N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

Hi folks,

Got my N800 delivered today from TigerDirect.com. BTW, it says Made in Korea on the bottom. It had older OS image (v.1.2006.47-20) so after I played a bit with it and confirmed everything working flawlessly I proceeded to flashing 51-6 right away. Did not expect any troubles since I've done it before with my Nokia 770. My home computer is a Linux box so I downloaded latest flasher-3.0 and a proper OS image from maemo.org and followed the instructions. Flashing completed without a problem (and very fast, much faster than with 770 images) but then the device won't reboot. It sat with the white screen with Nokia blue logo, no progress bar, for maybe 5 minutes then switched itself off. When I tied switching it on it went up to the same white screen and sat there forever, with no buttons working at all. I had to remove the battery to reset it and this time it rebooted and everything seems to work fine and About product window shows OS version as 2.2006.51-6. I have repeated the process twice, checking USB cable, md5sum hashes for the OS image and everything else I could think of but it hung repeatedly after flashing. I am wondering if my unit may be defective (I have 30 days to return it). Anyone else having this kind of problem?

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

Now I am having another serious problem: every time I open a web page in the browser with Internet radio stream playing in the background the damn thing hangs hard and then reboots itself in 30 seconds. I've never seen anything like that with 770. Something is really fishy with this 2007 OS upgrade, time to reflash, reflash, reflash...

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

Jjust tried that now and it works fine for me..

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

Damn, just tried reflashing again and now it gave me the following error:

Found device RX-34, hardware revision 1301
NOLO version 1.1.3
Version of 'sw-release': RX-34_2007SE_2.2006.51-6_PR_MR0
Sending xloader image (8 kB)...
100% (8 of 8 kB, avg. 1479 kB/s)
Sending secondary image (93 kB)...
100% (93 of 93 kB, avg. 10375 kB/s)
Flashing bootloader... done.
Sending kernel image (1283 kB)...
100% (1283 of 1283 kB, avg. 19149 kB/s)
Flashing kernel... done.
Sending initfs image (1647 kB)...
Sending request 0x42 failed!

Bootloader error log follows:
EP0 in RX state, but no incoming packet
Premature end of control transfer

I then immediately repeated the flash attempt and it finished this time but device again won't reboot. Now I am sitting watching this white screen and kinda don't know what to do. Will it even restart if I try hard reset? Or if I have bricked it already?

Damn.

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

Ok, based on the experience of another poster, I have removed SD card (128M bundled) that I've had installed in the internal slot and reflashed once again. This time it worked! It won't reboot after flashing however but powered itself off instead and I recall 770 did the same to me. Anyway, it powered on fine and I did not have it hang with the radio streams yet. Will need more testing of course, but looks like a faulty/subspec flash card...

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

Nope, did not help in fact. Still connection breaks as soon as a page loads in the browser while radio stream is playing. Now most of the time it would just lose connection without any indication, and only occasionally hang and reboot. Guess it's time to call Nokia support...

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

Reflashing will occasionally report errors (not sure why) which don't recur the next try.

And I've never seen the behavior you're describing, so that does indeed sound like a rare hardware problem.

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

Strange thing it looks somehow connected to audio playback. I tried playing a regular mp3 file in the background while browsing and got another disconnect. I never happens if I browse in silence :confused:

BTW, anyone noticed that plugging headphones in switches the screen on if it was blanked? Sounds wierd I know but plugging headphones also reboots my N800 sometimes. Now I'm really confused.

Maybe Korea was not that brilliant idea for Nokia production contracts...

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

I installed the bt plugin today, and rebooted. It totally hosed my OS, it went into an infinite loop. No big deal, right? I reflashed my OS 3 times with the windows flasher, with my downloaded image and with the image it downloads automatically. All resulted in the same outcome, the reflash stopped it from looping, however it would no longer turn on. I would press the button and it would start to turn on and then shuts down.

I took it back to COMPUSA and it was replaced (21 day return policy, I wonder how many times I can do that?) hehe hopefully I will not have to do it again.

