I-Appliance BBS
The Official Source for Internet Appliance Upgrades and Mods
Amazon Honor System Click Here to Pay Learn More
BBS Main List | Sign In | Sign Up | Search | Help | Linux-Hacker.netReply to Thread | Printer |

Home / Other I-Appliances / 3Com Audrey
Need help reviving a damaged Audrey, will repay by serving everyone images
I killed my shell, please help!

New MessageNeed help reviving a damaged Audrey, will repay by serving everyone images (modified 0 times) sonofaglitch
Profile
I am in trouble...

I have an audrey I recently put on a "diet" well, she didn't like it too well and now I have some pretty strange artifacts...

I didn't hose my system, but I cannot bring up a shell to fix it (even though I made the shell launch on boot, it still fails to "get focus" (to use a programming term) as it is stuck behind a square box)

Anyway long story short, I have a 32 MB CF, but my CF slot is faulty, so no luck of flashing that way.

I want to setup a Marimba server so I can server an image and trick Audrey into thinking she is about to get 1.8.0.X (whatever would be a higher update than I am running)...

So my question is: Can Audrey be tricked to download a new flash file in this manner, and
do you know who still has a copy of the required demo version of marimba?

I have to webservers at my disposal and I would like to repay everyone for their help by
serving up some images of your choice, like the MQNX one or whatever is requested...

02-12-2002 15:03:15

New MessageRE:Need help reviving a damaged Audrey, will repay by serving everyone images (modified 0 times) bholio
Profile
Stuff you probably already tried..
- Did you happen to apply the keyboard remap hack? If so, you might be able to get your shell to the front by hitting snapshot-paste (or was it copy?). Kinda slap them both at once to toggle between apps.

- If you enabled your web server to handle external requests, you might be able to sneak in a 'slay' command or something else to kill off the offending square box. Maybe a remote web browser could initialte a shellex?pterm request. If you didn't modify the web server settings, this won't work.

- Look around this BBS for people discussing the possibility that Audrey can reflash over serial port. I don't think anyone has made that work, but maybe no one was as desperate as you are now with a dead CF slot.

- Longshot: Are you automounting any filesystems which you also added to $PATH? That would give you a way to add new executables to Audrey and maybe be able to give them control.

- Check your CF slot for bent pins

02-12-2002 15:58:25

New MessageRE:Need help reviving a damaged Audrey, will repay by serving everyone images (modified 0 times) jukebox
Profile
I Would add:
-Do you have inetd, ftpd and telnetd running? If so you could ftp and telnet into Audrey and fix her.

Jukebox


http://www.prins.net/audrey/index.html
02-12-2002 16:51:15

New MessageRE:Need help reviving a damaged Audrey, will repay by serving everyone images (modified 0 times) sonofaglitch
Profile
Thanks for the help here is where I am sitting now:

- Did you happen to apply the keyboard remap hack? If so, you might be able to get your shell to the front by hitting snapshot-paste (or was it copy?). Kinda slap them both at once to toggle between apps.

I did apply it, but the LZO compression seems to have whacked it out also.


- If you enabled your web server to handle external requests, you might be able to sneak in a 'slay' command or something else to kill off the offending square box. Maybe a remote web browser could initialte a shellex?pterm request. If you didn't modify the web server settings, this won't work.

I do have the webserver running, but can't seem to make use of it, any way to "push"
content (a fix) or something or run a command this way, perhaps a un-LZO command?
flashlzo -d * (or something?)

- Look around this BBS for people discussing the possibility that Audrey can reflash over serial port. I don't think anyone has made that work, but maybe no one was as desperate as you are now with a dead CF slot.

Haven't seen it yet either... I have noticed posts mentioning a "debug" mode which
seems to allow serial communication but perhaps in a limited fashion.


- Longshot: Are you automounting any filesystems which you also added to $PATH? That would give you a way to add new executables to Audrey and maybe be able to give them control.

I am automounting two paths via Boot.sh


- Check your CF slot for bent pins

It seems to be a bad solder joints on the board, and I would really hate to try and solder
such a fine joint ARGH

Do you have inetd, ftpd and telnetd running? If so you could ftp and telnet into Audrey and fix her.

No but I really really wish I had done that now

I am more comfortable in a marimba type solution, I wish codeman or somebody could
answer if this is doable. If it is possible to trick it out, than this would be
another viable way to get flash images on the audrey... perhaps even a fairly "safe"
way...?

