[SOLVED] Dosent Boot Anymore

For problems with Gamebuino itself, NOT your project

[SOLVED] Dosent Boot Anymore

Postby HiFi » Tue Jul 22, 2014 3:52 am

I got my Gamebuino in the mail yesterday and i was so excited ^^. And still am!

I played a few games did some options and now comes the point wehre i know what i did wrong i turned it of at the screen where it loads the bootloader,(the screen wehe it says dont turn off!) because it got stuck at that screen for over an Hour.

Now it want do anything and i tried the normal thing like reformating the sdcard but back everything on it start with pressed c button everything from the normal troubelshooting things.

The sdcard is formatet in fat16 i freshly downloaded the .hex data on the sdcard (via card reader) and when i but the gamebuino usb nothing happens as well beside the fact that it is loading.
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Re: Dosent Boot Anymore

Postby rodot » Tue Jul 22, 2014 7:40 am

Hey there,
If you turn your Gamebuino off while a game is loading, you get a corrupted program memory. To solve that problem (which is not really a problem) your have two solutions:
- Hold down C while you turn on your Gamebuino then release it, so the bootloader flashes LOADER.HEX from the micro SD card
- Upload a Gamebuino program through USB using the Arduino IDE with the Gamebuino library

You'll find more details about how to do that on the getting started page.
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Re: Dosent Boot Anymore

Postby dotdan » Wed Jul 23, 2014 9:54 am

rodot wrote:Hey there,
If you turn your Gamebuino off while a game is loading, you get a corrupted program memory. To solve that problem (which is not really a problem) your have two solutions:
- Hold down C while you turn on your Gamebuino then release it, so the bootloader flashes LOADER.HEX from the micro SD card
- Upload a Gamebuino program through USB using the Arduino IDE with the Gamebuino library

You'll find more details about how to do that on the getting started page.


Hi Rodot,

thanky you for that great handheld. I am loving it.

Anyways.
I have found an easy solution for me: (Just upload this code via USB to the Gamebuino):

Code: Select all
// this code demonstrates the use of load_game
// upload it into gamebuino and then open the serial port monitor, you should see
// the "Send a char to start..." message. send a character to it and it
// will attempt to load and burn LOADER.HEX from the SD card

#define load_game (*((void(*)(const char* filename))(0x7ffc/2)))

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  Serial.println("Send a char to start...");
}

void loop() {
  if (Serial.available()) {
    Serial.read();
    load_game("LOADER");
  }
}


Image

Have fun.

Cheers
Daniel
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Re: Dosent Boot Anymore

Postby HiFi » Wed Jul 23, 2014 8:04 pm

Wuhu, the second solution worked pretty well thank you ^^
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Not booting, only a power light

Postby Quibble » Sat Jul 26, 2014 12:21 am

Hey,

Just received my Gamebuino. Much quicker to arrive than I expected.

Having some problems with the device. Different things every time I start it up. First time I had the startup sound, back light, but nothing on the display. I think this was a miss aligned screen. Fixed that and had a few goes with the test games. Then the next problem happened. While playing the Breakout game, something went weird and the C button stopped responding and couldn't get back to the boot loader. I switched it of and back on again. I got no sound, no backlight, but the power light was on. So far Ive tried the following with no success:

Removing the screen and cleaning connectors
Fully charging the device (battery LED detected it charging and reported a full battery)
formatting the memory card and putting the loader and programs back on (FAT32 and copied all the files from the Gamebuino-master/hex_files)
Checked the C button to make sure its not stuck down (it clicks when pressed, and I've removed the button cap as well)

If anyone else has any ideas, let me know.

Thanks a bunch :)
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Re: [SOLVED] Dosent Boot Anymore

Postby rodot » Sat Jul 26, 2014 7:47 am

It sonds like you simply no longer have a program on your Gamebuino, maybe you turned it off while it was flashing a game. Did you try uploading one of the Gamebuio example program through USB?
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Re: [SOLVED] Dosent Boot Anymore

Postby Quibble » Sat Jul 26, 2014 8:21 am

Maybe when it froze up, it was flashing a game. Unsure of that, but I have since re-formatted the card and put all the original files back on. Unless there is some other internal memory which could have been damaged/wiped? Also when formatting the SD card, it comes up as Fat16, not 32. After doing research online, Mac will format a smaller SD card as a FAT16. I found the appropriate command line to force it to format at FAT32:

diskutil partitionDisk /dev/<disk_identifier> 1 MBRFormat "MS-DOS FAT32" GAMEBUINO 100%

I don't know if it has to be FAT32. I tried it anyway but this still doesn't solve my issue.

I'm also using the latest files from the GitHub. I don't have to build the loader myself do I? I am currently copying across the LOADER.HEX along with all the other HEX files in the hex_files folder

As for connecting via USB, nothing (except charging) happens when I connect via USB, I'm doing all of this using an SD card adapter.
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Re: [SOLVED] Dosent Boot Anymore

Postby rodot » Sat Jul 26, 2014 9:35 am

It has be be FAT16, the bootloader isn't compatible with FAT32.

When you flash a game, it loads the .HEX into the internal program memory. This is the memory which gets corrupted if you turn it off while flashing.

To solve that your just have to upload a new program throught USB using the Arduino IDE (it's explained in the getting started page).

You can also hold down 'C' while you turn on your Gamebuino then release it after a second. Wait 10s, and the loader.hex should be loaded.
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Re: [SOLVED] Dosent Boot Anymore

Postby Quibble » Sat Jul 26, 2014 10:55 am

So, I've been tinkering all morning and think I've made some headway.

I installed and got working all the Arduino software, installed libraries and other stuff, but kept getting error message:

avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding

found a fix in the forum : http://3dwest.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/ar ... 0recv.html

this then wouldn't give me the option of using a USB port to interact with an arduino.

Found another fix on the Arduino site forums, installing drivers : http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm

This made a USB serial port appear in my list.

I opened the Example>Gamebuino>Utilitys>Loader , verified and uploaded. the lights flashed on the Gamebuino and i got a "Uploading Done" from the Arduino software.

I then get a full screen message on the Gamebuino "Insert SD card and restart". The SD card was in and had been formatted before uploading the loader programme. I assumed this was maybe because no other programs where on the card. I plugged the card directly into my computer to find nothing was there (not even the loader I just uploaded). I reformatted and put the card back into the Gamebuino. Re-uploaded the Loader, and then Uploaded Settings. I get settings to work but the C butting won't take me back to the loader. I look again at what the SD card has on it ..... nothing again.

So my questions are:

When I upload the the Gamebuino via the USB cable, does it go onto the SD card or onto some internal memory?

If so, what programme should be on this internal memory to get the SD card reader to work?

Thanks again
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Re: [SOLVED] Dosent Boot Anymore

Postby rodot » Sat Jul 26, 2014 11:11 am

When you upload a program through USB or from the micro SD card it writes it in the flash memory of the microcontroller. It's the bootloader which handle that, and don't worry you should be able to break it whatever you do as long as you don't us an external programmer.

I check each Gamebuino before I ship them, so your card should be OK. Please try to format it in FAT16 using a computer with a different operating system (what is your operating system by the way?). You might have broken the card by forcing a FAT32 formatting, I hope it's not the case.
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