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Development => Calculators => Calculator News, Coding, Help & Talk => Topic started by: Dream of Omnimaga on April 26, 2016, 06:00:29 PM

Title: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on April 26, 2016, 06:00:29 PM
The new HP Prime firmware revision 10077 was said to improve RAM usage and fix various stability issues that were present in previous firmwares. In previous firmwares, sending large program files caused the calculator to become unstable and quickly run out of RAM.

However, it seems that the new firmware have made it even worse: When the calculator RAM is saturated, it now ends up corrupting various files stored in your flash memory. Not only this can result into data loss, but it seems like this is not limited to programs and applications, but possibly the OS, boot code and NAND as well. In other words: you could brick your calculator, with no way to get it working again, meaning $150 flushed down the toilet right before your school finals.

Unfortunately, HP workers who are active posting on TI-Planet and HP Museum initially tried to shift the entire blame on TI-Planet's PDF to picture converter, even though it was not used before Critor's calculator died for good. And even if the image tool was in use beforehand, the generated images are written in pure HP PPL, the language that is built into the calculator firmware. In other words, the cause of the calculator bricking is firmware-related (maybe a lack of amount of RAM checking during file transfers?), whether was the image tool involved or not. So we can only recommend waiting before upgrading for now. A downgrade tutorial is available here (https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18292&p=200433#p200433)

Also, Tim Wessman announced that the ICON format will be discontinued in the next firmware update or the one after, so we recommend HP game programmers to either switch back to DIMGROB or to applications as soon as possible.

Source:
https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=18294
http://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-6082-post-54475.html#pid54475

UPDATE (June 10): The old firmware has been put back online ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/calculators/Prime/
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: utz on April 28, 2016, 08:28:46 AM
welp... there goes my newly found appreciation for HP :o From the thread at hpmuseum I would guess HP is being a bit more cooperative now. So let's see how the saga continues.
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on April 28, 2016, 03:41:21 PM
Yeah I am glad they cooperate more now. They needed to realize the bugs are triggered with only transfers of HP PPL programs and code, not Ndless-like hacks. In the last two years they often had the tendency to shift the blame on the user whenever bugs were reported.

Also @timwessman complains that ICON is being abused and have said that it will be discontinued soon. But the problem is that .hpapp transfer and editing is not even close to functional and there is no included documentation to make apps. I can't test in 10077 becauze I'm afraid of bricking my calc, but in 8151, if I edit the content of an application inside the connectivity kit such as the code, saving will crash the emulator. Also many app transfers will fail until after about 3 tries. Not to mention it takes about 3 reboots before custom apps can run properly (a spreadsheet will appear otherwise)

People still stick to ICON simply because the newer alternative is not functional enough to be viable. Not even close in fact.

As a result, I'm sticking to programs for now and if HP ever dares removing DIMGROB-based image storing support instead of just ICON storage in the next firmwares to force everyone to switch to apps and do that before the hpapp format is even close to functional, then I'm done with HP Prime programming.
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: alexgt on April 28, 2016, 05:20:04 PM
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on April 28, 2016, 03:41:21 PM
Yeah I am glad they cooperate more now. They needed to realize the bugs are triggered with only transfers of HP PPL programs and code, not Ndless-like hacks. In the last two years they often had the tendency to shift the blame on the user whenever bugs were reported.

Also @timwessman complains that ICON is being abused and have said that it will be discontinued soon. But the problem is that .hpapp transfer and editing is not even close to functional and there is no included documentation to make apps. I can't test in 10077 becauze I'm afraid of bricking my calc, but in 8151, if I edit the content of an application inside the connectivity kit such as the code, saving will crash the emulator. Also many app transfers will fail until after about 3 tries. Not to mention it takes about 3 reboots before custom apps can run properly (a spreadsheet will appear otherwise)

People still stick to ICON simply because the newer alternative is not functional enough to be viable. Not even close in fact.

