can't reflash anymore

Today http and ftp (via hijack 291) stopped working.
I tried to fix it, but didn't get very far.
In the progress I got preinit to dump (a lot),
so I removed /bin/hijack.

Now the system boots again, but still no ftp and http;
and telnet is also gone, due to the missing preinit.

The main problem:
I can't flash a new system anymore.
Not with download (from hijack).
Not with upgclient.
And not with the windos upgrade tools.

I couldn't see any problems via the serial console.

Any hints ?

Did you use Hijack to Force DC Mode? That'll disable http and ftp.

-Zeke

Did you...?

- Unplug the power from the player.

- Double-click on the .UPGRADE files in Windows.

- Wait until the upgrade file tells you to apply power to the player now.

- Apply power to the player.

might be a duh answer.. but did you:

remember to exit out of hyperterminal before running your upgrade?

Nope. Didn't force hijack to DC. kftpd and khttpd were defunct.

I started upgclient/the upgrade tool and plugged in the power (when told so/finding unit).

And no, minicom/hyperterminal wasn't running.

I did this a dozen times before and never had problems.

What is the error reported by the upgrade client?

Does it continue searching for the player after you've applied power and end up timing out? Or does it find the player, start working, then fail at something like 'no pump device found'?

For the former, you can just keep power cycling the player until the upgrader finds it. For the latter, you may have a faulty drive cable.

Maybe I should make one thing clear:
The player works perfectly for normal usage.
Playing, Uploading via Ethernet, etc.

I can see the output on the serial port (boot info, etc)

Updated info:
It looks like the player won't receive anything via the serial port.
(No upgrade, no (j)emplode, no shell)
Just switched cables and PCs to connect, no differenct.

Maybe I fried the RX of the serial port somehow while putting in the new power connector last week....


And to answer your question:
It never finds the player; And I powercycled it aounrd 30 times so far....

Are you tryng to flash with the correct image for the player type you have, ie. a Mk2 image for a Mk2, and not a Mk1 image for a Mk2?

Yes.

I just tried it again (at work).
And everything worked.
Only difference ?

At home it was plugged into the car connector.
At the office it's connected to a ThinkPad brick via the (newly fitted) AC plug.

Could my connectore be broken and introduce interference ?!

The PC (my ThinkPad) and the cable are the same.
The software and the .upgrade are the same.

hmmm ... gotta try again back home...

Do you know that the serial port on the player is a DTE (i.e. it requires a null modem cable) and on the sled it is more a DCE (it needs a straight through canle)? I say more a DCE since the other signals available are DTE like.

Also you can't upgrade over the serial port using the standard upgrade software if the unit is in the car sled. The bootloader detects it and prevents you upgrading that way. You should be able to use Hijack and ftp the image across as long as you have dc_servers enabled in the config file though.

Sounds like the problems given your most recent report.

And everything worked. Only difference ? At home it was plugged into the car connector.

Ah, you never said you were using the car docking connector. You said that it "had worked before" indicating that you hadn't changed anything in the environment. If you had mentioned the car dock from the very beginning, I could have pointed you immediately to this FAQ entry, which, coincidentally, I just got done linking twice in two other threads about similar questions.

I had the exact same problem and it was a serial cable that (suddenly) went bad.

Greg

"At home it was plugged into the car connector. "
Yes, but only getting it's power from that.
The Null-Modem cable was plugged directly into the empeg.

This had worked before (I had an empeg sled in my desktop for almost 18months), but I had that ser_rat=115000 there and always upgraded via ftp.

So yes, the FAQ entry could have save me a lot of trouble....