Alt-F-0.1RC4 broken box

[François Blackburn]

Hi,

I did the update to RC4 but I think the box is broken. The blue power led keeps blinking with a slow heart beat rate after reboot, with no blue/orange disks led activity. After many hours with this state, I cut power and removed disks, but nothing change.

Reset button and power button did work.

I can't ping the box (I scan the network and looked DHCP)

I have DNS-323 REV B1

help?

[João Cardoso]

On Thursday, June 26, 2014 4:23:32 AM UTC+1, François Blackburn wrote:

Hi,

I did the update to RC4 but I think the box is broken. The blue power led keeps blinking with a slow heart beat rate after reboot,

A "a slow heart beat rate" means that Alt-F booted and was running and that filesystems was being checked.

Was you on RC3 before? Or upgrade from the vendor's firmware? Your filesystems are ext2 or ext3? RAID?

with no blue/orange disks led activity.

That is not normal.

 

After many hours with this state, I cut power and removed disks, but nothing change.

Reset button and power button did work.

You meant did *not*, right?

Does the orange leds blink when you press the front or back (recessed) reset buttons without disks on the box? Read the "About Leds and Buttons" wiki.

 

I can't ping the box (I scan the network and looked DHCP)

I have DNS-323 REV B1

That's exactly the same box/hardware  where I develop Alt-F, and everything is running OK for me.

help?

[François Blackburn]

Le jeudi 26 juin 2014 11:40:55 UTC-4, João Cardoso a écrit :

On Thursday, June 26, 2014 4:23:32 AM UTC+1, François Blackburn wrote:

Hi,

I did the update to RC4 but I think the box is broken. The blue power led keeps blinking with a slow heart beat rate after reboot,

A "a slow heart beat rate" means that Alt-F booted and was running and that filesystems was being checked.

Was you on RC3 before? Or upgrade from the vendor's firmware? Your filesystems are ext2 or ext3? RAID?

 

Yes RC3, ext3, no RAID

with no blue/orange disks led activity.

That is not normal. 

 

Running filesystem checked should have disk led activity, no?

 

After many hours with this state, I cut power and removed disks, but nothing change.

Reset button and power button did work.

You meant did *not*, right?

 

Yeah sorry "didn't work"

 

Does the orange leds blink when you press the front or back (recessed) reset buttons without disks on the box? Read the "About Leds and Buttons" wiki.

  

No

 

I can't ping the box (I scan the network and looked DHCP)

I have DNS-323 REV B1

That's exactly the same box/hardware  where I develop Alt-F, and everything is running OK for me.

 

Ok, I will try to put the box ON during a 24 hours. 

Normaly, we can access the box during en filesystem checked, why now I can't?

 

help?

[João Cardoso]

On Thursday, June 26, 2014 5:29:16 PM UTC+1, François Blackburn wrote:

Le jeudi 26 juin 2014 11:40:55 UTC-4, João Cardoso a écrit :

On Thursday, June 26, 2014 4:23:32 AM UTC+1, François Blackburn wrote:

Hi,

I did the update to RC4 but I think the box is broken. The blue power led keeps blinking with a slow heart beat rate after reboot,

A "a slow heart beat rate" means that Alt-F booted and was running and that filesystems was being checked.

Was you on RC3 before? Or upgrade from the vendor's firmware? Your filesystems are ext2 or ext3? RAID?

 

Yes RC3, ext3, no RAID

with no blue/orange disks led activity.

That is not normal. 

 

Running filesystem checked should have disk led activity, no?

Yes.

And as your are using ext3 the initial fsck step should be fast (unless the time to do a full fsck has arrived)

 

 

After many hours with this state, I cut power and removed disks, but nothing change.

Reset button and power button did work.

You meant did *not*, right?

 

Yeah sorry "didn't work"

 

Does the orange leds blink when you press the front or back (recessed) reset buttons without disks on the box? Read the "About Leds and Buttons" wiki.

  

No

That means that Alt-F is not running.

What is the exact power up sequence? You can remove disks first.

What you should observe:

-Immediately after power up the power blue led should blink fast, about two or three times per second -- that's u-boot, the bootloader, not Alt-F here

-When u-boot loads and execues the linux kernel, the blue power led should blink slowly, about once per second -- the kernel has/is booting

-After the kernel boots and the Alt-F initscripts start to execute, the blue power led should be turned off for a second or two, then on, then off (no exact pattern) and finally should become steady on.

