Bricked Iliad - what now

[sigi]

Hey guys!

I just bricked my Iliad (I had to try it ... ). I know how to fix it, but that would require a serial console (putty is running on ttyS2). As far as I know, nobody has discovered one yet, so it seems the device has to be reflashed.

What is the procedure to follow to get it reflashed by Irex?

[design256]

Originally Posted by sigi

Hey guys!

I just bricked my Iliad (I had to try it ... ;-) ). What is the procedure to follow to get it reflashed by Irex?

Had to try what???

Go on, what did you do?

[k2r]

Originally Posted by sigi

I just bricked my Iliad (I had to try it ... ;-)

Please tell us more - maybe there's a way to fix it.
Or for us to avoid bricking our devices.

[sigi]

I modified the er_registry.txt in /etc and without thinking I did a

'mv /etc/er_registry.txt /mnt/settings'

instead of a

'cp /etc/er_registry.txt /mnt/settings'

and that bricked my Iliad.

I know, terribly stupid :-( .

[design256]

Originally Posted by sigi

I modified the er_registry.txt in /etc and without thinking I did a

'mv /etc/er_registry.txt /mnt/settings'

instead of a

'cp /etc/er_registry.txt /mnt/settings'

and that bricked my Iliad.

I know, terribly stupid :-( .

I'm surprised that bricked it - it normally reads /mnt/settings/er_registry. What happens when you boot? How far does it get? Do any of the buttons do anything at all? What about plugging it into the USB port on your deskop?

[sigi]

Originally Posted by design256

I'm surprised that bricked it - it normally reads /mnt/settings/er_registry. What happens when you boot? How far does it get? Do any of the buttons do anything at all? What about plugging it into the USB port on your deskop?

I was surprised too. When I boot the Iliad, it hangs after the loading bar in the bottom of the startup screen turned completely white and the boot image is still showing. Then the only working "button" is pushing reset. Plugging it into the USB port doesn't work either.

[DHer]

I'm sorry for you.

The default way is to phone the support, shell out 75€ and wait 4 weeks for the iliad to return.

*Maybe* you can cut the "i'm sorry, i'll never do it again"-deal which gives you a free first reflash.

Or they've got a reflash option in place they didn't tell us about.

Or you open your iliad and search for the serial console. There are some pointers that there is one inside.

[R2D2]

Scotty somewhere wrote that he knows how to flash it. So maybe pm him.

If this should not work, there is still the meditation thread. ;-)

[sigi]

Originally Posted by DHer

I'm sorry for you.

The default way is to phone the support, shell out 75€ and wait 4 weeks for the iliad to return.

*Maybe* you can cut the "i'm sorry, i'll never do it again"-deal which gives you a free first reflash.

Or they've got a reflash option in place they didn't tell us about.

Or you open your iliad and search for the serial console. There are some pointers that there is one inside.

The problem with opening the Iliad is that I void my warranty, but if Irex reflashes the device the warranty stays intact (as far as I know).

Maybe they will do a free reflash, because I was in the process of porting frotz (an Interactive Fiction Interpreter) and had the console version already running. (IRex seems to support users developing their own applications for the Iliad). Just to speed up the development process I decided to edit er_registry.txt.

I'll give them a call tomorrow.

[scotty1024]

Did you install Design256's safety net?

Sorry dumb question, you wouldn't be saying you were bricked otherwise...

There is most definitely a serial console running on the iLiad /dev/ttyS2.

Someone was poking around the unused pins on the docking connector and found a pin flipping when they pressed the page bar. That work is here somewhere on MR.

The page bar application sends diagnostics out to the console every time you flip the page bar.

Following that logic chain it seems possible that pin is hooked to ttyS2.

If you can get onto that console let us know.

Worst case hacking your USB hub will cost you a new hub and won't violate your iLiad's warranty any worse than it already is.

[scotty1024]

By the way, I know from personal experience that just walking into UPS to ship an iLiad back to iRex by overnight level service costs roughly $100 USD.

Their 75 eur charge may seem outrageous but UPS is getting most of it e.g. you might keep that in mind when asking for a free un-bricking.

What is outrageous is that we still don't have some magic incantation on the iLiad that allows one to reset it back to factory conditions off an MMC or CF card... or a serial console cable for $30 eur.

[b_k]

Originally Posted by scotty1024

...
What is outrageous is that we still don't have some magic incantation on the iLiad that allows one to reset it back to factory conditions off an MMC or CF card... or a serial console cable for $30 eur.

You know, I would even pay the 30 EUR for the serial console cable. (Aside from knowing, that the parts alone are probably not more than 10 EUR, but that is what i think.)
Personally I would say, the console cable would be a nice service to those "spare time" programmers like you. Would even get them less support calls cause of broken files. And they could even make money out of that. Just doing the same as with the SDK, here you have you serial console, but we are not responsible for anything you do with that, and I would be perfectly happy.

The thing that there is no way currently to reflash the iLiad as a user is (from my point of view) the usual "security by obscurity" thing. And you know what they say about having console access? "If they got console access, it's not your machine anymore"

[arivero]

Originally Posted by b_k

Personally I would say, the console cable would be a nice service to those "spare time" programmers like you.

we do not knw where the console cable attach. If it is external, it must receive a signal to free it from the High Impedance state. If it is internal (there is a unused conector in the upper left side) then you need to open the machine anyway.

[arivero]

Originally Posted by sigi

loading bar in the bottom of the startup screen turned completely white and the boot image is still showing.

Could be you still have X working and wifi enabled, you can try to connect to the Xserver port to see if it is the case. Even if so, I think nobody got a trick to control the iLiad from the Xserver.

[design256]

Originally Posted by scotty1024

Did you install Design256's safety net?

Sorry dumb question, you wouldn't be saying you were bricked otherwise...

There is most definitely a serial console running on the iLiad /dev/ttyS2.

Someone was poking around the unused pins on the docking connector and found a pin flipping when they pressed the page bar. That work is here somewhere on MR.

The page bar application sends diagnostics out to the console every time you flip the page bar.

Following that logic chain it seems possible that pin is hooked to ttyS2.

If you can get onto that console let us know.

Worst case hacking your USB hub will cost you a new hub and won't violate your iLiad's warranty any worse than it already is.

I just pulled the connector apart again and applied the logic probe. Sadly the pin which pulses with the pagebar doesn't do anything when you send data to /dev/ttyS2 - so I don't think that pin is the serial console.

The high impedance pins are, well, high impedance. If they're switchable from software then we're stuffed anyway.

Go on Irex, put us out of our misery...