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Subject: Re: Help With My Iriver

Re: Help With My Iriver

From: Paul Erkens <pjealt_at_xs4all.nl>
Date: Mon, 21 May 2007 17:19:50 +0200

Hi Robin,

Did you get rockbox to speak on your Iriver h340?

Interested to hear about it.
Paul.
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Robin Christopherson
  To: Rockbox
  Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2007 10:01 PM
  Subject: Re: Help With My Iriver


  Paul

  Thanks so much for that run down of updating the iRiver for someone else on the list as I too have an iRiver (H340) which I acquired recently but which seems to have old menus on it (i.e. the top menu item spoken is not 'Files'). I am thinking of updating the version of Rockbox and was about to follow all you instructions myself but have a couple of questions if I may:

  Firstly when I downloaded the current build (rather than the daily build) for the iRiver H340 and looked at the Rockbox-info.txt file it says that the version is 2.16.1 - I'm guessing this is the latest current build available for this relatively old player and I haven't looked into whether there are any newer daily builds. as I don't know if you would advise using these.

  I then downloaded the fonts fine, but when I get to the step in your instructions about downloading the voice files I read on the site that you need version 2.3 or higher for the menus to be spoken properly (i.e. "Note that you need Rockbox 2.3 or later for this to work. Depending on the rockbox version you use, select a suitable voice file below. Note that if you
  use a voice file not matching your rockbox version, nothing will go wrong, but not all menu entries, settings etc. may be voiced.") Is this a problem? Should I be trying to identify a newer version for the iRiver H340 from somewhere in the site -a daily build perhaps? If the version 2.16.1 which is the current build for the H340 as far as I can tell (it was certainly what I got when I chose the current build for this model) is fine what do I do about this requirement for 2.3 or higher re the voice files? Do I ignore it and download one of the voice files regardless - and if so which one out of the three choices of 'Voice files for rockbox release 2.5', 'Voice files for daily builds/current SVN builds' and 'Outdated voice files'? Help!

  I downloaded the first of these choices just because I had to choose one, but yet another query is that when you download the voice file it is indeed 'English.voice' (just as you state in your instructions) whereas the English voice file in the langs folder in the .rockbox folder has a .lng extension. It's all very confusing!!

  Lastly as I already have a working, if now outdated, version of Rockbox on my iRiver do I need to follow the steps about the bootloader or can I simply replace the existing .rockbox folder on the iRiver with the new one and bingo.
   
   Thanks a million for any light you can shed on these queries.

  Cheers, Robin.

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: Paul Erkens
    To: Rockbox
    Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2007 7:32 PM
    Subject: Re: Help With My Iriver


    Hi Scott,

    I have an I Audio x5 myself, but I used to own an iriver. Three of my friends still have Irivers too, and the past few days, since they saw me enjoy rockbox, they wanted it too on their irivers. I helped them with it, so maybe I can help you as well. Let's try and sum up what you need to do.

    You said you had it working in and before March. You are probably afraid that because of the menu restructuring, it no longer works on iriver. Well, all three irivers that I helped installing, work just fine. The procedure differs somewhat from player to player, but for Iriver it works as follows.

    You first download the latest rockbox build for Iriver. This is a zip file. Simply extract it and you will have a .rockbox folder, that is dot rockbox. Move it to the root of your player, with all its subfolders. That's one.

    Next, install the fonts package. Simply download it from the site, unzip it, and you will get a plain folder with a bunch of files. The folder name is fonts, f o n t s. To install the fonts, just navigate to the root of your player, look for the dot rockbox folder and go into it. Then, paste the fonts folder right there. That's two.

    Next, make sure you have the correct voice file. Download one for a current build, not for a release version, and unzip it. For English, the name of the file is english.voice. That is the word english, a dot, and the word voice. No spaces in the filename. The name of the file is already correct, once you unzip it. To install it, navigate into the dot rockbox folder on your player, look for the folder named langs, that is l a n g s, go into this folder, and paste the voice file right there. That's three.

    Now, you need the latest boot loader. Rockbox does not provide a separate boot loader for Iriver, like they do for other players. Instead, here's how they do it.

    The entire firmware for your iriver, the way you bought it, was contained in rom memory. Not on the hard drive, because that thing just contains your audio files. Now. In rom, there is boot code, and the original operating system of the iriver itself. If you wanted to flash this firmware to a new version, you would do so by going to the iriver site, and downloading the new firmware for your specific iriver player. This firmware file contains both the startup code that is being run when you turn the thing on, as well as the operating system itself, with all the codecs and menus.