-If the initial initscripts complete, the 'sysctrl' daemon should respond to key presses by blinking the led leds (keep the key pressed for a couple of seconds). 

Do you observe that?

 

 

I can't ping the box (I scan the network and looked DHCP)

The network led is on? If it is off, then you have a network cable issue. Does it blinks occasionaly?

 

I have DNS-323 REV B1

That's exactly the same box/hardware  where I develop Alt-F, and everything is running OK for me.

 

Ok, I will try to put the box ON during a 24 hours. 

That is not going to hyelp.

 

Normaly, we can access the box during en filesystem checked, why now I can't?

I suspect that you had a bad flash experience -- during the firmware upgrade did the "Verify" step shows OK for both the kernel and rootfs? No further message?

Flashing kernel/rootfs, it should take about xxx seconds, Verifying...  OK/Failed

[François Blackburn]

No, I observe fast blinking after power on (~10 sec), after the power led turn off (~1 sec) and after the power led start blinking slowly

 

 

 

I can't ping the box (I scan the network and looked DHCP)

The network led is on? If it is off, then you have a network cable issue. Does it blinks occasionaly?

Yes, it's on and when I scan network it blink

 

 

I have DNS-323 REV B1

That's exactly the same box/hardware  where I develop Alt-F, and everything is running OK for me.

 

Ok, I will try to put the box ON during a 24 hours. 

That is not going to hyelp.

 

Normaly, we can access the box during en filesystem checked, why now I can't?

I suspect that you had a bad flash experience -- during the firmware upgrade did the "Verify" step shows OK for both the kernel and rootfs? No further message?

Flashing kernel/rootfs, it should take about xxx seconds, Verifying...  OK/Failed

I didn't pay attention ...

[João Cardoso]

That means that the linux kernel is booting.

If it never stops slowly blinking, then the kernel didn't stop loading, you had a bad flash and you need to attach a serial adapter to the box.

It means buying a 3.3Volts serial (RS-232) to USB cable adapter, soldering three wires of one end of the the cable to the box motherboard and attaching the USB cable end to a PC. It costs about 10€

Sorry...

[François Blackburn]

Le jeudi 26 juin 2014 16:00:15 UTC-4, João Cardoso a écrit :

That means that the linux kernel is booting.

If it never stops slowly blinking, then the kernel didn't stop loading, you had a bad flash and you need to attach a serial adapter to the box.

It means buying a 3.3Volts serial (RS-232) to USB cable adapter, soldering three wires of one end of the the cable to the box motherboard and attaching the USB cable end to a PC. It costs about 10€

Sorry...

Oh .. I will do it in few weeks and come back to tell my results!

Thank you :)

[François Blackburn]

I went to an electronics store and bought a max232. I could borrow a usb-serial adapter. 

I Followed http://dns323.kood.org/howto:serial_level_adapter 

and http://dns323.kood.org/howto:reflash_from_windows 

Now all work fine (and don't lose my old parameters)! :)

For less than 1$CA 

[João Cardoso]

On Saturday, June 28, 2014 5:26:34 AM UTC+1, François Blackburn wrote:

I went to an electronics store and bought a max232. I could borrow a usb-serial adapter. 

I Followed http://dns323.kood.org/howto:serial_level_adapter 

and http://dns323.kood.org/howto:reflash_from_windows 

Now all work fine (and don't lose my old parameters)! :)

For less than 1$CA 

Great!

In the  http://dns323.kood.org/howto:reflash_from_windows a reference is made to "splitdns323fw Utility", but the link to the utility site is broken.

Alt-F has its own utility, called dns323-fw,

https://code.google.com/p/alt-f/source/browse/tags/Release-0.1RC4/package/alt-f-utils/alt-f-utils-0.1.7/dns323-fw.c

It splits and creates D-link compatible firmware files for the DNS-320/320L/321/323/325/343, but as I don't use MS-Windows I haven't compiled it.

Perhaps someone can do it, test it and update the above HowTo?

Thanks

[Mauro Aguiar]

How can reflash in linux? i already split the files, but i dont think initramfs is the same uramdisk of the tutorial