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[CFW 2.15] Customised Firmware version 2.15

af123

af123

Administrator
Staff member
Customised firmware version 2.15 has been released and is available from the usual download page at http://wiki.hummy.tv/wiki/Firmware_Downloads.

As with the last couple of releases, the main changes have been concentrated around the automatic disk repair utility provided by xyz321 and the maintenance mode environment so that it behaves better in the presence of a faulty disk (you can appreciate how hard it is to test that!). With the growing number of people experiencing disk problems as their boxes approach the two year old mark it's important to have an easy to use method for diagnosing and repairing problems and it's getting better with every release.

I've also added a menu driven procedure for converting a USB Flash Drive from a FAT filesystem format to EXT2 so that it can be used to hold the custom firmware environment and additional packages (See Converting a USB Flash Drive to EXT2 on a HD-Fox T2). Thanks are due to Black Hole for contributing to that write-up of the new feature.

This is also the first release to replace the busybox component in the official firmware. This is to incorporate bug fixes required for some of the custom extensions and to consolidate what was a rapidly increasing set of additional binary programs to save space in the image. Moving to a custom version of busybox also gives us more flexibility for the future.

As always, thank you to xyz321 for, among other things, the improvements to the disk repair process and for testing the new release.

Here are the full release notes for this version:
  • New version of fix-disk courtesy of xyz321.
    • Add option for automatic repair of suspect/corrupt disk sectors;
    • Improve partition type detection by testing EXT2/3 backup superblocks;
    • Additional diagnostic output.
  • Improve behaviour of environment initialisation, particularly in the presence of a faulty disk (based on a patch from xyz321);
  • Maintenance mode now waits for full network initialisation before shutting down the Humax software (should help with wireless connections);
  • Maintenance mode now displays system IP on front panel once the network is initialised (last 12 characters on HDR, part after last . on the HD);
  • Prevent mod environment initialisation if disk is not formatted with EXT2/3;
  • Update embedded telnet menu to v1.05;
  • Update busybox version in flash to 1.20.2;
  • Replace standalone binaries with busybox applets:
    • mkswap, stty, swapoff, swapon, tee;
  • Add new busybox applets to flash:
    • clear, date, fsync, rmdir, sync;
  • Replace busybox applets with standalone binaries:
    • hdparm
  • Add new standalone utilities to flash:
    • smartctl, e2fsdump
  • Move RMA flag location so that installation of official firmware will remove it;
  • Add date stamps to various log files;
  • Miscellaneous bug fixes.
 
I have just installed this, and have noticed that the webif shows it as​
​
Custom firmware version: 2.15 (build 1504)​
​
this is the first time that I have seen a build number.​
 
mihaid said:
af123 , is this the same version as the one you kindly offered me a couple of weeks ago?
Click to expand...
No, it is a later build.

brian said:
Tthis is the first time that I have seen a build number.
Click to expand...

It's new for it to be displayed there although all releases have always had an internal build number. Each CFW version goes through a number of builds before being released.
 
Black Hole said:
Any reason the Flash disk conversion won't reformat NTFS?
Click to expand...
I didn't see a need to implement that. Most USB flash drives come with FAT on them and if not it's relatively simple for people to reformat them under Windows or MacOSX. It would have required additional development and testing time and is potentially more complex than handling FAT (consider the case where writable NTFS has been installed on a separate disk connected to the same Humax).
 
af123 said:
It's new for it to be displayed there although all releases have always had an internal build number. Each CFW version goes through a number of builds before being released.
Click to expand...
OK thanks, I thought that I would mention it just in case anyone else was wondering.:)
 
I look forward to trying this out. I installed custom firmware 2.14 last week, primarily to use the fix disk function on my 2+ year old 1tb HDR which has always returned and error (error 5 I think) from the on screen HDD check even after a reformat. I ended up ordering a new hard drive at the weekend as the machine was showing signs of again slowing down/scrambled recordings which usually requires a reformat until it starts to slow down again, but will be interested to see if the current drive can be saved.

Can I also take the opportunity as a new member to thank the relevant people for their work on the custom firmware. Although fixdisk was what prompted me to install, the amount of packages I can add have really improved an already great machine.
 
Had an issue with network-shares-automount - I'm running the latest firmware and 2.14 custom firmware, and when I upgraded to 2.15 network-shares-automount stopped working, and I couldn't get it to work without dropping back to 2.14. A friend also has an HDR-FOX on the same Humax firmware and also on 2.14, and he had exactly the same problem as I did, and again, all was well when he returned to 2.14.
I'm not sure if the above is enough info to be going on with but I'll happily try anything if it helps to narrow the problem down.

Mick
 
Cheers Ill get this installed :)

Looks like I have missed a few versions (Currently on CF2.13 1.02.29 Humax) Ok to go straight from 2.13 to the latest? Cant access the Wiki site at the mo
 
Mick said:
Had an issue with network-shares-automount ...
Click to expand...
Thanks for the report. That's an odd one. I can't think of any reason why the new firmware would cause problems with that package. I will investigate!
 
I think busybox may be missing support for CIFS/samba mounts.

Edit: Busybox handling of samba mounts seems to have be broken for some time. Working in 1.12.4, broken in 1.18.4 and broken in 1.20.2. I'm not sure exactly when it stopped working, unless I'm missing something...

Edit2: There's a good chance it will work in 1.21.0, if I could get it to compile.:confused:

Edit3: It does work with 1.21.0 but may need to patch 1.20.4 since it is an unstable release.
 
Is 2.15 a lemon?
Busybox "find" doesn't work like it did with 2.14.
WebIf looking at My Photos doesn't find any files, although it tells me they occupy disk space.
 
af123 said:
Thanks for the report. That's an odd one. I can't think of any reason why the new firmware would cause problems with that package. I will investigate!
Click to expand...

After upgrading to 2.15 the network shares disappeared. Putting a USB drive in occasionally made 1 out of 4 visible but not accessible, not the same share every time. I have Virtual-Disk2 and network-shares-automount 1.4 installed. (3 shares to a NAS Box, 1 to Router attached USB storage. Both devices believed to be running some version of Linux)

Edit: After several hours of running 2.15 and several re-boots all shares have disappeared. Even a real USB drive does not bring them back.
 
prpr said:
Is 2.15 a lemon?
Click to expand...

No.

prpr said:
Busybox "find" doesn't work like it did with 2.14.
Click to expand...

Can you provide more detail? Although the CFW does include a find command in /bin, the find command in the usual path is part of the busybox package and not the CFW. The busybox package was updated fairly recently which may account for the difference in behaviour.

Code: 
humax# which find
/mod/bin/busybox/find

WebIf looking at My Photos doesn't find any files, although it tells me they occupy disk space.
Click to expand...

That is nothing to do with CFW 2.15. The web interface has never shown image files in the media browser.
 
xyz321 said:
I think busybox may be missing support for CIFS/samba mounts.
Click to expand...

It seems to work ok if you add the UNC option.

Code: 
humax# mkdir /media/archive
 
humax# mount //theeo/archive /media/archive -o username=af,password=test
mount: mounting //theeo/archive on /media/archive failed: No such device or address
 
humax# mount //theeo/archive /media/archive -o username=af,password=test,unc=\\\\theeo\\archive
humax# df -h | grep archive
//theeo/archive          616.0G    319.8M    615.7G   0% /media/archive
 
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