8810 Extender 3.1 problem--new report

Nils_Ekberg · Post by **Nils_Ekberg** » Fri Feb 06, 2004 10:17 pm

bobbyt8888 wrote:I have all of 5 days experience in playing with these remotes, so I hesitate to post my solution without one of the resident experts verifying its stability.

I don't think anyone can validate the stability without running it themselves

bobbyt8888 wrote:The backlight, while I can now program its duration, at times gets stuck in a repeating loop which I can stop by turning the backlight off. By this I mean it lights for 2 seconds, briefly goes off (100 ms) and then lights for another 2 secs, etc.....?

I am concerned that some other offset or patch is off or got clobbered in the handletimeout area of the extender or else it would not be doing that.

bobbyt8888 wrote:Also, I'm having a problem getting the ToadTog to work, though I suspect that this is cockpit error.?

TT depends on a register that may now be impacted by some of the changes. Someone would need to look at it to figure it out. Like you said however, it may just be the way it is set up.

bobbyt8888 wrote:I have modified the RDF file and would like to rename it to say, 6_80_2x3.01 (6012 x3.01_2K).rdf. Does anyone know how and when IR.exe loads the RDF file and how to make sure the correct RDF is loaded?

You need to be carefull with renaming RDF's. For example, the first 8 chars in the name is the signature which if changed would never be matched to the remote by IR.

IR reads the RDF either when an existing upgrade is opened, a NEW is done or a remote is downloaded to IR.

bobbyt8888 · Post by **bobbyt8888** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 9:52 am

I found my Toadtog problem -- I didn't realize that keycodes are entered and not device command codes.

As for the problem of walking on the code area by inserting the NOPs, it's difficult for me to debug this without other tools. What else is available for the S3C80 processor in the way of development tools? Is there a debugger or a sofware emulator?

It's been a long time since I worked in assembly code so I'm pretty rusty.

Nils_Ekberg · Post by **Nils_Ekberg** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 2:10 pm

I am not aware of any development tools or software emulators unless someone is keeping it a real secret. What I typically do for debugging is just comment out the area(s) that may be the problem and just eliminate problems by process of elimination.

bobbyt8888 · Post by **bobbyt8888** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 5:17 pm

Well, I found that the AdvCodeAddr was being walked on. I trimmed that area back to $792 from $798 in the RDF file to account for the added NOPs, but the backlight still intermittently loops. The fact that it doesn't always do it even though the key sequences are identical makes me think that it might be another timing issue.

Where is the appropriate place to post my files so others can try them?

Nils_Ekberg · Post by **Nils_Ekberg** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 5:37 pm

bobbyt8888 wrote:Well, I found that the AdvCodeAddr was being walked on. I trimmed that area back to $792 from $798 in the RDF file to account for the added NOPs, but the backlight still intermittently loops. The fact that it doesn't always do it even though the key sequences are identical makes me think that it might be another timing issue.

Just for the heck of it I tried adding the 3 NOP's after the STOP and IDLE in a couple of my extenders and the ones after the IDLE's made it a little sluggish and a couple of keymoves acted a little flacky plus, that is the same area of the extender that controls the backlight. I did some more research and additional testing and found that what seems to work best is two NOP's after STOP and none after the IDLE which is what most of the extender we have written have. I went back to my originals with just the 2 after the STOP and all was fine again. I think the example of 3 NOP's after each in the reference guide was just that an example with no inference that it must be that way. Further, following a few different threads it sounds like adding the 2 NOP's after the STOP in the one extender that did have the problem solved it and those that already have the 2 NOP's seem to work fine.

bobbyt8888 wrote:Where is the appropriate place to post my files so others can try them?

