September 13, 2007 at 09:43 am

"Red Pill" updates brick N800...

(Story at 10.)

No, really… I ran some updates (three different libs) in “Red Pill“ mode on my N800 yesterday and it created some major issues. First, I noticed that I could no longer run any apps in the GPE PIM suite as well as Claws Mail.

I was thinking that I could either wait for a new update, or regress back to older version of the files I updated. Then I wondered what would happen if I rebooted (which I hadn’t done since the update).

But, upon reboot, my N800 wouldn’t get through the entire booting process. It showed the Nokia logo, showed the progress bar get to full, and then played the startup chime… While still on the Nokia logo/progress bar screen. And, that’s where it stayed.

I’ve tried rebooting several times and the same thing happens every time — it never gets past the initial Nokia logo screen.

If anyone has an idea of what I might try before I go through the hassle of reflashing and reinstalling all of the apps I need (along with losing all of the files that I have stored in the internal memory), I’d appreciate it.

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Comments (9)

Afraid I can’t help with your problem, but your blog is one of the coolest I’ve seen, design wise :)

» Comment by Chris Lord () (URL), on September 13, 2007 at 2:13 pm

Thanks, Chris. I am really dreading reflashing… It would be my fourth time since the latest firmware! :-(

» Comment by timsamoff () (URL), on September 13, 2007 at 2:18 pm

I can’t help with this either. I have had boot problems with my N800, and had to reflash, so many times I have given up the device all together. Every time it happened I looked around for ideas how to fix it without loosing everything. And every time I found nothing useful.

My boot problems seems to have revolved mainly around the N800 running out of battery tho. Not doing anything nasty with the system like you. So maybe you have more luck than me there.

One thing I wondered every time was why on earth the user-stuff and the system cannot be separated into volumes tho. It’s one of the biggest failures of the the device that the user has to completely start from scratch (well. except for the limited backup options) every time an update is release – or in my case sometimes when the battery runs out.

» Comment by Tiran Kenja () , on September 13, 2007 at 7:28 pm

Do you have sshd installed and running ?

If so, maybe you could see if you can log into the device over ssh and see whats going on.

» Comment by Nermal (URL), on September 14, 2007 at 03:14 am

Tiran ~ In the case of the failing battery, I’d try to excahnge the N800 if I were you. Concerning the backup functionality… Yeah, it sucks. But, the next version of the OS should have a much improved backup/restore utility that backs up everything.

Nermal ~ I’m not sure I got to the point where I installed sshd. But, if I did, could you point a non-technical guy to some instructions for doing that?

» Comment by timsamoff () (URL), on September 14, 2007 at 06:33 am

Same thing happened to me, I apt-get upgraded, then apps wouldn’t start, and after rebooting it hung at the loading screen. I had to reflash, losing everything on the internal memory :(

» Comment by James () (URL), on September 14, 2007 at 4:12 pm

Same problem here. Did a red pill update and could no longer boot. I had to reflash – lesson learnt.

And yes, a better included backup would be nice, or as someone else mentioned, ‘home’ in its own partition. Maybe with a little effort it is already possible to have home on one of the memory cards.

» Comment by Mark () , on September 14, 2007 at 7:04 pm

Yeah, I’m getting closer to admitting that I must reflash. It’s a bummer. I will have to refind/install all of the repositories, apps, etc. :-(

» Comment by timsamoff () (URL), on September 14, 2007 at 10:51 pm

I had some issues with the latest update… (then it occurred to me to remove the sd cards first!) one of the things to watch out for is that if you have virtual memory image in your internal sd card, it will try to read it after you reflash, even if the virtual memory option is turned off. So what I did was to turn off virtual memory and format the cards…. removed them prior to performing the upgrade, and once things are up and running, plug them back in, and then turned on virtual memory again. So far everything is working well (and yes do get ssh working, google "ssh n800" and you will get several sites telling you how to do this. I used http://thehereweb.googlepages.com/runnin..).

Now, my question: why is it that getting a bluetooth keyboard working propppppperly is such a pain on this machine? I have yet to see xset770 do anything. How does one go about turning off repeat on all the keys? xset770 r off or similar do not seem to have any effect. Nor has anyone come up with a good solution (you would think that this would be something on the top of everyone’s list of fixes). ffrrrruustttraattteddd iiiinnnn Frrrreeeeeemmmmontttt

» Comment by gui , on October 07, 2007 at 02:14 am

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September 13, 2007 at 09:43 am

"Red Pill" updates brick N800...

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