Unable to run installer

[alfon]

I recently bought 2 plugs from NewIT - one ESATA plug and one standard one.

When I started playing with them, I managed to brick the ESATA plug.
With the help of the plugwiki "sheevaplug installer", I managed to restore the ESATA plug to operational condition, using a winXP host PC. Then, reading the pages in this forum, I arrived at the conclusion that I (probably) needed newer versions of both U-Boot and the kernel, than those that come with the installer. I downloaded the newer U-Boot, and tried to repeat the procedure - but I am unable to do it now. I also tried using a Linux (Mint) host, with similar results.

I know I am probably doing something stupid, since the same thing worked a few days ago, but am at a loss to find out what I am doing wrong. Any help will therefore be highly appreciated.

I know there are other ways to upgrade U-Boot, but I 'd rather learn how to use the installer correctly, than abandon it altogether and move to a different track.

The error messages I receive, both in the windows and the Linux host, indicate that there is a problem communicating with the USB port. However, I know that from the hardware side everythin is OK, since I manage to communicate with the plug using a terminal (CU in Linux, Putty in Win).

I have tried changing the line in uboot\openocd\config\interface\sheevaplug.cfg, as indicated in the plugwiki page, from "ft2232_vid_pid 0x9e88 0x9e8f" to "ft2232_vid_pid 0x0403 0x6010" - this changes slightly the error message produced by the installer, but nothing more.

In Win, I get the following message:

...
...
...
 ****   Burning uboot and environment variables ... This will take few minutes .
..
 ****   When uboot.bin is written to NAND/SD, Disconnect and connect your mini U
SB cable
Open On-Chip Debugger 0.2.0 (2009-07-27-16:41) Release
$URL: http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/openocd/tags/openocd-0.2.0/src/openocd
.c $
For bug reports, read http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/openocd/trunk/BUGS
2000 kHz
jtag_nsrst_delay: 200
jtag_ntrst_delay: 200
dcc downloads are enabled
Error: JTAG communication failure: check connection, JTAG interface, target powe
r etc.
Error: trying to validate configured JTAG chain anyway...
Error: Could not validate JTAG scan chain, IR mismatch, scan returned 0x00. tap=
feroceon.cpu pos=0 expected 0x1 got 0
Warn : Could not validate JTAG chain, continuing anyway...
Error: unexpected Feroceon EICE version signature
Error: unexpected Feroceon EICE version signature
Error: timed out while waiting for target halted
Runtime error, file "openocd\config\board\sheevaplug.cfg", line 21:
     ****       openocd FAILED
 ****   Is the mini USB cable connected?
 ****   Try powering down, then replugging the Sheevaplug

Changing uboot\openocd\config\interface\sheevaplug.cfg, from "ft2232_vid_pid 0x9e88 0x9e8f" to "ft2232_vid_pid 0x0403 0x6010", causes the above to change to:

...
...
...
 ****   Burning uboot and environment variables ... This will take few minutes .
..
 ****   When uboot.bin is written to NAND/SD, Disconnect and connect your mini U
SB cable
Open On-Chip Debugger 0.2.0 (2009-07-27-16:41) Release
$URL: http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/openocd/tags/openocd-0.2.0/src/openocd
.c $
For bug reports, read http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/openocd/trunk/BUGS
2000 kHz
jtag_nsrst_delay: 200
jtag_ntrst_delay: 200
dcc downloads are enabled
Error: unable to open ftdi device: device not found
Runtime error, file "command.c", line 469:
     ****       openocd FAILED
 ****   Is the mini USB cable connected?
 ****   Try powering down, then replugging the Sheevaplug

In Linux, I get the following:

...
...
...
****   Burning uboot and environment variables ... This will take few minutes ...
openocd/openocd: error while loading shared libraries: libftdi.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
 ****   openocd FAILED
 ****   Is the mini USB cable connected?
 ****   Try powering down, then replugging the Sheevaplug

regardless of the uboot\openocd\config\interface\sheevaplug.cfg settings. The Linux issue seems to be a different one, and should be, perhaps, easier to resolve if I knew where the libftdi.so.1 file should have been, and where I can find it. Ideally, of course, I would like to be able to run the installer from both Win and Linux.