As a result, I'm sticking to programs for now and if HP ever dares removing DIMGROB-based image storing support instead of just ICON storage in the next firmwares to force everyone to switch to apps and do that before the hpapp format is even close to functional, then I'm done with HP Prime programming.

I have no problems with data transfer or anything of the such after I figured out how to send apps.

I highly doubt that HP will take out GROBs, or DIMGROB since that is what you put files on, ex:

G1:=AFiles("catphoto.png");
//or to store stuff back into files:
AFiles("catphoto.png"):=G1;


I, luckily have not upgraded yet but I hope they release a new update that allows alpha overlays...
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on April 28, 2016, 06:09:19 PM
Yeah I doubt they will either, but maybe eventually they'll take out the ability to store sprites directly into a GROB and only keep the ability to DIM a GROB with a single color?

As for app transfer, with your trick it eventually works, but often only after about three tries. During the first and second attempt, either the app won't send or the image files won't (usually the icon).
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: timwessman on April 28, 2016, 07:20:31 PM
QuoteHowever, it seems that the new firmware have made it even worse: When the calculator RAM is saturated, it now ends up corrupting various files stored in your flash memory. Not only this can result into data loss, but it seems like this is not limited to programs and applications, but possibly the OS, boot code and NAND as well.

So here is the thing - nobody can say what happened here at this point . No other units of the many units that have been tested on my end using critor's same files and process have show similar behavior or failures. No other person has reported a corruption or failure with a boot loader in a similar way. The only slightly similar item has been a unit that had the firmware update stop during mid-running and they had to redo the update again. To my knowledge, nobody else has seen this happen like critor reported.

Does this read to you like the sky is falling?  :w00t: <--person running around with the sky falling

Something happened - true. Until I get the unit back and someone can pull the flash chip though, there is absolutely no way to know what is going on here. The only report and demonstration of this failure is a single individual with a single unit - that later appears to have died in a mysterious way.  Is it an isolated incident? I don't know. Nobody can know anything apart from speculating at the moment unfortunately.  ???

Working with modern electronics is difficult for many reasons, and one of the most annoying things is my experience is that there *is* an acceptable rate of failure with modern components. You in fact pay higher money for items that have been more thoroughly validated, tested, and so on. That is what the whole CPU processor binning is about. Certain processors that have been tested as being able to run higher get sold for more cost. Others get traces clipped and sold for cheaper. Nothing can be absolutely perfect and things can potentially happen to components later.

Did the update do something to his unit? Definitely possible, but I feel it is unlikely. The boot loader resides in a protected area of flash. Writing to it isn't possible without first sending a very specific sequence of commands to unlock those blocks. Could that happen due to corrupted memory? Possible. However, it is just as likely that some blocks in his flash chip has some bad sectors that have functioned ok up until now, but just now failed when the most strenuous activity flash chips can possibly have (writing data) was busy ongoing.

Note I am not trying to blame him, or diminish the possibility of a problem here. Rather, I am just explaining another possibility.

QuoteUnfortunately, HP workers who are active posting on TI-Planet and HP Museum initially tried to shift the entire blame on TI-Planet's PDF to picture converter, even though it was not used before Critor's calculator died for good.

I'm sorry you seem to feel this way. My intent with the discussion of the picture converter was not to shift blame nor trivialize anything, but to point out that the way it has been implemented is extremely memory inefficient (due to the use of the ICON keyword which was intended for permanent "stay in ram continually" items) and that has exacerbated the memory problems in the past. People then complain that the memory is "leaking" which is just not true. The program asks to keep the bitmap loaded permanently and so the software complied.

In many ways this is like using bitmaps for a complete webpage. True, it works - however, users on mobile/dialup won't be happy that instead of a 500kb page you managed to make one that takes 20MB.

QuoteAlso, Tim Wessman announced that the ICON format will be discontinued in the next firmware update or the one after, so we recommend HP game programmers to either switch back to DIMGROB or to applications as soon as possible.