02-13-2002 18:44:42

New MessageUPDATE: (modified 0 times) sonofaglitch
Profile
The situation is worse than suspected, even the three finger salute doesn't trigger
the update anymore, now it just launches the browser!

Even trying to get focus on shell and typing, leads me to believe shell is dead.
Otherwise I could slay or shutdown. nada...

So that leaves me less options...

Repair CF slot or have it repaired,
figure out the serial update, or
find a way to have audrey reflash herself,
since I didn't alter the actual flash images on chip (I never loaded a image to damage the actual flash)

Any ideas now?

02-13-2002 19:15:01

New MessageRE:Need help reviving a damaged Audrey, will repay by serving everyone images (modified 0 times) sonofaglitch
Profile
BTW The current "mods" and specs are:

Voyager replaced
Phjuke
WebServer enabled
Virtual Keyboard (nextwin doesnt work either on that)
Custom startup screen
Blank background (other one was disabled)
Trimmed down startup scripts for faster loading (as per two posts on here)
Otherwise its a regular audrey... at least until I compressed .cmp/nto/bin
and .cmp/nto/photon/bin!

02-13-2002 19:25:38

New MessageRE:Need help reviving a damaged Audrey, will repay by serving everyone images (modified 0 times) jukebox
Profile
I did something like that too once with cmp.. Couldn't access the directory anymore and had to replace it with all the files in it.
If you're sure about the faulty solder joint what do you see to come to that conclusion? If you're sure a contact is interrupted you can repair it probably without heat, but with some kind of a stick instead, something like glue that conducts electricity. Radio Shack could have it. But if you're wrong you will blow up the whole thing instead and won't hear even a bang..

Jukebox


http://www.prins.net/audrey/index.html
02-13-2002 20:46:17

New MessageRE:Need help reviving a damaged Audrey, will repay by serving everyone images (modified 0 times) bholio
Profile
--------
>>- If you enabled your web server to handle external requests, you might be able to sneak in a 'slay' command or something else to kill off the offending square box. Maybe a remote web browser could initialte a shellex?pterm request. If you didn't modify the web server settings, this won't work.

>I do have the webserver running, but can't seem to make use of it, any way to "push"
content (a fix) or something or run a command this way, perhaps a un-LZO command?
flashlzo -d * (or something?)

Does http://audrey/SystemProfile.shtml from a different machine return data? If so, try http://audrey/shell.shtml?pterm to see if a shell opens.

Also try http://audrey/shell.shtml?(other commands)
--------

>>- Longshot: Are you automounting any filesystems which you also added to $PATH? That would give you a way to add new executables to Audrey and maybe be able to give them control.

>I am automounting two paths via Boot.sh

Are any of the automounted directories in $PATH? You would have added them in the 'go' file I believe. If so, try copying an executable (maybe pterm) there and call it Datebook or Address or Mail and see if it will launch with a button press. You can get pterm from an QNX RTP installation.. Or figure out some other program which will run from $PATH on bootup and copy it there. If you haven't updated $PATH, this won't work. If you added the mounted dirs to the end of PATH, it won't work.
----------

Can you get QNX Voyager to start? It might let you download & save files(unlike audrey Browser) and replace bad files with good copies which you would host on a web server. You could save new CGI programs, or .shtml files, both could give you the ability to run commands.

--------
Also, I'm not quite positive what's wrong. Is the whole machine hosed, or is it just the pterm executable which is messed up? If it's just pterm, make a good copy on your mounted disk and try to launch it via http://audrey/shell.shtml?/mounted/dir/goodpterm

02-13-2002 22:37:46

New MessageHEY HEY now thats thinking.... (modified 0 times) sonofaglitch
Profile
I am a big idiot! I can't believe I didn't think to do that....

Voyager is working fine, so all I need to do is setup a ftp site or webpage
with my replacement files...

It should work... as long as it will allow me to overwrite the files (that is
the real question I guess....)

Thanks for the help... will try this and post back if it worked...

Work must have my brain fried...

02-14-2002 09:02:14

Reply to Thread | Printer |
All times are PSTPowered by UltraBoard v1.62



Copyright © 2000, Netmake Inc. All Rights Reserved.
See Terms and Conditions for more information.




i-opener opener laptop notebook computer help drivers dll free windows dos repair fix linux mac macintosh 2000 95 98 nt pc configure hardware software sound video netscape explorer network networking lan wan software cmos fat bios printer card mouse modem ide scsi cd rom controllers scanner tape hard drive cgi scripts source code mp3