AmigaOne U-Boot bugs - please read

Hi @number6

It was indicated to me that some NVRAM is flaky, but I have no way to know that for sure.

Is this occuring on XEs or only on the Micros?

Can't say for certain...Last summer I was in a "rit of felous jadge" with a Pink Panther! My A1-XE would bootup to blinking cursor on a black screen. This was after the LCD monitor failed. I sent the UBoot to JJ at Amiga Repair, France, to checkout and all was OK. (The chip was a 2003 replacement for the non flashable original chip) The machine was offline about two weeks and when I rebooted all the sii0680ide settings were lost. I had a hardcopy backup I typed backin, but I felt it didn't restore things back exactly. I had the impression the NVRAM list itself was a priority set in time; i.e. the new restored settings are not the same priority as they were originally set! Anyway law&order was restore to some reasonable facsimile of the system before the mishaps.

@number6

The issues with U-Boot prefs are

- The author no longer works on it.
- It cannot really keep up with the changes in U-Boot.

@Rogue

As i am still on 1.1.1 and dont know if all of those minor text/help/visual glitches have been fixed already in 1.3.4 (AND i don't know how to add tracker items to bugs.os4depot.net), i'll post my list here if you don't mind!?

In the main UBoot menu the item "Memory" shows an erraneous help text:

"Adjust settings for your memory AND RUN MEMORY TESTS"
(The memory tests are in another UBoot menu item, not in "Memory")

There are various help lines with cut text, missing vital(?) information, those are:

Menu item "Integrated Peripherals"
In "Internal IDE Controller" it says "Decides whether the internal IDE controller should be displayed, scan the" and stops there

Menu item "Boot Sequence"
In "Linux Boot Options" it says "Device to boot from. The first number is the disk number which starts from" and stops there

In "Boot command" it says "Selects the command that is executed for booting. Network parameters are" and stops there

Menu item "PCI/AGP"
In EVERY "Trigger by" help text it says "Select whether the IRQ is triggered by a change in level ('edge') of the" and stops there

I found two help lines with missing text or missing a space:

Menu item "Integrated Peripherals"
In "Use front USB ports" the help line "If set to yes, U-Boot will use the front USB ports (if available).Otherwise, the back panel USB ports are used (near the network socket)" --> There is a missing SPACE after the period and before "Otherwise"

"Swap Primary and Secondary IDE port"
The help text says: "If set to 'yes', will swap ..." there is a missing "it" before "will swap"

Inconsistency of periods at the end of sentences:

In the main menu the item "Default/Fix Settings" has a period at the end of its help text as does within the item "Memory" in "Use Memory Limit" and within "PCI/AGP" in the item "AGP Speed".
I think it should either be that every line has a period or none, otherwise it "feels" not right.

Graphics bug (refresh problem?)

In the item "Amiga Boot Options" choose "Boot Device 2" or "Boot Device 3". It will bring up the list of possible device. This list however is so big that it will draw over the bottom border of the device window (Boot Device 2) respectively over the bottom and top borders of the device and help text window (Boot Devcie 3). If one closes the device list window the overdrawn segments stay as the borders don't seem to be refreshed/redrawn.

Bug in Boot Sequence code(?)

This i wondered for a long time, actually since the first UBoot i tried. Go to "Boot Sequence" and choose "Initial Boot Delay" and here "Immediate". Now restart with the case button (cold reboot). This menu options will not start booting after zero seconds, rather will it go straight back into the UBoot menu. Either this item has an erraneous name or it doesn't do exactly whats it supposed to(?)

Feature Request

Is it possible to make the UBoot item lists "roll over", please?
If i scroll down the list to it's last item i would like to get back to the first item if i choose to press down again or vice versa. Some of the lists are quite long.


Thank you for listening and thank you for letting me get all this off my chest

@Raziel

You need to register and log in into the bug tracker to add an issue.

After you have logged in, click your way to the software that you want to add an issue to and the click "Add Issue" at the top of the page.

@Rogue The kiss was like a mothers kiss when its child did something good ;) You can be stright or not :)

@Rogue

A discussion in another forum leads to a new bug here.

