Bricked joggler - solved!

[jogglerhase]

Hi all,

I try to recover my backup Joggler which is stuck on the open peak boot. I don't know, if it ever worked since I bought it for spare parts.
But now I want to try to fix it.....I've followed a lot of the helpful guides here, but I don't think my case is described here so far:

Diagnosis is:
(1) Joggler sticks on OpenPeak boot screen (no other splash screens follows)
(2) Reflash via USB stick does not work - I tried DOZENS of USB sticks - it did not work (on my other jogger, most of the stick worked...)
(3) It can not be a faulty EFI chip (the exchangable chip), since I exchanged the chip w/ the one from my working joggler - still no boot.
(Also using the EFI from the 'bad' joggler works fine in the 'good' joggler)
Any Ideas where I need to go from here?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

H.

[JimbobVFR400]

Will it boot from a USB based OS, for example one of Buzz's Linux or possibly Roobarbs SqueezePlayOS

[jogglerhase]

No, nothing boots from a USB stick - not a reflash tool and also no USB-OS (like Squeeze OS, ...)
I tried with multiple sticks - which work on my other joggler.
When using i.e. roobarbs reflash tool, the open peak screen apprears; addtitionally, the LED on the USB stick blinks a couple of times and then - nothing more.

(Out of desperation, I even tried to "bake" the motherboard at 110 degC in the oven in hope for fixing some odd contact problems - without changing the outcome)

[jogglerhase]

Slight weekend-bump....

No ideas anyone where I need to go from here?
Is this really the *one* joggler, which is not fixable and only usable as a screen-donor???

That can'be, can it?

Pls help.

Heiner

[pete]

Baking should be the last thing you should do. You could damage the motherboard very easily with baking.

Try the blind typing thing with a bootable USB stick.

If you get it to boot then reformat the MMC a couple of times and rewrite the EFI boot partition to see if you can get it to boot from a USB stick.

Only try the boot from a directly plugged in USB stick either inside or on the side and no USB hub. Plug the USB keyboard / mouse combo into the second USB port (remove the USB wireless card for the time being).

Blind typing procedure:

Recovering an unbootable Joggler

1 - Before you do any of this, it is essential that you have a working usbstick with an efi partition and a working OS with all drivers.

2 - If something you do leaves the Joggler in a non-booting state (i.e. stuck on O2/OpenPeak screen) take the following steps:
A - Don't Panic
B - Attach keyboard and known good usb stick, and apply power to the Joggler
C - Press escape frantically (oh yes just like the good ol' days)
D - Once the num-lock key has lit, press escape a few more times. The process has worked if the numlock/caps lock key switches on and off when you press the appropriate key.
E - type the following: fs1:boot and press enter. You are typing blind thanks to the jogglers boot screen.
F - If it doesn't boot the USB stick repeat the whole process.
G - It it doesn't work repeat the whole process but type fs0:boot and press enter

3 - Once booting into Ubuntu delete the MMC parition, create one EFI boot partition (DD or just copy it with GParted).

4 - Test the booting to USB with the newly written EFI boot partition.

[jogglerhase]

.....
Blind typing procedure:
Recovering an unbootable Joggler
1 - Before you do any of this, it is essential that you have a working usbstick with an efi partition and a working OS with all drivers.
2 - If something you do leaves the Joggler in a non-booting state (i.e. stuck on O2/OpenPeak screen) take the following steps:
A - Don't Panic
B - Attach keyboard and known good usb stick, and apply power to the Joggler
C - Press escape frantically (oh yes just like the good ol' days)
D - Once the num-lock key has lit, press escape a few more times. The process has worked if the numlock/caps lock key switches on and off when you press the appropriate key.
E - type the following: fs1:boot and press enter. You are typing blind thanks to the jogglers boot screen.
F - If it doesn't boot the USB stick repeat the whole process.
G - It it doesn't work repeat the whole process but type fs0:boot and press enter
3 - Once booting into Ubuntu delete the MMC parition, create one EFI boot partition (DD or just copy it with GParted).
4 - Test the booting to USB with the newly written EFI boot partition.

Thanks, for the detailed instructions, Pete!
Esp. 2D was new to me - good validation check, that at least 'something' works.
I will give this a try as soon as I tracked down a USB keyboard & will post results.

