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Is it the end?

O

oneillb

New Member
I have 2x HDR Fox T2 machines, both customised firmware and both with Seagate 2TB drives.

Recently at a reboot one of them went into a bootloop, and somehow corrupted the drive. I was able eventually to rebuild the fix the partition table on the drive, and test it in a PC, and use i successfully in my other HDR T2 machine, so I now know the disk is OK.

In order to resolve the bootloop I used the factory reset image, but this failed with an error code E-FE, I didn't know whether that was expected or not, having never done it before, but the machine then rebooted with an error of E-OS. I was able to subsequently re-flash the latest standard firmware, and the box does boot ( although this takes more than a minute, which s a lot slower than the good box) and runs as expected.

However, If I flash the box with the latest 3.13 firmware the box will not boot, it just sticks with the display reading "Custom FW 3.13"

Is the E-FE error significant? what does it mean in reality, the tech docs only state "Flash Memory Fault, Retry or Replace STB"

I have been able, after installing the standard firmware to successfully do a factory defaults( unless this doesn't report the error of course). I've also swapped over the PSUs which made no discernible difference either

Do any of you good folk out there have any advice? Is the anything I can to resolve the Flash fault? can the flash be replaced?


Thanks,

Barry
 
"Flash memory fault" describes an error in the data retention capability of the non-volatile memory used to store and execute the firmware. The consequence depends on what exactly the fault is - if, for example, a particular memory bit is stuck at "0" and the firmware written to it requires that bit to be "0" - it should work as normal. On the other hand, if the firmware requires that bit to be "1" but it's stuck at "0", all manner of hell might break loose.

I am sorry to say that sounds pretty terminal. In theory, if the pertinent chip can be identified and a replacement obtained, it could be replaced (with difficulty). On the other hand, the NV memory might be buried within the main processor.

TBH, I expect the failure rate to increase now we are about 10 years down the line.
 
oneillb said:
I used the factory reset image
Click to expand...
What exactly do you mean by this?
Have you tried the System Flush image? Is that what you mean?

Have you tried Telnetting into the box, while this display is reading "Custom FW 3.13" ?
Has the hard disk spun up in this state? You should be able to feel it and/or hear it.
 
Have you tried the System Flush image? Is that what you mean?
- Yes sorry I have tried the System Flush image, this is what consistently fails @99 / 100% with a E-FE error.

Have you tried Telnetting into the box, while this display is reading "Custom FW 3.13" ?
- Yes - I get a no route to host error, so it looks like there is no networking up.

Has the hard disk spun up in this state? You should be able to feel it and/or hear it.
  • Occasionally I hear the HDD spin up, after the box has sat at the "Custom FW 3.13" message for a minute or 2, but this coincides with a reboot, back to the Humax logo and the "SYSTEM START" message on the display. This tends to be if the system is booting directly after a re-flash.
  • I did actually get the system to boot once over the weekend on custom firmware v3.13 ( again directly after a re-flash), and the machine ran until I manually shut it down, but it was a one-off.
  • More often though is a hang at the "Custom FW 3.13" which requires a power cycle at the back to restart the machine.

I'm currently running on a power supply out of another box, and that box has been running fine on the old PSU form the failing box, so I think they are both OK.

Is there any history of the SMD capacitors failing on the HDR T2 motherboards, I've seen some threads on other Humax kit with booting issues cause by the motherboard capacitors rather than the PSU ones? Is it worth me going to the trouble?

Thanks,

Barry
 
oneillb said:
I'm currently running on a power supply out of another box, and that box has been running fine on the old PSU form the failing box, so I think they are both OK.
Click to expand...
An excellent method to narrow down problems.

oneillb said:
Is there any history of the SMD capacitors failing on the HDR T2 motherboards, I've seen some threads on other Humax kit with booting issues cause by the motherboard capacitors rather than the PSU ones?
Click to expand...
Unfortunately this would not explain the E-FE report from the internal diagnostics.
 
Point taken. I did put the deemed good PSU in the failing unit, before trying the unknown PSU in the good unit if you know what I mean, to see if the failing unit would behave better if the PSU was known to be good. When the symtoms did not change, I (out of lazyness tbh ) put the removed PSU back in the good machine, having ruled out the PSU as a potential problem.


Having thought a little about the failed unit, I now recollect that, about a year ago, this unit every now then would boot up into the setup wizard for no apparent reason. It did this about once every few weeks for a few months, and then without explanation stopped doing it again. Maybe that was the warning sign that the NVRAM was failing. Has anyone seen this on a HDR T2 before?

I've picked up a replacement machine off fleabay over the weekend, so fingers crossed I can get back to having 2 machines running custom firmware.
 
oneillb said:
this unit every now then would boot up into the setup wizard for no apparent reason. It did this about once every few weeks for a few months, and then without explanation stopped doing it again. Maybe that was the warning sign that the NVRAM was failing. Has anyone seen this on a HDR T2 before?
Click to expand...
Yes there have been a fair number of similar reports and there is some evidence that the system flush will in many cases resolve the problem; sadly not in your case.
 
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