    What rockbox does, is that they want you to flash your Iriver firmware as usual, but before you do so, you are going to modify the binary firmware file that you got from the iriver site. The reason to patch the firmware on your pc before uploading it into the rom chip on your player is, that rockbox wants to replace the existing boot loader from iriver, with their own version. This is because the rockbox boot loader is capable of letting you choose, to either boot into rockbox as you turn your player on, or boot into the original firmware the way it was before rockbox. If you then just turn the iriver on, the new bootloader from rom will execute, and rockbox will be loaded from disk. If however, you hold the record button when the device is off, and you then tap the play button to power the iriver up, you can release record and you will start the original firmware.

    So what you must do after the three steps above is the following. On the rockbox site, you will find links to some versions of the iriver firmware that you can download. So to be clear, you need not go to the iriver website to get the original and new iriver firmware for your player. It's on the rockbox site as well. Download the version for your player and unzip it.

    Now, you need to patch the firmware, so that it will contain the boot loader done by rockbox. To do this, you need the firmware patch program, also available on the rockbox site. Download and extract it, then run it. The program lets you browse to the firmware file you downloaded, and then if you press the patch button, you should get a message of success. The firmware file coming from Iriver is now patched, and includes the rockbox boot loader, rather than the original iriver boot code.

    Now, upload this file to your player. Put it in the root directory. Now turn off your iriver.

    Then, unplug your player from USB and hook it up to the AC adapter. Turn the player back on. The rom chip has not been modified yet, so the original iriver boot code and firmware will run. Now, kindly ask someone sighted to help you some. You will need to ask them to do the following.

    1. Go into the iriver's main menu. Do that by pushing and holding the joystick. Not in any of the four directions, but right down, towards the player.When you release, the main menu appears.

    If I'm not mistaken, then the top most menu entry is labeled general settings. To go into this menu, press enter. To do that, just push the joystick and let go immediately. If you read enter in the description below, do the same thing.

    You should now be inside the general settings menu, and I believe the top most option here is labeled beep volume. Ask your helper to move down, by repeatedly pulling the joystick south and letting go. Each pull will advance the menu highlight downward, one line or item at a time.

    Stop if you are on "firmware upgrade". Press enter there.

    The device will ask: are you sure? There are two choices, yes and no, and by default right after this question appears, you are on no. So, move right with your joystick, to go to yes, and press enter there.

    The firmware upgrade process will start. Wait until the player shuts off by itself. Then hook up your head phones, and turn it on. After some ten seconds, you should hear: files, in your head phone. This means rockbox works finally.

    Warning. Sometimes, after recording with rockbox and your iriver, the voiced menus shut off. Not that the device malfunctions or anything. But because of some bug, the option in the settings, general settings, voice, voice menus is turned right off. This is not what you want, because then the device is speechless and you will be powerless with it.

    To overcome this, if it happens to you indeed, do the following.

    Turn the iriver off and on. You now know that you are in the main menu, on files. Move down 3 times, and you'll be on settings. Right arrow, to open this menu. From the settings menu here, once down and you are on general settings. Right arrow to enter that menu. Now in the settings, general settings menu, go up once, and you will be on the voice menu. Right arrow to open. Now, you are on the voice menus option that is off. Go right, and you'll be on no. Go up, and you'll be on yes. Go right, and you will have confirmed the new yes. From then on, the iriver will talk again.

    So again: turn off and back on, and then 3 down one right, one down one right, one up one right, one right, then up, then right. Go party.

    Paul.

    Next,


      ----- Original Message -----
      From: Scott Rumery
      To: Rockbox
      Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2007 6:09 PM
      Subject: Help With My Iriver


      Hello Rockboxers,
          I am a blind Rockbox user and I am having some serious trouble getting Rockbox to work properly on my Iriver H320. I have read and re-read the info on the Rockbox site and I do not know where I am going wrong but I cannot seem to get my player to voice the menus and filenames like it did before the menu restructure in March.
          Is there someone out there that would be willing to send me the direct links for the best working version of rockbox and the latest bootloader along with the voice files that work with this version? I have spent countless hours trying to get this problem fixed myself, and I can't seem to figure it outmyself. I have 3 non working Irivers now, and I would like nothing more than to get them up and running. So if there is another blind Rockbox user out there that has been able to get there Iriver running Rockbox properly would you please let me know what it is that I have missed?

      Scott


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  No virus found in this incoming message.
  Checked by AVG Free Edition.
  Version: 7.5.467 / Virus Database: 269.7.4/811 - Release Date: 5/18/2007 3:50 PM
Received on 2007-05-21

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