in to pick up my daughter from day care (player sleeps for five seconds, then shuts off completely). Then I come back out and start my ignition. Player boots up, but the bass is not boosted, it sounds flat. Then I go into the Hijack menu and see that the bass appears to be set to +6db. I give the knob a slight tweak and the bass pops in suddenly.

Note that this is WITHOUT me doing any funny changes to EQ presets, I haven't touched the EQ during this whole time.

Did you notice a popping sound when adjusting the bass tone?

When I go from anything + anything to [off] there's a pretyt loud poping sound. samthing happens when going from - anything to [off]. I believe this is also a problem with treble too.

It could be some funky thing with my amp, but I thought I'd ask around before I start tweaking

-B

Yes, I got the pops, too. I thought this was a standard side-effect of messing with the channels in the DSP. For instance, there was a long-standing bug where you would get a pop when going from 2-channel mode to 4-channel mode (and would cause a pop at bootup time for anyone with their EQ set to 4-channel in the car).

Uuuh. The patch that I gave Mark did restore the settings, but I know he made some changes to optimise my code, so it may have gotten broken.

I never got any pops either. It only happens going to or from [Off] ?

Check that the underlying eqs bands 9 and 10 are set at 0dB. When you turn the eq to Off, the original bands are restored.

I'll look into this though. Keep the feedback coming

[edit]
Aah, just reread the inital description. The value is restored correctly, but the tone isn't applied until you tweak it....

Ensure that you have notify=1 in your config.ini. Because of the way that the tone controls overload the players eq, the initialisation has to happen after the player has started. The only way that Hijack knows if the player is started is through the notify code.

Tony, can you FAQify this? I have a feeling that it'll crop up a few times...

Ensure that you have notify=1 in your config.ini.

Ah, that must have been the reason, then. I don't have notify=1.

Tony, can you FAQify this?

Not my job. That's Loren's baileywick.

Is there a FAQ about who's responsible for the various areas of the FAQs?

"The producers wish it be known that those responsible for the FAQing have been FAQed."

I wonder if the pops might be related to the soon-to-be-fixed channel lock bug?

I wonder if the pops might be related to the soon-to-be-fixed channel lock bug?

Um, no. The channel lock bug fix will not alter the behavior of the pops.

I can't tell you how I know this, just take my word for it.

Yeap! the very first entry of the Hijack section mentions that i'm the FAQer. =] I'll add it tonight.

In reply to:

---

"The producers wish it be known that those responsible for the FAQing have been FAQed."

---

A Møøse once bit my sister...

Can we all just FAQin get along?

The $15 FAQ-Sniper I mentioned in another thread will automatically make a special highlight around the names of the FAQ Masters too. It will also have an option to prevent someone from accidentally FAQing the FAQ master, just in case.

Bruno

RTFFAQYSMF

I added a ton of crap to the Hijack FAQ... all of which is documented in the changelog. Let me know if there's anything that's glaringly missing from the FAQ these days... as i feel like i'm caught up... but i know there's something missing... (other than a better HTTP entry...)

The producers would like it known that the people responsible for FAQing the people who made the FAQ, have just been FAQed. This post has been completed at the last minute, and at great expense, in an entirely different style.

Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?

You guys better be careful...
I've seen Rob imposing Taxes on people for quoting Monty Python.

How do you do the o with a line through it?

We need a FAQ for jemplode too....

(not it!)

You guys better be careful...
I've seen Rob imposing Taxes on people for quoting Monty Python.

Yeah but what happened the last time the Brits tried to impose unfair taxes on the American people? Eh?

Ensure that you have notify=1 in your config.ini.
Ah, that must have been the reason, then. I don't have notify=1.

This was NOT it. I added [output] notify=1 to my config.ini, I now see the FIDs in the Vital Signs screen so I know it's working, but the bass increase is still NOT PRESENT in the output after a reboot in the car.

Note that it works correctly after a reboot in the house, it's only in the car that I notice this behavior.

And mark, what about the dimmer code? I have a long trip at night to take this weekend.

I'll put out v240 with the dimmer change reverted.