Anyway the reason I am posting this here, is I am wondering it the flasher hosed my n800 not the bt plugin. Obviously the BT plugin caused the loop, but I think it was my fix (reflash) that may have killed it.

Was yours doing the same thing, start to power on and then shut off?

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

Don't get me started.

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

Yeah, guess what? I rebooted my Netgear router and that seems to stop N800 from rebooting. The sticker on the router says Made in China :)

Netgear support site quote reports about particular wireless chipsets spontaneously rebooting and that it is supposed to have been fixed in the latest firmware version, which I already have installed. Go figure...

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

No luck, rebooted again twice already. I am starting a new thread on this, would appreciate if any of you fellow N800 users could test if this occurs for you too.

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

Do you have a bluetooth phone? If so, sync with that and see if using it as a modem induces the same problem. Or test other wifi nodes (drive down a busy street with your tablet in scan mode... you may be amazed...:D )

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

I also have the problem not being able to flash my N800. Everything seems to go well, but when it reboots after flashing, it won't start.

Battery shouldn't be the problem, I've charged it just before this. I've also tried with charger, and with both flasher versions (Linux with Ubuntu and WinXP), and with and without memory cards. Still no success, it remains dead (it shows the Nokia logo for couple of seconds, but shuts down).

Anybody have any ideas how to bring it back alive?

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

I have a similliar kind of problem... Just got my N800 today and after I added some RSS feeds things started to go wrong. First the feed reader froze and took the home page with it (it also had the feed view). I attempted to restart the tablet but after the Nokia tune the system just rebooted. After that I tried to reflash back to factory settings but after the seemingly succesful flashing the tablet refused to start. It shows Nokia logo for awhile and then shuts down. If I connect it to the charger it goes through those short reboots repeatedly.

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

Thats the exact same thing that happend to me. I returned it to COMPUSA and got a new one (21 day return policy). I tried reflashing several times. Try pulling the battery and replacing it, then reflashing again, but its probably toast!!

I am glad I did not order from Nokia, I would be so pissed!!!

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

Do you remember where yours was manufactured? I am starting to suspect there could be some minor hardware incompatibility between 2.2006.51-6 OS version and Korean-made units. Looks like Nokia guys just never tested it with anything other than their home-made units :(

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

Not sure, I assume Korea, which is where its replacment is from. I bought the first two the store sold.

I think my problem may have been this, I installed an application that made my system reboot in a loop. While rebooting in the loop, I attached it to my pc and reflashed.. Then it just would start to power on, and then die.

I am wondering if I had pulled the battery, and reflashed on bootup, I wonder if it would have worked?

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

Yes, removing and reinserting the battery worked for me, I was able to reflash and after 3 tries it worked. I am returning mine however, since it keeps rebooting every 5 minutes while browsing, see my other thread on this.

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

How long is flashing supposed to take? Mine goes through in less then a minute. Is that a normal time?

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

My 800 is toast as well. I tried to add a feed and it went into the reboot loop described above. Nokia needs to figure out quality control - this is sad.

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

Probably it's too late for advice, but I found similar (if not such severe in case of RSS access) problem with mine N800, caused by the fact that RSS feed app is configured to do automatic update by default. It does this every 30 minutes, and also on startup, if network connection is available. Note, that connection manager is also by default configured to establish connection automatically at startup, if available. It does this even before the GUI is started so you can't prevent this. Now, as soon as connection is established at later stages of bootup sequence and the RSS app tries to get a feed update -- it crashes hard and the system goes to reboot again, thus you get your reboot loop. To get rid of it you need to switch off your wireless AP or get away from whatever AP is configured as your default WLAN connection, reboot and disable automatic WLAN connection and also disable automatic RSS updates. Anyway, this is an indication of of a serious hardware bug, probably the same kind my unit had, so I recommend returning it.

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

Yes, that's about right for a USB 2.0 connection. It makes a huge difference in flashing time.