I believe that I said I *anticipate* it may happen. The reason is rather simple - ICON and the text to loading for DIMGROB are very non-portable. They are tied very specifically to one color encoding on a single platform. Maybe you haven't noticed that the HP Prime is now available on many more platforms, and that will potentially grow to more over time. In order to ensure that you can share programs and files directly everywhere, you have to take into account many different factors. Colors on the rgb 565 format have proven problematic elsewhere and it is probably time to change that to eliminate another source of potential problems.

It might be possible to do some tricks to convert the programs on the fly, but I honestly don't know at this point.

You now have support for extremely portable graphic objects - jpg and png - directly. They are about as standard as you can possibly get and are very easy to work with. Granted, we only support files packaged in apps at this point in time and that is a valid complaint (as is the lack of documentation about more complicated app creation).We hope to be able to extend that support into plain program files at some point, but that has some challenges of its own.

QuoteSo let's see how the saga continues.

Really? Saga?  :D

Quoteif I edit the content of an application inside the connectivity kit such as the code, saving will crash the emulator. Also many app transfers will fail until after about 3 tries. Not to mention it takes about 3 reboots before custom apps can run properly (a spreadsheet will appear otherwise)

The issue here is that we just are not getting this feedback. The overall feedback we hear matches what alexgt is reporting (works pretty well) and so therefore we have nothing to test that *isn't* working well to try and fix. Please communicate examples, example programs/apps, and/or steps (calchelp at hp.com will go to me) directly to get some attention at looking at a problem.

Frankly, I and others try our best but we can't perfectly catch every discussion or comment on the internet. I have a hard time reading this site for example due to the format it uses... something about it just makes it hard for me to find stuff. Maybe I'm just too old.  (-_(//));

QuoteI, luckily have not upgraded yet but I hope they release a new update that allows alpha overlays...

What is it you are wanting when you say "alpha overlays". PNG files do support transparency for sprites directly. We don't have alpha blending for aliases edged or anything - true. That is pretty much impossible unless we move away from the rgb565.... hmm, maybe another reason???  ;)




Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: alexgt on April 28, 2016, 07:37:02 PM
@DJ Omnimaga try reinstalling or renaming the app file and all files with an extension that starts with .hpapp the same new name. That might fix it because there is some residual data that gets left behind when you replace the file or delete it I think. It will eventually go away though and you can use the old name. I haven't looked into it except it happens to me when I am deleting old apps.

Quote from: timwessman on April 28, 2016, 07:20:31 PM
QuoteI, luckily have not upgraded yet but I hope they release a new update that allows alpha overlays...

What is it you are wanting when you say "alpha overlays". PNG files do support transparency for sprites directly. We don't have alpha blending for aliases edged or anything - true. That is pretty much impossible unless we move away from the rgb565.... hmm, maybe another reason???  ;)

but in the latest update  it says it has alpha blending...

any ways since reading more into the update list I can't wait to at least give it a try!
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on April 30, 2016, 02:59:18 AM
@timwessman Regarding your first point, I seem to recall on TI-Planet Critor mentioning that at least another calculator was bricked and it also had that firmware installed, but I couldn't find the HP Museum topic about it. But it's entirely possible that the bricking was caused by previous firmwares. I hope someone can figure out what went wrong.

I forgot if the bricking happened on his prototype unit or the HWC unit, though. If it was the prototype then maybe it had different hardware than HWA and C that didn't support the new firmware 100%? But yeah I understand your concerns. THe issue is that on HP Museum, apparently HP developers have jumped several times on MViewer GX, falsely accusing the software of using hacks that can brick calcs even when it's not the case. The so-called hack is basically that HP team forgot to put an error check to detect if you try to open a ICON with less RAM than required (such as an error message saying Insufficient memory to continue this operation). Kinda like how on the TI-84 Plus CE, when you try to make a matrix that is larger than 400 elements, you get an error (although such low hard limit can get annoying).


Anyway the reason why I felt that HP devs shifted blames on the users when bugs were reported is because ever since bugs started being reported in 2013, users are told it's not a bug, but rather the user not using a feature properly. And sometimes when we provide examples of stuff that doesn't work (which we shouldn't even need to do in some cases, and is probably enough to deter some busy users from sending example files), it seems that they are not received, since I reported the application transfer issues with a link to Mineprime or SIFS before on MoHPC, to no avail.

