Problem with Pi - Black screen with pointer

Hi

I just used packman to update my Pi, after reboot it had a black screen.

Using an old (pre mouse pointer fix) ROM or old (128/128 split) start.elf both solve the issue.

Could this mean I need newer VCHIQ in boot, or is there a known issue?

Thanks

Obvious questions are:

• You mention your old ROM is pre mouse pointer fix; have you successfully used any ROMs which had hardware pointer support?
• Do you know what version(s) of start.elf you’re using?
• How old is your !Boot sequence? (not that I’m expecting that to be the cause of the issue)

VCHIQ hasn’t had any code changes since release, so I’d expect the problem to be some dependency between the RISC OS ROM & start.elf.

You mention your old ROM is pre mouse pointer fix; have you successfully used any ROMs which had hardware pointer support?

Yes (at that point the Pi became a far more serious machine), but I hadn’t used a start.elf with the better RAM split.

Do you know what version(s) of start.elf you’re using?

The ones that failed, arrived via packman today.

What is currently working is 3-Sept-12 ROM and 7th Aug Start.elf.

The update supplied via packman on 9th Sept worked.

How old is your !Boot sequence?

It is one of the alpha images, a week or two after the trick with the image file/DOS partition was introduced.

I’d expect the problem to be some dependency between the RISC OS ROM & start.elf.

Wouldn’t everyone who uses packman to manage the ROM be getting the same issue?

(Or can’t they post because of the black screen? :) )

Wouldn’t everyone who uses packman to manage the ROM be getting the same issue?

Or maybe you’re the first person to try updating today :)

Could be.

I’m now on yesterdays ROM. And on the start.elf from 9th. which is a 128/128

I updated too, the ROM and firmware via packman. I have no issues, but the results on Dhrystone (2.1) benchmark now is less than the last time.
Two weeks ago I got 1.1m Dhrystones, last week was around 1m , today I got around 950k ! (note that my RPi is o/clocked to 800Mhz)

Chris ‘xc8’ I’m getting 1.2m (mine is o/clocked to 900MHz) my firmware is from 10th August [I can’t update, due to monitor issues]
What happens if you go back to an earlier firmware?
Just wondering…

Just as a word of warning, and this is a relatively large word, the work on PackMan (in the context of managing stuff in the RPi distro) is very much on-going and there are all sorts of known issues with it. I would strongly advise people who are tracking the bleeding edge of ROM and disc builds to stick with manually maintaining the contents of their FAT partition until further notice. Oh, and just because you see new firmware appearing in the RPi git repository doesn’t mean it’s going to work better :( the last start.elf I tried bricked my RPi until I rolled-back to one from the end of August. I think we’re all in pretty much the same boat in that respect!

Steve: Isn’t that what makes it a little fun ;-)
Maybe that’s just the sysadmin in me!

Chris ‘xc8’: I have tested the latest firmware and I’m getting about the same as you 950k.
Think I’ll go back to the August 10th version for now, at least I know my monitor works properly now.
The Aug 10 gives me 1.2 so I’m sticking with that for the moment

the last start.elf I tried bricked my RPi until I rolled-back to one from the end of August.

thankfully is not a “flash” firmware so no real harm ;-)

@Malcolm an older ROM gave me better results on Dhrystone test, but as the ROM is still “dev” version, is not optimized…