Heiner

[jogglerhase]

.....
Blind typing procedure:
Recovering an unbootable Joggler
1 - Before you do any of this, it is essential that you have a working usbstick with an efi partition and a working OS with all drivers.
2 - If something you do leaves the Joggler in a non-booting state (i.e. stuck on O2/OpenPeak screen) take the following steps:
A - Don't Panic
B - Attach keyboard and known good usb stick, and apply power to the Joggler
C - Press escape frantically (oh yes just like the good ol' days)
D - Once the num-lock key has lit, press escape a few more times. The process has worked if the numlock/caps lock key switches on and off when you press the appropriate key.
E - type the following: fs1:boot and press enter. You are typing blind thanks to the jogglers boot screen.
F - If it doesn't boot the USB stick repeat the whole process.
G - It it doesn't work repeat the whole process but type fs0:boot and press enter
3 - Once booting into Ubuntu delete the MMC parition, create one EFI boot partition (DD or just copy it with GParted).
4 - Test the booting to USB with the newly written EFI boot partition.

Thanks, again so much, Pete - the Joggler is back in business!!!
The only slight adjustment I needed was Line 2E:
Instead of:
'fs0:boot' and [RETURN]
I needed to type:
'fs0:' and [RETURN] and then 'boot.nsh' and [RETURN].

Again - thank you Pete and thanks to the entire community, who still keep this great little gadget alive!!!!

Heiner

[karlek]

Hi at all!

Yesterday evening after updating the LMS my Joggler, running roobarbs SqueezeplayOS 303, didn't boot up anymore. Neither from internal Openpeak nor from an external reflash stick (also from roobarb). It's only showing the OpenPeak boot logo and shortly after that the display gets distorted.

I now have two main goals.
Firstly I want the Joggler have running again. Therefore I found that rundown list from Pete.
But I got stuck in the process. USB stick is in internal port, keyboard in external. After hitting the escape key frantically I got in state D. And from there I can achieve some changes on the display by entering fs1: [RETURN] and boot.nsh [RETURN] as @jogglerhase mentioned: the display then got distorted.
After that I'm lost. Not only because I can't see any console. But I even don't know what data the USB-Stick should contain. Not to mention how to erase the MMC and writing an EFI partition.
If someone could be so kindly and explain a wee more precise what I should pack on the stick. Would an sqpos stick work or one flashed with buzz' *buntu or do I need another special image on that stick?

My second goal would then be to restore the former state, eg running the very same sqpos & LMS as I did before. Is it possible just to stick the old USB stick in and everything works as it was or am I to build my LMS from scratch? To be honest, I tried that sqpos & LMS-stick on another Joggler (sqpos internal) nut only got a blank screen.

And another question: sometimes when a Joggler running from internal sqpos was too often taken from power without shutting off ( children *seigh*) it won't boot up and I have to flash it again.
Is it possible to dd the internal OS to an USB stick and flash that image if the Joggler doesn’t want to boot up anymore? If yes, can I use roobarbs reflash stick?
And furthermore could an external USB stick or it's OS take damage either when switching off whilst running?

Any help would be appreciated
karlek

Edit: I tried roobarbs reflash several times and what shall I say? Now it's flashing.

Time for saying thanks to all of you, helping the Joggler not only keep alive but giving it more and more sense.
I bought a few months ago two Jogglers and got two "broken" ones as giveaway. Both of them are working now very well. The first one had (and still has) a broken screen and didn't show anything on it. I opened it and found the both cables not be connected to the display side. I replugged them et voilà! . The second one didn't do anything after power on. I refreshed it with OpenPeak and then with sqpos and all went good again.

The one with the broken glass now is downstairs in the basement where it acts as LMS. He had the weakest WLAN. A second is running in the bathroom, showing in the morning the weather forecast (thanks to Erlands Custom Clock and the SuperWeather-Plugin.
Two others serve my children to control a regular Squeezebox 2 and Squeezebox 3. They cannot read but can navigate with help of the icons very well.

Flashing is finished but It's not working that well. It goes up to the more modern OpenPeak logo, but then the Display gets distorted again and the systems hangs... Trying again...

[pete]

Good news karlek. The problem ones can be too if not a physical wire thing a worn out EFI boot ROM or MMC flash/ram stuff. You can test this by doing a hot swap (be very carefull) with a working non issue Joggler.

Relating to the MMC 1Gb chip you can try a repair on it booting in BuZz's Ubuntu. The RAM chip though is soldered in place which really doesn't matter if you boot off of a USB stick.