As for the forum layout, do you have any suggestions of layout that you prefer? (Eg forum softwares, site names, etc) We are looking to switch in the next few years, but perhaps it's something that can be fixed earlier?
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: alexgt on May 04, 2016, 04:38:27 PM
I haven't had any problems with the new firmware update so far, and I have been coding very heavily. And using apps, and also I uploaded an app to my calculator with absolutely no problems. I don't know if it is the firmware or something else for you @DJ Omnimaga.
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on May 04, 2016, 10:14:53 PM
@alexgt I think my issue is just that I got a lot of programs on my calc and often run many of them. I think it's a matter of rebooting the calc after every USB transfer, after disconnecting the cable. But most prime issues seems to be on a case by case basis.
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: alexgt on May 05, 2016, 01:39:59 AM
Yeah it could be different for you then since I only have 14 programs xD
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on May 05, 2016, 01:47:35 AM
I think I got about 30 and a few apps, but some programs are several hundreds KB each.

On a side note @alexgt did you upgrade yet? I am curious about if you noticed a significant performance drop with BLIT_P as a result of alpha blending addition? (Unless they didn't add it, but if that's the case then their changelog is misleading). On my older firmware I just tested with a quick program that drew a 320x240 rectangle that was originally 319x239, while also drawing the value of A (for loop) and it drew about 35 times every second. But if I displayed a 320x240 rectangle at original size, it drew about 250 times a second or maybe more.
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: alexgt on May 05, 2016, 02:01:54 AM
I have upgraded. But I don't know if the change log is misleading or I used poor word choices when I made these posts.
Quote from: alexgt on April 28, 2016, 07:37:02 PM
Quote from: timwessman on April 28, 2016, 07:20:31 PM
QuoteI, luckily have not upgraded yet but I hope they release a new update that allows alpha overlays...

What is it you are wanting when you say "alpha overlays". PNG files do support transparency for sprites directly. We don't have alpha blending for aliases edged or anything - true. That is pretty much impossible unless we move away from the rgb565.... hmm, maybe another reason???  ;)

but in the latest update  it says it has alpha blending...

any ways since reading more into the update list I can't wait to at least give it a try!

But I will test the BLIT with this program:


EXPORT LineTimer()
A:=TICKS;
BLIT(G1); //Displays G1 on the screen (the fastest it can go)
B:=TICKS;
C:=B-A;
MSGBOX(C);
END;

and then you would replace that with the other levels of zoom.
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on May 05, 2016, 02:12:31 AM
I edited my post by the way with benchmarks from a program that drew a 320x240 squares and text. But it was a different program and I lost it when I rebooted my calc.

But I just tried a modified version of your program that is more accurate I think:

EXPORT LineTimer()
BEGIN
DIMGROB_P(G1,320,240,#990000);
A:=TICKS;
BLIT_P(0,0,320,240,G1,0,0,320,240);
B:=TICKS;
C:=B-A;
MSGBOX(C);
END;

This gives me between 3 and 10 milliseconds (since it's so fast it's less accurate since the prime always had minor speed drops at times).


Here is what I get with zoom now:
EXPORT LineTimer()
BEGIN
DIMGROB_P(G1,320,240,#990000);
A:=TICKS;
BLIT_P(0,0,320,240,G1,0,0,319,239);
B:=TICKS;
C:=B-A;
MSGBOX(C);
END;

Now I get between 28 and 36.
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: alexgt on May 05, 2016, 11:50:33 AM
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on May 05, 2016, 02:12:31 AM
I edited my post by the way with benchmarks from a program that drew a 320x240 squares and text. But it was a different program and I lost it when I rebooted my calc.