Larry

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

Unfortunately I'm joining the club... I tried to install Maemo Mapper using this guide: Guide
After it finished everything was OK, but after turning it off it doesn't go on anymore. When turning it on, it shows the white screen, with Nokia logo on it, for couple of seconds and then turns off.

I ordered from Nokia and it took a week to get it to Finland and I wouldn't want to send it somewhere again. Luckily girlfriend worked in a company that fixes Nokia's phones so I'll try to find out if they can fix this too...

But it really seems that there is something wrong with this because so many reports about the same problem.

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

I got my N800 back to its feets by using these instructions:
http://maemo.org/pipermail/maemo-use...ry/002768.html

Basicly you put your N800 to R&D mode, set flag, reflash, unset flag and then reboot. After succesful boot you can set the R&D mode off. That worked for me!

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

Well, that makes me feel a little safer... I, too, am on my second N800 from CompUSA. Installed MaemoMapper as described in the guide upthread, managed to crash it, and got into a reboot loop. After pulling battery, plugging in charger, USB, etc., it finally ended up not booting at all - would power up for a few seconds on the "Nokia" screen, go white, then shut itself off. This even persisted through a normal (and allegedly "successful") reflash, so I decided to exchange it for a new unit while I still could.

Frankly, it scares the crap out of me to think that this thing is so "fragile" that it could be rendered inert by software, and unrecoverable even by reflashing the firmware! Here's hoping I never have to try that reflashing trick with R&D mode myself, but I'm glad to know about it just in case... :eek:

--John

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

This sounds interesting. So does that mean that first you run flash-command with that flag-setting included, like this:
./flasher-3.0 -F RX-34_2007SE_2.2006.51-6_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM.bin -f -R --set-rd-flags=no-lifeguard-reset
(all that together)

But what you run after that?
./flasher-3.0 --clear-rd-flags=no-lifeguard-reset ??


Now I'm thinking that should I go get my N800 back from service center and try this.. :)

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

@Gluz

Just "./flasher-3.0 --set-rd-flags=no-lifeguard-reset" alone may fix a N800 that is stuck in a reboot loop. The device may be rebooting because an application is consuming to much CPU at startup in which case the lifeguard reset feature kicks in and reboots the N800. If you disable the lifeguard reset the N800 may make it through the boot process. Once you identify the rogue application and remove it/stop it misbehaving you can then re-enable the lifeguard reset with:

./flasher-3.0 --clear-rd-flags=no-lifeguard-reset

Reflashing with a new image is a last resort if all else fails! :)

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

Ok, thanks :)

I have flashed it already couple of times, so I thinks it "empty" already. But I'll give it a try if I can get it back today.

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

Do I need a Linux box to do ./flasher-3.0 --clear-rd-flags=no-lifeguard-reset ?

Can I use the Windows flasher to do the same thing? Perhaps by editing its config file?

I am getting reboots every three or four seconds. I've flashed it four times now, and the same thing keeps happening. Turning off my wifi does not help (although the reboots coming so quickly suggests to me that it isn't the RSS problem).

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

THANKS! I got it to work with this :) One problem remains though...i can't set the flag off anymore...well I'll try again tomorrow if it works :) But the tablet works now and seems to be ok.

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

I used the flag (inconvenient that there is only a CLI flasher for Linux, but anyhow).

Any reason not to just leave it in R&D mode?

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

On the 770, R&D mode made the device come on with the slightest touch of the power button, rather than a long press.

This could be the cause of the oft-reported "my 770 comes on by itself!" problem (which I suffered with before reverting out of R&D mode)

Re: N800 won't reboot after flashing upgrade
 

I posted earlier that I couldn't get the R&D mode off. Before I tried with ./flasher-3.0 --clear-rd-flags=no-lifeguard-reset and it said it went ok, but it still was in R&D mode. Now I tried with ./flasher-3.0 --disable-rd-mode and it worked and now ./flasher-3.0 --query-rd-mode says "The device is in production mode" and it works like at the beginning.