Today too you can also now write a ROM to the network Realtek chip as it is naked and never was programmed by Openpeak. This way you can suspend the O2 Joggler and wake it up remotely using WOL.

Yup; here have shipped Jogglers domestically and internationally. A couple have arrived with disconnected LCDs and others with disconnected USB WLAN sticks. I have a couple here with cracked screens that would fine for testing and use where I do not look at the screens.

My son told me he is down to one small LCD TV nowadays as my grandchildren (HIS two sons) have wacked (cracked) his other two LCD TVs with the remote controls.

Thinking back in the old days of electronic media stuff here had mini padlocked or hidden latches on my multimedia stuff and the kitchen cabinets Well it was probably relating to using the slots on the old VCRs for toaster like use (food) instead of video tapes. The kitchen cabinets were a PITA as I had to utilize two hands and unlatch while opening the cabinets.

[karlek]

Hello Pete,

first of all thanks to you for your reply and apologies for my absence.

Today I wanted to try the EFI unbricking by hot swapping, but I didn't get so far. And right now I'm at a loss with all 4 of mine Jogglers not running anymore.

I'm meanwhile not sure, that a broken EFI is the cause of my problems. Therefore here a little analysis:

Since I removed the "broken" EFI from my 3 broken Jogglers, I swapped them mutual and with my last working Joggler. So I found out, that another EFI lead to no change in the behavior of the Joggler. And the behavior is more or less the same:
After the bootlogo ("OpenPeak" on some, "O2" on the others) there is mostly a time, where every Joggler seems to work and boots fine from stick. When I used roobarb!s reflash-stick, it gets in text mode and shows yellow text. When that text reaches the state to show [initrd...] the display begins to go nuts; flickering, flatlines, one Joggler even had two pictures overlayn and one of them seemed to fade slowly.
When I have Buzz' Xubuntu in the stick, it goes till the grubs menu (also text mode) and when the OS will be booted, the display got distorted again.

Now I come to explain, why I broke another 2 Jogglers.
After repowering a second one, he didn't boot up to SqueezePlayOS (internal) but stayed on a screen showing "squeeze play" so not the bootlogo. Since that is the case sometimes when my kids played too much with a Joggler and i had to replug the power, I didn't worry but began to reflash it.

And now, maybe, I made a big mistake: I used the very same USB-sticks as when I tried to recover the first broken one. Those are 2 Toshiba 8GB with a green LED and 2 SanDisk Cruzer 4GB with an orange LEd. But the reflashing didn't succeed. The display was unreadable, the USB was blinking rapidly and I left it for a while. Nothing happened, so I unplugged the Joggler and tried it again with the same result. Then I tried it with a working one to be sure and broke that one too.

That in mind, I ordered a few new 4GB-Sticks and stopped all activity besides HP-formatting some of my misused USB-Sticks several times. For the 4th and last working Joggler I used only new ones but without success. Meanwhile even that Joggler refuses to show more then text mode.

And now I fear that I broke the all of my Jogglers by destroying something by using a broken stick. Would that be possible?

My plan would be:
1) Finding a OS without GUI, but working in a terminal after booting.
2) Finding out, which part of the Joggler is broken.
3) How to repair that part.
4) Repair it.
5) Enjoy Squeezeplay again. (Those Jogglers are THE Squeezeboxes for children or showing a clock and high WAF weather forecast.)

I would greatly appreciate any help, since english ain't my mothers language and i even don't know, what phrases to search for. For instance I don't have a clue, who and where I can buy some spare EFI chips. Maybe some with/for/from SeaBios?
My skills in soldering are very basic and in unsoldering they don't even exists.

And now something completely different:
Even when I don't reply I always read your posts and admire your skills. XP, Win10, OS X, ... you guys are astonishing. Keep on joggling!

[pete]

For instance I don't have a clue, who and where I can buy some spare EFI chips.

Its been a long time since I have purchased EFI ROM chips. The part number is in the seabios thread here.

It is SST 49LF008A and is available at Farnell, Digikey, Mouser...and more.

You can write the seabios rom booting up with BuZz's Ubuntu or the updated O2 OS.

One thing to look at too that I have seen is that the RJ-45 NIC / power / audio board is hot melt glued it. It is connected to a rigid ZIF cable with two wires to the Joggler board. I have had issues with the board coming loose causing the power plug to sink in to the Joggler and not working right causing power disconnects.

To fix this just heat up the glue a bit while holding the board in place or put more glue there.

Check the LCD to motherboard connection to make sure it is not coming off.