But I just tried a modified version of your program that is more accurate I think:

EXPORT LineTimer()
BEGIN
DIMGROB_P(G1,320,240,#990000);
A:=TICKS;
BLIT_P(0,0,320,240,G1,0,0,320,240);
B:=TICKS;
C:=B-A;
MSGBOX(C);
END;

This gives me between 3 and 10 seconds (since it's so fast it's less accurate since the prime always had minor speed drops at times).


Here is what I get with zoom now:
EXPORT LineTimer()
BEGIN
DIMGROB_P(G1,320,240,#990000);
A:=TICKS;
BLIT_P(0,0,320,240,G1,0,0,319,239);
B:=TICKS;
C:=B-A;
MSGBOX(C);
END;

Now I get between 28 and 36.
Ok, and yeah I forgot to add the DIMGROB_P() xD but you meant milliseconds right?
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on May 05, 2016, 06:30:00 PM
Oh right, I meant milliseconds, my bad. I'll fix my post to avoid scaring people O.O
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: alexgt on May 05, 2016, 06:41:01 PM
Yeah, we couldn't have 0.125 fps rumors going around xD
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on May 05, 2016, 06:47:19 PM
Yeah, I mean the Prime is known for being fast, but since three color calcs came out almost at the same time in 2013 and included an abysmally slow model (the Casio ClassPad II) people could get the wrong perception that the Prime is the slow one :P


Anyway I hope that the next HP Prime firmware fixes the issues that the 10077 one has. I checked the MoHPC forum and there still seems to be issues with the connectivity kit (crashes) and some new features on the PC side that are not 100% functional. It would be nice if they could at least fix most issues this Summer and do a marketing push.
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: alexgt on May 06, 2016, 11:50:47 AM
Yeah, it does seem inconsistent though because I have had no trouble in any updates... I guess I am lucky :P.

Well I have had crashes with some data loss but that was stuff that I just edited in a program so not that big of a deal.

I just tested the time it takes to draw:
G1 320x240 no zoom: 3-13 milliseconds
G1 320x240 2x zoom: 29-36 milliseconds
G1 320x240 8x zoom: 29-38 milliseconds
G1 320x240 64x zoom: 29-52 milliseconds

so it seems that zoom matters but it usually is not more than 30 when zoomed.
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on May 06, 2016, 04:10:56 PM
Can you try again with alpha blending?
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: alexgt on May 06, 2016, 05:14:41 PM
Yep, I just have to upload some pictures since I don't have any with alpha.
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on May 06, 2016, 06:12:57 PM
Oh, I thought alpha blending just involved displaying the entire picture at lower opacity. D: That would have ruled.
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: alexgt on May 06, 2016, 06:40:01 PM
Well, I just looked at the help screen for BLIT_P() and it says you can make the picture more or less opaque, also if you define a color it will make that color a transparent pixel. O.O so it looks like we will have some more features. I will work on the different values and all ;)

I will make a topic for HP PPL Statistics so we can share stuff like this :)
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on May 07, 2016, 01:18:45 AM
That is nice. And yeah I think the transparent color was already available for ages, but with opacity changes this will be nice. I just hope the speed drop over opaque sprites isn't too severe.

And yeah a benchmark topic would be nice for that :)


That said, if zoom speed is an issue for people, what they can do is create a large empty GROB, then pre-render multiple zooms of the sprites he needs. And for 2D games he just has to use a smaller GROB, draw everything at normal size then once finished he pastes the result, zoomed in to fit the screen, and bingo.
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: alexgt on May 10, 2016, 02:09:59 AM
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on May 07, 2016, 01:18:45 AM
That is nice. And yeah I think the transparent color was already available for ages, but with opacity changes this will be nice. I just hope the speed drop over opaque sprites isn't too severe.

And yeah a benchmark topic would be nice for that :)


That said, if zoom speed is an issue for people, what they can do is create a large empty GROB, then pre-render multiple zooms of the sprites he needs. And for 2D games he just has to use a smaller GROB, draw everything at normal size then once finished he pastes the result, zoomed in to fit the screen, and bingo.
I have the topic all written out I just need to input the data :P.

