FonFlash issues

[chillifire]

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[chillifire]

Thanks for testing. I can see the heartbeat loud and clear, OpenVPN and CoovaChilli working. Goody! That means my firmware is not at fault.

Just to humor me, could you send me the output of
Redboot> fis list
of this Fonera+, please? I will give it one ore try.

On the account issue, you are right, the phone numbers are actually unnecessary, but were not mandatory entries anyway. For testing you can of course enter what you like, I don't mind. But people who use my service to run their hotspots, some even using my payment gateway accounts, have to identify themselves. I am legally obliged to collect that data, otherwise I may be accused of aiding money laundering. What has this world come to.
Thanks for the feedback though. Much appreciated. I rather have disagreement or a different view, than deafening silence. I am sure you know the problem...

[Eric]

Here is the output of fis list:

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RedBoot> fis list
Name              FLASH addr  Mem addr    Length      Entry point
RedBoot           0xA8000000  0xA8000000  0x00030000  0x00000000
rootfs            0xA8030000  0xA8030000  0x006D0000  0x00000000
vmlinux.bin.l7    0xA8700000  0x80041000  0x000D0000  0x80041000
FIS directory     0xA87E0000  0xA87E0000  0x0000F000  0x00000000
RedBoot config    0xA87EF000  0xA87EF000  0x00001000  0x00000000
RedBoot> 

One suggestion regarding registration info: Only require detailed registration info if the user has selected to configure their hotspot to have users pay to access it. If no money is involved the legal issues aren't there.

While I don't know for sure I strongly suspect this will increase the number of people willing to try your software (which may eventually lead to a sale for you). There's no way around the difficulty of installing on a router/making sure that the router is an appropriate model for the firmware, and this registration adds one extra step of complexity for anyone trying your software. I suspect you want to make it as easy for people to try your software as possible, so this may be something you want to consider (though I realize it would probably mean re-working a bit of your system).

In any case I suggest you use some error checking to make sure that if the State field is selected the Country field is not (or set to U.S.). Otherwise you may get someone else telling you they live in the state of New Jersey, in Canada.

[chillifire]

Thanks for the off-topic feedback. I have removed phone numbers - although optional anyway so far - and will think about the address details.

Going back on-topic.
Your fis list output interesting. using your LaFonera software (updated version) I get this fis list

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RedBoot> fis list
Name              FLASH addr  Mem addr    Length      Entry point
RedBoot           0xA8000000  0xA8000000  0x00030000  0x00000000
rootfs            0xA8030000  0xA8030000  0x006E0000  0x00000000
vmlinux.bin.l7    0xA8710000  0x80041000  0x000D0000  0x80041000
FIS directory     0xA87E0000  0xA87E0000  0x0000F000  0x00000000
RedBoot config    0xA87EF000  0xA87EF000  0x00001000  0x00000000

There are two different address values your program stored these images under. I assume the length is calculated by your program, but why would it calculate a different value on my Fon+. Anyway, the point is one would assume that your program would come to the same memory address values for the same hardware for the same image. If not, then either the calculation of the program is the same or alternatively, the hardware is not the same after all.
Your thoughts?

[chillifire]

It gets weirder. I manually flashed the files to the exact same positions in the memory as your fis list output had shown - well, the Fonera+ does not even boot up properly. Argh!

I am at a loss here. I cannot explain this with anything else other than a hardware fault.

Any alternative suggestions welcome.

[Eric]

I'm not sure why we're seeing the discrepancy in how FonFlash is setting things up.. but either one listed should work, so it's not a big deal.

As I said before I think there's some sort of read problem at the end of your flash chip, so it works if it's at the beginning but dies if it's at the end. The slightly different position probably put an even more critical part of the kernel on the broken part of the flash chip, which explains why it won't even boot correctly any more. I bet if you reflash to your old configuration, with the kernel at the beginning of the flash space available it will work.