You can post you file in the jp1 diagnosis area and provide a link here and someone will get a look at it.

bobbyt8888 · Post by **bobbyt8888** » Sat Feb 07, 2004 10:34 pm

I put the RDF file, the 6012-2K-3fix.hex file (with 3 NOPs after Stop and Idle) and the IR text file as a zip file (EXTENDER_3test.zip) in the diagnostic area:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jp1/files ... _3test.zip

Any and all comments welcome and appreciated.

mdburkey · Post by **mdburkey** » Sun Feb 08, 2004 1:49 pm

On my remote, having either two or three NOPs after STOP works but the backlight has problems -- i.e. it flickers and won't work properly.

If I add the NOPs after IDLE as well, then the backlight behaviour goes back to what you would expect.

I'm thinking some lots of micros must be more susceptible to this problem than other.

Mark Pierson · Post by **Mark Pierson** » Sun Feb 08, 2004 4:20 pm

bobbyt8888, take a moment and read the Posting Links thread. I've corrected your link above.

cearnsdorff · Post by **cearnsdorff** » Mon Feb 09, 2004 6:45 am

FYI: I have had a number of problems with my 8810w as well. Originally it worked fine. Then after I replaced the batteries (the previous ones were used in another device - kid's emergency) it started behaving much differently.

Originally I had to unplug the programming cable to use the remote. Now I do not. The extender version 3 originally worked and now it doesn't and I am using version 2. I sometimes have to load the program several times in order for the program to function properly. I kept seeing the LED flash dimly on a few keypresses. Simply re-loading the same program would fix this.

My guess is that something with the hardware is going on and not just a software problem (while I'm sure the two are related). I also have a 15-2116 which works perfectly. I have been able to get the 8810w to perform all the functions needed and my wife can now operate our bedroom system with no problems. So all in all you have done a great job with the software.

My comments are not as technically in depth as your discussions have been but I thought I would pass them on for some additional information.

gwilder · Post by **gwilder** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 3:11 pm

Me Too!! Finally got TOAD/TOG, LKP, PAUSE, etc. to work great for all my sytems with 6012x2.4 Ext and my 8011w. Could not get to work with x3.1, but I had so many other mistakes in my understanding and implimetation of the Extender capabilities that my case should not be considered the norm. JP1 and the Extenders are really powerful tools and all on this Forum are to be congratulated for the outatanding work. It is a lot of fun to work with such tools and to see how powerful a simple remote can be. My only complaint is that other family members do not understand the importance of the programming effort and get very upset when one interupts their TV program to try out the latest version. It forced me to work early in the morning prior to anyone else being awake. Some one have pity on us poor JP1 fanatics. Ha!!
Thanks again for all the info and help.
Gene

bobbyt8888 · Post by **bobbyt8888** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 8:12 am

I think that I'm going to give up on Ver 3.1 for now and use Ver 2.4 instead.
Thanks for all of the help.

e34m5 · Post by **e34m5** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 1:55 pm

Interesting. I've had no probelms with v3.1 and 8810w. Most of the issues were not understanding how to use the extender features. Once I got that i've had no problems.

One comment that I did notice in one of the posts said that theremote works with the cable plugged in. In my experience this has never been the case even in non extended JP1.

bobbyt8888 · Post by **bobbyt8888** » Tue Feb 24, 2004 12:41 pm

I've gotten the remote working the way I like using ver 2.4 but I would like some of the ver 3.1 features. It is still flakey with MY 8810w and it's not an extender feature understanding problem.

Does the source code for the extender exist (other than the .asm file)? I'd like to play with it when I get a chance. If it was originally written in assembly, does a flowchart exist? Any documentation would be helpful.

Nils_Ekberg · Post by **Nils_Ekberg** » Tue Feb 24, 2004 1:19 pm

bobbyt8888 wrote:Does the source code for the extender exist (other than the .asm file)? I'd like to play with it when I get a chance. If it was originally written in assembly, does a flowchart exist? Any documentation would be helpful.

The .asm file in the zip is the source and unless John surprises me the only copy of the source.

I would be surprised if there was a flowchart available but the comments in the .asm file are pretty extensive and relatively easy to follow if you understand assembler.

I think we all agree, "Documentation would be helpful" but the best you will probably get is the comments in the .asm file.