System menus partially empty

[ReSt]

I had a strange behaviour of the system menus.

I'm compiling modified code for the NMEA version and watched the following phenomena today (and had it already some time ago)

After flashing the TX (r760 modified), the upper half (except the model name) of all system screens is blank. That is,
Voltage, Trim increment, Timer and Timer trigger are missing on all the system panels. The appropriate space is empty.

The Model name is there and the lower half like the bars or the switches, they all are there.

Stepping through any kind of system screen doesn't change this strange behaviour, those lines are missing. On all other screens (setup, NMEA) all lines are completely shown.

I reflashed several older versions, original or modified, that had worked before, but this part of the system screens stayed empty.

Finally the NMEA version 699 brought back the missing data.

And from there on I could reflash the newer versions, that just before failed, and everything was back again.

Finally I flashed my version that I had used in the first step above and still everything was ok.


Is there anything I can do to catch the problem, if it happens again?


Reinhard

[ReSt]

btw, I flashed with eePe r343 using an USBASP programmer.

Reinhard

[MikeB]

Very odd, I can't think of a reason for this. Can you remember if the trim bars went all the way up and down the sides of the screen, or only on the lower half, or were they just missing where the voltage and time should have been?
All the information you list as missing is written at the same time as the model name (in the same code sequence). I assume, when it didn't display properly, when you went to a setup screen that did, and then returned to the main screen it still didn't display correctly.

Maybe something is writing blanks over the data that is missing, I don't know what though. Possibly, some small eeprom change is causing it, that when you went back to r699, the value got changed, then all following versions were OK.

Mike.

[ReSt]

I should have taken a photo.

When I reflashed with r699 I powered the tx on and saw, that it was working. I stepped up/down through some system screens that were ok, powered off and flashed the original (r760 modified) that also did work again from the first moment on.

I'm sure the total width was blank, so I believe, no vertical trimbars.
And I'm no longer sure if the model name was there or not.

Switching from screens with full display back to screens with missing display always resulted in missing display.

Yes, I believe, there must have been something basically wrong that has nothing to do with the firmware.
Is it possible, that some eeprom setting could have caused that?
I played around with open9x some days ago and had a little problems to get the EEprom to be accepted (but I believe there was a problem with the eePe version I had, because after installing the latest version, problems were gone) .
During this situation above, I did never flash the eeprom because I have set the fuses to avoid clearing the Eeprom on flashing.

I know, that, in the past, I had this problem more than once. But in some cases it disappeared when I stepped through different screens and all of a sudden, the missing displaylines reappeared. But I had no idea of a certain sequence to get it going. I simply was happy to have those lines back.

Reinhard

[MikeB]

Which main view you have is stored in the eeprom, it may be that if the stored value is out of range, due to loading open9x, then the main view gets confused. Just a guess really.

Mike.

[Kilrah]

I played around with open9x some days ago and had a little problems to get the EEprom to be accepted (but I believe there was a problem with the eePe version I had, because after installing the latest version, problems were gone) .
During this situation above, I did never flash the eeprom because I have set the fuses to avoid clearing the Eeprom on flashing.

This could be the source of the problem.

As open9x and ER9x have different features, some zones of the EEPROM mean something different.
So to switch from one to the other you should first reset the fuses in eepe, and then use companion9x to flash the new firmware with the "backup/restore eeprom" option ticked. This way C9x will read your radio's eeprom, see that it's ER9x and you're about to flash open9x, and will do the necessary conversions. Same the other way around (if you intend to revert anyway, backup your eeprom before changing firmware, and reload that upon reflashing er9x instead of converting back and forth).

[ReSt]

Just to clarify, that missing lines did not occure directly after switching from on system to the other.

Yes, I saved the eeprom content before I flashed open9x. And I'm pretty sure, I got the eeprom reformatted by the firmware one or the other time.

I just tried flashing open9x and reflashing er9x (used companion v0.74 r977). Reflashed eeproms manually. No problems encountered.

But I updated eePe and companion some days ago.


Reinhard

[ReSt]

Hello Mike,

I again got that problem with the missing data on the system screens. I was changing from FrSky to NMEA Version and the error showed up after powering on the tx the second time.
I have taken pictures and saved the EEPROM (all screens show the same behaviour).

And I can definately say that it dependes on the EEPROM. Flashing a good version shows correct data, reflashing the erronous version shows fault again


Reinhard

[MikeB]

It's most likely to do with the 'view' variable stored in EEPROM. I can't quite see from the code what is going wrong though.
Is your bad display from the NMEA version or the FrSky version?

Mike.

[ReSt]

It's from the NMEA version.

Reinhard

[MikeB]

OK, I think I can see the problem now. The 'view' variable has two parts for the FrSky version, main view and telemetry sub view. I need to change the display test for the non-FrSky version of the code.
I'll do the change, but I won'[t be able to commit it immediately as I have all the voice changes in, but not committed yet. I want to be sure everything is OK without voice as well.

Mike.

[ReSt]

Thanks Mike.
Take you time, it's not urgent, as I have the possibility to surround the problem (reflashing EEprom)

Sound is more important in the moment.

Reinhard