On a micro board, the sound outputs a stream of static until sometime after kickstart is loaded.

Rebooting after the first power up is quiet for OS reboot, but noisy again for a machine reboot. (as expected)

If the sound hardware could be muted during the first PCI scan, it would make using OS4 in a studio much better. It's a bit embarrasing to reboot, more so if it makes noise the whole time it's loading.

I have registered at OS4Depot for the bug tracker, but have not yet received my response E-Mail. I can log in there, but I can't figure out how to add a new issue.

As always, I'll provide any help that I can.

LyleHaze

Kicko: Youre beginning to scare me, man.

@LyleHaze

As a non verified user you can still log in, but you can't actually do anything. You need to follow the instructions in the registration email to activate your account.

Unfortunately email is quite unreliable these days with gray lists, black lists, spam filters and whatnot leading to that email does not always reach its destination. You can thank the spammers for messing up the whole world wide email system. I estimate that about 10-20% of all registrants on os4depot never received their registration email due to the above problems. Amigans.net registrations have about the same ratio.

Anyway, I have validated your account manually.

If anyone else registers but does not get the email then just PM me here on amigans.

@orgin

As you surmised, my registration e-mail never arrived.
Thank you very much for the assist in getting registered.

The audio noise issue has been added to the list.

LyleHaze

@Rogue

Re: Pioneer 107D optical drive.
Sorry, sometimes I read right past something I was supposed to stop and answer.

When a pioneer 107D drive is installed and UBoot is set to it's "normal" drive modes (automatic/best mode, I think).
The machine is unable to boot at all. Not only does the optical drive not appear, but the hard drives(s) disappear too.

This is from memory, it's been a long time. I recall a LOT of hair-pulling trying to figure out why my machine was dead. That's why I reported it, its a real stinker.

If the optical drive is disconnected, everything is fine.

If UBoot is set for PIO, no interrupts everything is fine.

Once you have made it past UBoot/SLB and into OS4, you can re-enable drive interrupts and everthing is happy.

What makes it worse is that you set uboot and user-startup and the problem is forgotten, until the next time you reset UBoot settings, then you're up the creek again.

The Pioneer 107D was the first drive listed as "compatible with OS4" at intuitionbase. a note describing the workaround has been added.

I have installed the latest firmware for the 107 drive, no help.

I'll look for previous posts on the subject and add references to this post if I can find them.

LyleHaze

@LyleHaze

Hmmm... the strange part is, U-Boot always uses PIO mode. It does not use the variables for interrupts either. The access is always the same, regardless of how AmigaOS 4.x is set up.

There has to be something else going on.

@LyleHaze

I have the same optical drive, yes this is an issue with that particular drive. I was helping to debug this with Stephane Guillard (the guy who developed the IDE drivers), it seems that in DMA mode the drive puts something on the IDE bus that it's not supposed to, messing everything up. The sad thing is that even the latest firmware of the drive does not fix it. I don't know how they solve this in other OS'es, either they only enable DMA after drive initialization, or they have some other workaround for particular misbehaving devices. Last time I talked to Stephane about this, he didn't like the idea of putting workarounds into his drivers, but I'll ask him again if he could have a look at this.

In the meantime, the solution is to put some lines into the beginning of your startup-sequence to enable interrupts, that works for me.

@COBRA
Thanks for that. I am glad to hear that I'm not the only one having issues with this.

@Rogue
I learned something new. Thank You.
Perhaps the problem is between UBOOT and Workbench.. I believe that would be the Second Level Booter. In that case it's outside the topic for this thread.

It's not a big issue for me, I'll probably swap a different drive in before my next OS upgrade anyway. I just thought it would be a good bug to squash if you were coding around in there already.

As I said earlier, if you or Stephane or anyone else wants to reproduce the bug, I'll be happy to send you my drive. I think I have a BENQ that will replace it.


LyleHaze

@Rogue

OK, i finally found the time to add the minor annoyances to bugs.os4depot

Thanks a lot