Genixia is responsible for the bass/treble stuff -- I did just now check to verify that the tone logic is being invoked at boot in DC/Car mode, and yes it is. But for me at least, bass/treble don't seem to have any effect whatsoever in DC/Car mode, MOST OF THE TIME..

So for now, I guess tone controls are an AC/Home feature.

Cheers

So for now, I guess tone controls are an AC/Home feature.

Too bad, because the car is where I'd want to use them the most.

Tony started it.

And anways, the empeg tax is enough. The fex ex man is delivering my backup today and I could bareley afford the first one. Soon enough I know I'm going to need a rio reciver too. And a tuner module. What more can I give? Blood?

Matthew

In reply to:

---

You guys better be careful...
I've seen Rob imposing Taxes on people for quoting Monty Python.

---

Hey, I didn't quote directly. I implied via a parody reference. Parody is considered "fair use" and is protected. Therefore, I'm exempt from the tax in this case.

Aaaaaaaaaaarrghh. I need a new drive cable to test this binary. Mine died yeaterday.

Ok, I know I can get a replacement from support, but that's going to take a few days. Is it a standard laptop cable or is it empeg-spec'd ??

"What more can I give? Blood?"

Actually you could. And uh... other stuff too.

Try the other connector on your current cable. Usually only the middle connector is bad.

There's no such thing as a "standard laptop cable", but any 2.5" IDE drive cable will work in a pinch. All laptop makers, like SB, use custom cables of just the right length/bends for their units.

Cheers

Mark,

Tone controls work for me with 239. I know the Empeg thinks it is in the car because I am unable to Restore Visuals with any combination of the Hijack "Restore..." functions enabled!

What additional info from my setup would be helpful?

Mk2a/10GB/Beta11/239
Equalizers set flat, volume fixed at -10 db

Lynn

>Genixia is responsible for the bass/treble stuff

Hmm. 60GB, both disks present.

So, I've discovered that it appears to be the motherboard end. With the carriage out, if I push lightly on that end, it finds both disks, and will continue to do so. As soon as I try to put the carriage back in, just the slight flexing of the cable seems to unseat that connectot enough to cause the problem.

At least I can download the new kernel though, and do some investigation.

You can try removing the cable and squeezing the connectors with a pair of pliers. In effect "re-crimping" it better. See if that works.

Note: You have to do this carefully and in the right direction or else you'll just make it worse or smash the connector.

Ok, I've confirmed both bugs.

The popping I hadn't noticed before. I think that it is a symptom of the low Q value, pushing the band affected below DC. (In theory anything below Q=0.5 does that). This DC offset should be filtered out in the analog output stages (though AC coupling capacitors), so it shouldn't be a problem wrt to amps or speakers, but the transition between one DC level and another is causing a sharp transient that would get through the filter.

I originally had an explicit 0dB setting, with "Off" appearing as the setting below -6dB. Maybe we'll have to revert to this to remove the popping. (We need the "Off" setting so that users who don't want to use this feature don't get their eqs overloaded.)

The DC-mode non-restore I'll have to look into. I saw it in some of my test builds, but not in the patch that I eventually submitted to Mark. I never got a clear understanding as to what changed to fix it in my builds, and I can't see how Mark's changes would have affected it either...so. Debug time.

Thanks for the suggestion. I think I'll order a replacement cable anyway, and live with the intermittent problem until it arrives. At least I can test and debug.

In reply to:

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The popping I hadn't noticed before. I think that it is a symptom of the low Q value, pushing the band affected below DC. (In theory anything below Q=0.5 does that). This DC offset should be filtered out in the analog output stages (though AC coupling capacitors), so it shouldn't be a problem wrt to amps or speakers, but the transition between one DC level and another is causing a sharp transient that would get through the filter

---

What about having the code always set the "0.0dB" values immediately before it sets the "[Off]" values, in empeg_mixer.c?

Hmmmm...that's definately worth a shot. I'll try it.

genixia,

Tone controls work for me on DC. I know the Empeg thinks it is in the car because I am unable to Restore Visuals with any combination of the Hijack "Restore..." functions enabled!

