Did I brick my model 410?
I had to get another 410 (again with th 6600 firmware) and now have it working. I'm wondering what I did to my old one and if there is some way to salvage it. It makes 3 descending tones when you try to power it on and then nothing happens. Considering it had been working fine I don't know what made it stop. Is anyone familiar with this 3 tone sequence and is there a way to salvage that camera? Thanks in advance! :)

The 410 is unbrickable because it has a proper (or at least discovered) bootloader mode, which it sounds like your camera is in. Check in the camera section to see how it's done there's a good write up how to "reflash" the cameras.

Thanks, guys. I now have another question about this method: I'm running all Linux, so I don't have access to anything but a small Windows 98SE partition, and so far it just doesn't seem to want to work with any of the libusb's I've tried. As you know, I combines enough of avidownload and one of the pv2 programs in Linux to where I now have a Gui'd program to open, unlock, download, show challenge key, format camera memory and close. This program works with both the camcorder and the pv2 cameras. So, can you direct me to a piece of source code (I'm assuming on sourceforge like the rest) from which I can get the code for "running" the firmware and loading files to/from the pv2 (in particular, since I have a "good" 410, to download the firmware, patch it, and then send it back up to the screwy 410)? If I can get that stuff incorporated into the program it would probably help me out here in Linux. I already have coded in a "device-specific special functions" button which goes to another screen so I can add more functionality. (I have 1 such menu page for the camcorder and 1 for the pv2, with the idea of getting more of ops and more of the pv2 stuff all under this one program). :) EDIT: I changed the batteries - no more 3 tones. However, it makes the 2 beeps like it is powering on but nothing happens - no "ready" led, no display, etc., and can't do anything with it. Does this mean I made things worse?

Ah, 3 "descending beeps" is the battery-low indicater, which is easily confused with the 3 firmware beeps indicating bootloader mode due to FAT corruption. 2 beeps is a firmware file corruption, or incorrect checksum in any case. See the forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=2>FAQ for more on the different beeps. You can restore it with a flash update, or just by replacing the firmware.bin if none of the other files have been corrupted. I'm not that familliar with the Linux based tools, so someone else should answer your questions on those.

Thanks again, Bill!! I'm going to incorporate the code from PV2TOOL for downloading individual files from the PV2 and also have 2 standalone buttons for downloading/uploading the firwmare.bin file. That part of the code won't be too hard to incorporate and everything seems to be open source. Working with SaturnNights to have unified set of base functions for both the camcorder and the camera so that only the external display functions are unique. We hope this will end up making the Windows version of OPS and the combo program I've been working on a lot easier to maintain. And, any time anything new is added, it can be added easily (hopefully) to whatever platform. Hoping to eventually have a Windows version of the combo program with as much of OPS and PV2TOOL incorporated also. That way there will be a command line version available for Linux, a GTK version available for Linux, and hopefully a Windows version, all running off the same base set of functions. I know this stuff isn't used by a "bazillion" people. but it's kind of fun for an old guy like me whose 12+ years since using "C" really shows me as rusty and it's almost like starting over again. But hey, no deadlines - just fun! Thanks again, Bill !! :) Dave

Glad to help. Good luck with reviving your cam and your coding opus!

Hi BillW, Got the firmware.bin file from my working model 410 downloaded via my program now. I've been through the FAQ's, etc., but being that I have pneumonia and not exactly clear headed, can you point me to some instructions for patching the firmware so it is unlocked? Since I'm all Linux, I'll try to incorporate the code to "run" the firmware in my program and see if I can resurrect my old camera (same model, etc.). I am a little curious, and perhaps you can enlighten me. If a camera, like my old one, does not power all the way up (2 beeps then no led, etc.), how will I be able to talk to it from the program? Currently I assume you must successfully unlock the camera before you can do anything real with it - will I need to code some sort of exception around that in order to "run" the good firmware locally and upload it to the "broken" camera? Thanks again! Dave :) :)

Uh, I think I did a no-no. I THOUGHT I had set up the code correctly in my program to copy the flash.bin back up to the camera, but it seems I messed the camera up. It just makes 2 low beeps when I try to turn it on. any ideas? Thanks! Dave

Sorry for not responding to your previous post - I somehow missed it. Run your firmware.bin through pv2patch, found on the pv2devkit sourceforge page. It's been a while since I wrote it, but IIRC it's plain old ansi C, so you should be able to compile it with gcc. pv2patch will offer to patch the firmware file in certain ways, and will automatically calculate a correct checksum for the firmware. If you managed to get your new firmware.bin on the camera, than the 2 beeps means the checksum in the firmware is wrong. Running it through pv2patch first will fix that.

Thanks, BillW. I'll give that stuff a try later today. Will be interesting to see how it all works in Linux. Dave

BillW: Did as you suggested. It gave me a warning about the file being the wrong size (it's 16mb, flash.bin), then went through everything and said both checksums were wrong and fixed them. It did compile extremely easily in Linux - just a straight gcc -o xxxx *.c Now for the really dumb question - I can't open the camera in the software (it finds it, but can't open it). So, how do I tell the software to send the file back to the camera if I can't open the camera? I'm sure there is probably a really stupid thing I am missing. Thanks in advance! Dave

Yeah, you'll definitely need to be able to open the camera to be able to send the file. The camera's PID changes when it's in bootloader mode - this may be why you can't open it, but I'm not at all familiar with libusb setup in Linux, so that's just a guess. Anybody more familiar with the Linux pv2tool want to comment? Besides the flash.bin, you'll need to extract a firmware.bin (and unlock it with pv2patch) to actually run on the cam, once you manage to open it. Be sure not to click on the unlock button, as that will just confuse the cam since it can't access it's key. If you can't get firmware.bin from a working cam, you might try a loopback mount on your flash.bin to extract it.

The code I've used (don't remember if it's from pv2tool, but it's from somebody else - nothing original) actually seems to only look at the vendor, not the product id, when initializing and opening the device. In this case, it fails on the usb_set_configuration with -1. This is the first action after the usb_open statement. The usb_open sets m_p_handle, and the only way I can see that there is any type of check done as to whether the usb_open actually worked is the qualifying "if" for the rest of the code - if (m_p_handle) - I'm assuming (don't have the usb docs right in front of me) that usb_open returns null if it fails. I'm starting to think lazy - the stuff I have right now can open, show the challenge keys and download from both the camera and the camcorder. It can make a command line version and a GTK version using the same source and just running a different shell script. Maybe I should stop while I'm ahead and it does what I really need it to ! :) :) I do have the new 410 so I'm really not any worse off, and I've learned how to hose a camera (ta-da!!). So, since I have another very big project I want to try with GTK (talk about a learning experience - I want to write a MySQL based genealogy program to sort of take the place of Family Tree Maker - a very big task). I figure if I get started on it now (age 52) I may finish the basics before I turn 152 !! It's something I've wanted to tackle so I figure now is as good a time as any to start. Not as fun as interfacing to the cameras, but fun in a different way! I appreciate all the work you guys have done! I think SaturnNights has the la-*test*-('") copy of the code so he can do with it as he wants. I would hope the GTK based version becomes available for Linux users, since it works with both devices.