On the subject of the uboot\openocd\config\interface\sheevaplug.cfg settings, my (uneducated) guess is that I should need
"ft2232_vid_pid 0x9e88 0x9e8f" rather than "ft2232_vid_pid 0x0403 0x6010", since in order to connect to the plug via CU I needed to execute "sudo modprobe ftdi_sio vendor=0x9e88 product=0x9e8f" (as indicated in http://www.newit.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,44.0.html). Since this worked, it would seem that those settings are the correct ones.

In case anyone wonders, my provisional plans, once I manage to solve these issues (and the future ones which will surely apear on the way), are to use one plug as a samba server for my home network, and the other as a web server running an Apache/PHP/MySql stack (or, possibly, Lighttpd/PHP/MySql). I would like to have both boot off an SD card, in order to minimise usage of the onboard NAND. Both would be connected to external hard drives - the file server for obvious reasons, the web server in order to take backups of the web sites (one of them will include a forum) from the SD card (main storage) to the hard disk.

Any help would be appreciated.

best regards,
Alf

[NewIT_Marcus]

None of these problems relate to the installer itself. Rather, they are all one problem; a failure to establish a serial connection.

This is good advice:

Code:

****   Is the mini USB cable connected?
 ****   Try powering down, then replugging the Sheevaplug

Otherwise, take another look at your serial setup.

If you have one plug that you can connect to, then there should be no need to adjust the serial settings for the other plug.

[alfon]

Dear Markus,

None of these problems relate to the installer itself. Rather, they are all one problem; a failure to establish a serial connection.

This is good advice:

Code:

****   Is the mini USB cable connected?
 ****   Try powering down, then replugging the Sheevaplug

Otherwise, take another look at your serial setup.

If you have one plug that you can connect to, then there should be no need to adjust the serial settings for the other plug.

I have followed this advice, without any results.

Doesn't the fact that I can connect to the plug with the exact same setup, follow the boot process, log into Ubuntu etc, indicate that the serial connection is not the problem? In particular when using the linux host, at the time I receive this message I have open a CU session which communicates with the plug with no problem whatsoever.

Does the installer require the plug to be in some specific state? (e.g. halted/booted into Linux/at the u-boot prompt etc?)

Also, doesn't the message of the linux host:

openocd/openocd: error while loading shared libraries: libftdi.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

indicate that there is a missing file?

Best regards,
Alf

[NewIT_Marcus]

Dear Markus,

None of these problems relate to the installer itself. Rather, they are all one problem; a failure to establish a serial connection.

This is good advice:

Code:

****   Is the mini USB cable connected?
 ****   Try powering down, then replugging the Sheevaplug

Otherwise, take another look at your serial setup.

If you have one plug that you can connect to, then there should be no need to adjust the serial settings for the other plug.

I have followed this advice, without any results.

Doesn't the fact that I can connect to the plug with the exact same setup, follow the boot process, log into Ubuntu etc, indicate that the serial connection is not the problem? In particular when using the linux host, at the time I receive this message I have open a CU session which communicates with the plug with no problem whatsoever.

You said that you had been changing things, in order to try to make the system work. Don't. Get your system into a state where the serial port works with the one plug, then leave those settings alone whilst you experiment with the other plug.

Does the installer require the plug to be in some specific state? (e.g. halted/booted into Linux/at the u-boot prompt etc?)

Sometimes. You might have better luck if you use the paperclip and within 5 seconds of that hit the enter key on your host (running the installer runme command)

Also, doesn't the message of the linux host:

openocd/openocd: error while loading shared libraries: libftdi.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

indicate that there is a missing file?

Best regards,
Alf

Try using the statically-linked version of openocd:

http://plugcomputer.org/plugforum/index.php?topic=920.msg5821#msg5821

[truehl]

What do you use as client? Is it a Ubuntu 64 Bit System? Only 32 Bit works, I've had the same problem!

[alfon]

Dear Truehl,

What do you use as client? Is it a Ubuntu 64 Bit System? Only 32 Bit works, I've had the same problem!

I am using either a winXP pc, or a linux mint 32 bit one.
I am now (again) able to run the installer, at least on the winXP pc. Markus' suggestion to run runme.exe immediately after resetting the plug is one thing that made a difference, as sometimes I was trying to install on a halted plug - which apparently doesn't work.
Anyway, I am now running the installer in different ways, trying to document what works and what doesn't.

Best regards,
Alf