What additional info from my setup would be helpful?

Mk2a/10GB/Beta11/239
Equalizers set flat, volume fixed at -10 db

Lynn

Well, in a normal HTML environment, you'd use the named character entity ø (from this full list of name character entities), but since HTML stuff has been disabled here, then you just have to insert the 8-bit character manually and hope that whoever's viewing it is using the same character encoding (ISO-8859-1, etc.) that you are. Under MSWindows, the easiest way to find a character is to pull up the Windows Character Map (try Start->Programs->Accessories->System Tools) and find it in there.

The lengths some people will go to in order to increase their post count

What do you mean?

Thanks for the offer. I'm not sure what information is going to be useful at the moment though. I need to find a difference between those that get it restored, and those that don't.

Do you have any initial= lines in your config.ini ?
The only mechanism that I can suggest at the moment for tone control to not be initialised (assuming notify=1 has been set), would also stop initial= lines from working.

What about having the code always set the "0.0dB" values immediately before it sets the "[Off]" values, in empeg_mixer.c?

I've just realised what was bugging me about that idea. We'd need to do the same the other way too, ie from 'Off'->0db->value.

OOPS, I think I missed the original bug. I have the symptom of loosing the settings on reboot as well. Sorry for the false alarm.

Lynn

sounds easy enough. Does it "pop" both ways at present?

Okay, interesting behavior observed tonight with Hijack 241.

The first time I put it in the car, the bass WORKED at boot up, but the "restore visuals" did not, it sat at info:track.

When turned off the ignition, got gas, and turned it back on again (timeout is 5 seconds so it did fully reboot), the bass DID NOT WORK at boot up, but the "restore visuals" DID work.

Coincidence? Maybe....

Weird.

Ok, Anyone want to test this kernel binary? I've just spent 20 minutes sat in my car twiddling knobs, and I haven't experienced any pops or clicks while changing from -ve dB to Off to +dB and back again repeatedly.

There is a very small click if you use the top button to go directly from +/-6dB to Off, but the only way to deal with that is to code an automatic sequence to step down - and I think that would be a PITA to code and it might make the empeg sluggish while it went about it.

Oh, that test binary is based on Hijack 239 with the funky disco lighting.

The intermittent no-restore issue is still an issue, sadly. I am no closer to seeing a cause than I was earlier.

I use this very easy method - check out <url=http://www.asciitable.com/>asciitable</url> for the ASCII codes and then press and hold ALT, use the number pad to type the 3 digit number that corresponds to the character you want and then release ALT.

Voila! or should that be Vòila!

I found the situation where the bass doesn't work on player boot up.

Definition of "doesn't work": When you set it to be Bass +6db, and the player boots up, the bass is not boosted by +6db until you go into the bass adjustment menu and twiddle the knob. Then it suddenly pops to life.

When it doesn't work: In the car... If I yank the player out of the dashboard while it is playing, then re-insert it, it will boot up into "playback" mode. In other words, it begins playing tunes as soon as the boot process is finished. In this situation, the bass doesn't work.

When it DOES work: In the car... If I press and hold the top button so that the player goes into standby mode. Then I remove the player from the dash and re-insert it. The player boots into "standby" mode with the pulsing light. Then I turn the volume knob to wake up the player. In this case, the bass is properly boosted when it begins to play tunes after waking up from sleep mode.

To recap: Wake from standby: Works. Wake straight into play: Fails.

This is with Hijack 241.

Great news!

I'm going to go play with this a little. I'm guessing that there's a little bug in the notify code somewhere so that it doesn't notice the player starting after a yank.

I wouldn't have seen this often during testing - I have years of experience of being nice to linux boxes, and avoid hard restarts whenever possible. It's just a mindset, my brain is slowly coming around to the concept that the empeg doesn't care.

[edit]
That should really have said "computers" not "linux boxes". In my experience, linux boxes have been the most graceful in dealing with power outages.

More likely an issue with the player reseting the EQ after hijack sets the EQ.. stick some printk()'s into the code and see what the order is.