You could do that with the zoom but it would be really hard to manage and eventually you would have space problems, unless I am not understanding you correctly
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on May 10, 2016, 07:33:11 PM
Awesome! Hopefully this can be handy in the future.

And yeah you probably didn't understand exactly what I meant. For example, the HP Prime is 320x240 but you can use GROB's of any size. So if for example you use G1 at 160x120 to paste 8x8 sprites in there, you can later copy it on G0 at 320x240 resolution, so it will be scaled up in a way that each pixel are 2x2, like with xLIBC games.

This is much faster than using a 320x240 GROB and displaying each 8x8 sprite scaled up to be 16x16, one by one.
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: alexgt on May 11, 2016, 01:05:26 AM
Ohh, I see now. Yeah, that would work but only if you want 8x8 sprites :P
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on May 11, 2016, 07:03:55 AM
Trust me, I would rather have 8x8 sprites, because it would make it much easier to port xLIBC/xLIBCE games and monochrome games. :P
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: alexgt on May 11, 2016, 11:37:28 AM
True but I don't think you could necessarily port MinePrime without a re write :P
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on May 11, 2016, 03:24:20 PM
I know, but what I meant is porting CE games to the Prime, not the other way around. Some people might not just be willing to redo all their sprites from scratch, especially if they have many.
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: alexgt on May 11, 2016, 03:25:46 PM
Very true, I should start making UtilPack again....
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on May 30, 2016, 09:58:36 PM
So I just upgraded to this new firmware and noticed the drastic RAM increase.

However, three problems:

-MinePrime Closed Beta still doesn't run at all (a spreadsheet appears instead, despite having formated my calc before sending the game and following alexgt's tutorial to send apps). The program doesn't get corrupted during transfer this time, but apps are still barely even functional.

-Updating the firmware required about 14-15 tries. Every attempt it would hang in the middle of the firmware upgrade at random percentages of progress, trying to reconnect to the calc on 64 bits Windows 7, to no avail. I had to hold down the SYMB button during the entire operation and pressing Reset everytime it failed until it finally updates completely (eg reaches 100%). I finally upgraded fine but it shouldn't require so many attempts.

-HP Connectivity Kit causes my CPU fan to spin like crazy and heat up to 80°C O.O
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: alexgt on May 31, 2016, 03:10:48 AM
Hmm... it seems like you have no luck with the HP Prime :\

Updating the firmware took 3-4 attempts for me so that could just be luck that it was quicker.

- at this (https://youtu.be/hR5z5BdYsaQ?t=137) time in the tutorial you mentioned I just added an annotation that lets you send stuff to the calc without dragging/ dropping, that could help with MinePrime...
- Does the ICON for MinePrime show up or just a spreadsheet ICON?
- Did you edit code in the app program to force it to save?
- If you did all that then it could be the variables saved in the spread sheet are not transfering making it error at the start.
- I will send you another copy that eliminates spreadsheet vars ;)
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on May 31, 2016, 03:37:42 AM
-I saw that annotation, but it told me I still needed to follow the preceding steps beforehand.

-And yes I see the MinePrime icon

-I did edit code before formating my calc but when I sent the game again I didn't. Same for when I reformated then installed firmware v10077.

-Yeah I suspect the variables might not be saving. Maybe you need to send them or include them in the app?



As for the transfer issue I suspect that HP has switched to USB 3.0-only, and that for most people it's now faster with less risks of connection failure. The transfer is just too sensitive to any computer interference (like Virtual TI ROM dumping, where just typing 1 character in a txt file in Notepad caused hiccups during the ROM transfer and corrupted the ROM file). And I have USB 2.0 ports so obviously transfers are gonna be a bit slower.
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: alexgt on May 31, 2016, 03:54:30 AM
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on May 31, 2016, 03:37:42 AM
-I saw that annotation, but it told me I still needed to follow the preceding steps beforehand.
Oops I meant for that to say to follow the steps after sending it via the connectivity kit xD. I need to fix that :P

Since you see the icon my diagnosis is that it is the spreadsheet vars not saving correctly <_<.

