Problems booting into HDR mode on HD Fox T2

Devaprem

New Member
Hi. I hope I am posting thisin the right thread, first of all.

I don’t seem to be booting into HDRmode in my HD Fox T2 in order to decrypt SD recordings by copying to virtual disk. I’ve installed the custom firmware on the HD Fox T2 and then installed BootHDR (along with virtual-disk and betaftpd) via the package center. I telnet into the box and get the following:

====
Connected to 192.168.1.101.
Escape character is '^]'.

Humax HD-Fox T2 (humax) 1.02.31/3.03

humax# bootHDRmode

ln: /media/drive1/My Video/Video: File exists

ln: /media/drive1/My Music: File exists
====

In an earlier attempt to boot into HDR mode, I didn’t get the two ‘File Exists’ lines

I then shut down the machine and notice that one of the green LED digits is on the channel display is lit. I then reboot but see that the HDD pie chart is still blue, not green. Also, I try to copy and item from a video folder to the virtual USB (under media/virtual) using the remote control and the message that comes up is ‘The file has been added for move’ but it doesn’t copy.

Can anyone give me some tips here? I’m not so familiar with these Humax utilities and they way they operate so any guidance much appreciated.

Thanks in advance
 
The messages about the files still existing do not indicate a problem, just that it tried to create links that were already there. The pie chart in webif does not change colour now when you boot to hdr mode, it stays blue. If the front panel freezes, and when you press the media button on the remote control you also have a '_Root' folder then you are in hdr mode.
The fact that you got failed move rather than a copy does sound like you weren't in hdr mode at the time. Though if you rebooted the unit would have gone back to standard HD-Fox mode. When you press 'media' then 'Opt+' and 'move/copy' is the source location 'HDD' or 'drive1'?
 
Thanks for the advice, MontysEvilTwin. After reading this and looking again, I see that my mistake was to force it to reboot after invoking the bootHDRmode command. If I just run it, the PVR boots into HDR mode of its own accord. So, you were right, I wasn't in HDR mode. I've now successfully copied files to the virtual disc which are now decryption.

Black Hole - the reason I wasn't using the flag file was to go into HDR mode was twofold: first was that I wanted to get the basic functionality working beforehand and secondly my lack of confidence in creating the script in the instructions. I'm not so familiar with linux commands but will have a go next. Thanks for pointing this out.
 
You don't need to create a script, that's already done for you. Just use the remote control handset to move the flag folder Trigger-HDRMode from *ModSettings to the root folder and reboot. No need for Telnet or anything else, all handled from the TV screen.
 
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Hmm. When I move the flag folder, the system seems to reboot of its own accord, but does not appear to take long enough. When it comes back, the front panel reads "FILE" and the handset is unresponsive - wrong control mode? I'm on mode 1. When inspected by WebIF there is the _Root folder.

If I then reboot, everything recovers but I'm not in HDR Mode any more.

Is this supposed to work, or is it broken?
 
Hmm. When I move the flag folder, the system seems to reboot of its own accord, but does not appear to take long enough. When it comes back, the front panel reads "FILE" and the handset is unresponsive - wrong control mode? I'm on mode 1. When inspected by WebIF there is the _Root folder.

If I then reboot, everything recovers but I'm not in HDR Mode any more.

Is this supposed to work, or is it broken?
It worked for me the last time I did it about a month ago. Rebooting the HD-FOX is much quicker than the HDR-FOX, and the fact that you could see the '_Root' folder in Web-If sounds like it was in HDR mode. The remote control codes are the same in HDR mode as they are in normal mode: which set of codes your unit is using does not change when you switch modes. In HDR mode the front panel display is unresponsive since the HDR-FOX software does not include the code necessary to operate it. Superficially it will seem not to be responding to the remote: what happens on screen when you, for example, try and change channels?
 
Yes. I can change channel, volume, bring up the I-plate, Guide, Menu... but no response from the Media button. This may be just a very (very) slow response (with no visible effect while it is processing) rather than no response at all, and may be related to my having multiple external mounts defined which are somehow confusing bootHDR. However, when the media button is doing something behind the scenes it usually displays "processing".

Disregarding that, I can get into what appears to be HDR Mode simply by moving the flag file (and out again by pressing the reset tit or via diagnostics).
 