-ml

Bad news. I couldn't recreate Tony's findings. The bass failed to be applied regardless of the method of powerdown.

I can see that I'm going to have to make a hole in my glove compartment and bring the serial cable out....

Too bad, sorry. It's 100 percent reproduceable in my stated case. Note that I only tested it in the car.

Sounds like good news to me.. Now just jam some printk()'s into the mixer module to see what the sequence is.

Ok, I just threw a show_message("Tone Init", 2*HZ) in after the tone_init() in hijack_handle_display and the result is interesting:

On AC power, I always see my message pop up.
On DC power, I never see it pop up.

This suggests that tone_init is not getting called in DC mode. (It also suggests that any initial= line in config.ini doesn't get appplied.)

The only difference that I can see is that I get an "Info:Track" display momentarily after the visuals are loaded when in AC mode. This happens immediately before my message pops up, but I haven't seen it in DC mode.

Maybe this is related to DC visuals restore after all? I'm going to play with my DC restore settings in the car.

Ok, just tried this indoors with DC mode forced.

The serial port hangs on "Switching to" immediately after the player starts up. There appears to be no notify happening on the port after this point.

In AC mode, the next thing that happens is that khttpd and then kftpd start up...

Maybe it's time to look at ethernet/khttpd as possible culprits.

The serial port hang is due to the player software, which for some peculiar reason likes to change the baud rate on the serial port when on DC power. You can add lines to config.ini to prevent it:

[serial]
car_rate=115200 ; Set's default rate when on DC to 115kbps

And again, for the last time, stick some printk()'s into the kernel, in hijack.c and in the various routines of empeg_mixer.c, so that you can observe the exact sequence of things at startup.

Cheers

How do you think I discovered where to put the tone_init() in the first place? It's all good and well sticking the printks in the mixer code, but if they aren't getting out of the port...

Anyway, setting the car_rate to 115200 has changed things. I now get the behaviour that Tony wa reporting earlier - clean shutdown leads to restoration, but a yank doesn't. And now I can investigate the timings in DC mode.

Thanks.

Okay, good!

Yep, that's it.

In DC mode, after an unclean shutdown, three calls get made to set the eq. After a clean shutdown, or in AC mode, only 2 get made.

So I've got to find a way to wait on the third apply. Either that or put a timed loop in, or I could brute-force it once every ten seconds...(which would be a really ugly hack).

So the problem is on shutdown instead of on startup?

Actually, take it back. I confused myself because my working code to get around the popping problem actually calls the mixer twice if the tone controls are set - Doh!

However, it looks like it is a race hazard in DC mode when it is not powering up into standby. (ie you didn't put it into standby first.)

Why the player holds off on setting the tone controls for this one case I don't know.

So at the moment:
AC: boot-> standby - player sets eq, then tone controls.
AC: boot-> active - ditto
DC: boot-> standby - ditto
DC: boot-> active - player delays, tone controls set, then player sets eq. Bad.

Ok, a time for a delay loop.

>Ok, a time for a delay loop.

Ahh.. pardon the obvious, but why not just hook the tone init into the first time the player software sets the EQ (ioctl() in empeg_display.c)?

-ml

Hmm...Don't think I've looked at that file yet!!

I'll do that if possible, although a quick and dirty loop just proved the theory.

Anyway, that's not obvious to me. Remember that I've only been coding C for a week

Errr.. oops. wrong file. I meant for you to look in empeg_mixer.c again.

Cheers

Hey, just watched Spy Kids...much better than I expected.

The ioctl modification is a good one. It cleans up some of the code nicely, and also removes that small eq synchronisation issue so that any time an eq is set by the player tone_init saves a fresh copy which is used by the 0dB code.

I'd looked very quickly at that idea when I first attacked the tone controls, but at the time I didn't feel comfortable changing anything that could break so much....When it comes to coding, I'm like a toddler wanting to touch everything, but still clumsy with my hands. I guess I should accept the fact that you wont accept badly broken code.

>I guess I should accept the fact that
>you wont accept badly broken code.

Not normally from others, but if wrote.. well..

Cheers