So I found that if you see the icon and when you edit the source and you see stuff it should run, just to be sure the source file size should be 31Kb.
And I an pretty sure that I am using USB 2.0, even though my PC does have 3.0.

I may not be able to send you another copy for a couple of days so this might fix it:
- Press Num
- At A1 Click format on the screen and then Name.
- Name it: WName
- Next name B1: BState
- C1: Creative
- A2: WorSize
- B2: WPreView
- Once you have named all those with their respective names give then these values
- A1: -1
- B1: 0
- C1: 0
- A2: {200,150}
- B2: leave blank
- These should all fill themselves in but that is just an extra security measure ;)
- Now you should be able to run it smoothly ;)
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on May 31, 2016, 04:19:13 AM
Yeah, before updating the firmware the source code tab was completely empty. But on v10077 it showed up fine. This means your game is only compatible or will only send properly to OS 10077.

I'll see if I can run the game after doing the changes described above (hoping it doesn't require a reboot that clears out the vars afterward). Thanks for the help by the way :3= (hopefully it works in the future)


EDIT: By the way I just checked my copy of the app and the variables I needed to change were already with the values mentioned above, so it's not caused by the variables.

I think the issue is the Syntax Error at line 75 causing the program to not run. I just removed the following code from line 75:

Tri();And the title screen showed up. Of course I bet the game will fail with that code removed but basically it now runs (well... it ran on the title screen for about 30 seconds before landing back on the spreadsheet but I did get to scroll through a garbled game map). So it's the syntax error that was causing the issue all along.
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: alexgt on May 31, 2016, 05:46:56 AM
Ohhhhhhhh.......  :banghead:
Well I am glad it works now and that was the problem (along with the spreadsheet vars) Tri(); is a separate program I used for bug testing and never took that line out <_<. Well that version should work fine now ;) I am glad we resolved that.
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on May 31, 2016, 06:12:56 AM
Well, if Tri() wasn't needed then this means there are game bugs too:

-If you idle on the title screen for more than 30 seconds the game quits
-New World doesn't work the first time around. It redirects to Load World.
-Map is just scrambled wood, grass, dirt and rock tiles
-scrolling seems broken at the bottom of the screen. Scroll down completely then left/right to see the glitch
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: alexgt on May 31, 2016, 11:37:08 AM
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on May 31, 2016, 06:12:56 AM
Well, if Tri() wasn't needed then this means there are game bugs too:

-If you idle on the title screen for more than 30 seconds the game quits
-New World doesn't work the first time around. It redirects to Load World.
-Map is just scrambled wood, grass, dirt and rock tiles
-scrolling seems broken at the bottom of the screen. Scroll down completely then left/right to see the glitch
The title screen uses a wait command so it times out after 1 minute (maybe 30 seconds now) so that is what causes it to error
Try using the keypad for navigating the main menu. For New World press "2"
The world just generates a completely random map so that is why all those blocks are scattered around the screen, I just didn't have time to make something that looked acceptable :P
I will look into that glitch, I thought I fixed it before I released the BETA <_<

But I am glad it is working
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on May 31, 2016, 12:00:41 PM
-Oh I see why now. So basically if you stay on the title screen for too long it quits the game? I wonder why is that done?
-Thanks. That worked now :)
-I see. I was wondering since past versions showed a legit map :P
-Good luck fixing it >.<