Does the HD-FOX have the custom firmware installed on a USB hard drive or a USB stick? If the latter, what is the capacity of the USB stick? I have only managed to get boot-HDR to work with a hard drive. I presumed that it was due to the capacity of the USB stick; I think I only had a 16GB one when I tried it, which is not big enough to accommodate the timeshift buffer. I don't know for sure if this is the root of the problem as I have not tested it with a larger USB stick.
 
I'm not sure what this adds but here's what happened for me when I moved the flag file to the root folder. It may be of help, though:
* the HD-Fox booted into HDR mode, with the standby light changed from green to red and 'file' was shown on the front panel display
* I was able to browse media, copy to the virtual disc and FTP as per usual
* However, when trying to turn off the unit, it didn't power off. Instead, the standby light changed from red to green. After pressing the power button again the LED turned red. Toggling the power buttong resulted in it going green->red->green->red... etc
* I considered a hard reset by removing power but that could have caused problems. Instead, I left it in the state with the standby LED green.
* after about 2-3 hrs, I came back to the unit and it had turned off.
* after turning it on again, it was back in normal mode.

I haven't yet repeated the test.

For info, I am using a 250GB HDD rather than flash drive
 
Does the HD-FOX have the custom firmware installed on a USB hard drive or a USB stick?
It's got a 60GB SSD.

I considered a hard reset by removing power but that could have caused problems. Instead, I left it in the state with the standby LED green.
Are you not aware of the reset button under the front panel flap?

I telnet, as you need to telnet into the box to clean up the stray files and directories that get left behind after you exit HDR mode, so you might as well fire up a terminal program anyway.
What stray files and directories, and is there any real need to clean them up?
 
Are you not aware of the reset button under the front panel flap?
I wasn't. It's pretty easy to miss. I always cursed the lack of an on/off switch until now.
Why are you Telnetting into the HD-FOX instead of following the wiki instructions and using the flag file?
It makes no practical difference. Moving the flag file just ends up running bootHDRmode, so why not run it manually if that's what you feel like?
Hmm. When I move the flag folder, the system seems to reboot of its own accord, but does not appear to take long enough. When it comes back, the front panel reads "FILE" and the handset is unresponsive - wrong control mode? I'm on mode 1.
Is this supposed to work, or is it broken?
It works for me, and I'm on mode 2.
 
It makes no practical difference.
I was asking to see whether the OP had found problems with that mechanism, or had been somehow confused by the instructions and was not aware of the option. There shouldn't be any need for Telnet (but that doesn't stop you using it if you want).
 
My Video is normal, as is My Music if you have any MP3s. The rest don't matter if they are going to be recreated next time, but in any case they are not on my system so maybe they self-destructed (_root certainly went).
 
It's got a 60GB SSD.
Is your SSD formatted in ext2 format?

I unboxed my spare HD-FOX (running 1.03.02/ CFW 3.03, with an 8GB USB stick) and did a fresh install of bootHDR (installed using 1.03.12 HDR-FOX firmware). I booted into HDR-mode successfully: the system information page showed that 1.03.12 HDR-FOX firmware was running on the unit. However, like Black Hole found, the media button on the remote control did nothing. I have located the problem. The bootHDR script (/mod/bin/bootHDRmode) is configured for a system which has an ext3 drive attached: the part of the script that maps the local drive to HDR-FOX mounts (e.g. /mnt/hd2) fails if your drive is ext2. However, you can make it work with an ext2 drive. If you open the bootHDRmode file, you will see the following lines in the middle of the script:
Code:
mount -t ext3 /dev/sda1 /mnt/hd1/
mount -t ext3 /dev/sda1 /mnt/hd2/
mount -t ext3 /dev/sda1 /mnt/hd3/
mount -t ext3 /dev/sda1 /mnt/hd4/
If you edit the above 'ext3' entries to 'ext2' and save the file, the media button on the remote control will work when you boot into HDR mode with an ext2 drive attached. Before doing this you will also need to restore the file permissions with Telnet:
Code:
chmod 755 /mod/bin/bootHDRmode
I imagine that the bootHDRmode script could be modified to automatically detect an ext2 or ext3 drive and set up the mounts accordingly, but this is beyond my ability.
 
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