I like the speed so far by the way :3=
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: alexgt on May 31, 2016, 12:08:03 PM
Yeah, I thought I had all issues like that one solved, at least I can replicate it ;)
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on May 31, 2016, 09:54:57 PM
On a side note @alexgt when you use the new connectivity kit did you notice it takes way more CPU than it used to? FOr me that's the case and I am unsure why.
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: alexgt on June 01, 2016, 02:19:51 AM
No, I have not. I have a pretty solid PC (I need an upgrade since it is 6 years old but it runs most things great) so I don't know if it is just yours or what but there was really no difference over the previous version.
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on June 01, 2016, 03:09:12 AM
Ah ok, because many people reported that issue so far.
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: alexgt on June 01, 2016, 11:39:29 AM
I guess I am super lucky with all things Prime :P. Everything works great for me, the problem is that there are so many unique situations it is hard to trouble shoot xD
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on June 01, 2016, 04:27:52 PM
I hope it's nothing hardware related. It would suck is most HP Prime calcs were defective. Also gogogoluke apparently never had a single issue with his calc but I have yet to see an advanced game program from him, those of which, combined with USB transfers, are usually prone to causing stability issues
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: alexgt on June 01, 2016, 04:30:02 PM
Yeah, I really hope it isn't a hardware issue <_<
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: critor on June 08, 2016, 03:57:44 AM
A Portugese-speaking TI-Planet user got the same problem as me yesterday :
- did update to the latest 10077 firmware
- did convert images/PDF using both available formats (programs  + applications)
- did use them on the calculator
- now the calculator doesn't boot anymore
- reset+[Symb] is unable to wake up the calculator to put it into recovery mode either

Source : https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=18294&start=50#p203726


So it really seems there's a problem with firmware 10077, at least in the context of RAM-greedy-programs.
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on June 08, 2016, 04:54:35 AM
I did see another post on HP Museum where an user reported the same issue I think, but I don't know if it's the same person or not.

I don't know if the bug is due to fatal flaws from previous firmwares causing the new firmware to brick calcs or if it's just the new firmware that is at fault, but it's definitively something that HP needs to fix as soon as possible. Else it's their loss, because if the firmware is popular, especially during Back to School, then they'll have a big lot of calculator returns from customers and lots of replacements to give away, so it's in their best interest to fix this ASAP. Plus many people will just give them bad reviews anyway.


So that makes it 4 bricked calcs under this firmware so far, right? Two on TI-Planet and HP Museum, if I recall correctly. And there aren't that many HP Prime users on the Internet.
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: critor on June 08, 2016, 05:02:06 AM
Maybe a 3rd one on TI-Planet too, but the user didn't confirm me about reset+Symb this time.

That would make 3+2=5.
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on June 08, 2016, 05:13:23 AM
Darn. If there are like 100 active HP Prime users on forums, then this means 2% bricked their calcs or so. >.<

@critor do you know which hardware revision those calcs were and which ones were prototypes or not?
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: alexgt on June 08, 2016, 01:56:24 PM
Well, should I use my calc anymore till a patch comes out for fear of bricking?
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on June 08, 2016, 07:34:16 PM
It depends of certain factors I think. Maybe @critor knows what increases the risks of calculator bricking in particular? I seem to recall that USB transfers of very large files (2 MB?) can cause data corruption and eventually lead to such bricking. So far I haven't gotten any issue with smaller files, but the largest I ever sent was your game and it was an app. The largest program I got on my calc is under 200 KB.
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on June 10, 2016, 03:57:49 PM
HP has put the old calculator firmware back online: ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/calculators/Prime/

Source: https://tiplanet.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=18294&start=50#p203936


I don't know if it's possible to downgrade, though. I wonder if anyone ever tried?
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Lionel Debroux on June 10, 2016, 04:55:15 PM
The Prime doesn't have silly anti-downgrade protections :)
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on June 10, 2016, 04:56:17 PM
I was a bit worried the connectivity kit did because I found it odd that a new kit has to be released for every OS update.
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: gnmmarechal on June 13, 2016, 04:26:43 PM
At least they don't add downgrade protection. *looks at TI*
Title: Re: WARNING: HP Prime OS 10077 calc bricking & ICON command to be discontinued soon?
Post by: Dream of Omnimaga on June 14, 2016, 02:08:19 AM
Yeah, I was unsure if HP had anti-downgrade protections or had setup their newer connectivity kit softwares to not support older OSes. I'm glad they don't have any anti-downgrade protection, especially with what's happening with OS 10077 right now. I personally will probably downgrade back just in case. I had no issue with 10077 personally, but we never know.