ClassicWB weird PCMCIA CF problem

[Quaxo76]

Hello,
I have a A1200 with integrated CF HDD. I have physically mounted it so that I can easily swap the CF card so that I can use different OS installs. I've been using a customized WB 3.0 for quite some time without problems. Then I installed, on a new 4GB CF card, ClassicWB Advanced using 3.1 disks.
It works OK except for a problem. I also have a PCMCIA CF card reader, which I bought as a "ADF transfer kit". It works perfectly with the old workbench, but acts weird with CWB. I use it with a 256MB CF. When I insert the card, it is correctly detected and shown on the desktop. But if I open it, it doesn't show the real contents. If I choose "Show icons only", it shows nothing (even though there are several .info files, and they all show up in the older WB). If I choose "Show all files", I see some of the files but not all.
If I choose "Show as text" the files are all there, and with Dopus too.

To try to cure the problem, I made a backup of the CF data, formatted it, and copied the data back on the card. Now if I choose "Show all files" it really shows all files, but if I choose "Show icons only" it still shows nothing.

As it is working perfectly with the older WB, it must be a problem with this CWB. Any idea why this is happening?

PS - I also had another problem, in that some files on the system CF appeared corrupt; I fixed it with the "maxtransfer" setting).

TIA,
Cristian

[thomas]

ClassicWB uses Scalos instead of Workbench. AFAIK Scalos uses its own routines to load and display icons. Probably something is wrong with the icon files which makes them incompatible with Scalos.Something which is ignored by Workbench.

Are the icons shown correctly if you copy them to RAM?

Could you attach some of the files here?

[Quaxo76]

Originally Posted by thomas

ClassicWB uses Scalos instead of Workbench. AFAIK Scalos uses its own routines to load and display icons. Probably something is wrong with the icon files which makes them incompatible with Scalos.Something which is ignored by Workbench.

Are the icons shown correctly if you copy them to RAM?

Could you attach some of the files here?

Hi, thanks for your reply!
Most icons are of standard apps downloaded from Amibay.
I tried to copy one to RAM: and it works OK: it is shown even with "Show icons only". I'm attaching the same file here, zipped.

Cristian

[thomas]

If you copy a non-displayed icon to RAM and then it is displayed, then it cannot be the icon file but must have something to do with the CF card.

Please download http://thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online...ad/ReadRDB.lha
Unpack it to RAM, then open a shell window and enter
ram:readrdb scsi.device 0

Please attach the output here. You can redirect the output into a file by adding >ram:rdb.txt to the command line.

[Quaxo76]

It prints "Bytes per block on device: -1" and then I get a Guru Meditation and the amiga reboots.
I should point out though that with my other WB the card works fine, so I don't think it's something with the CF card but with how this ClassicWB handles it...

Edit: I tried the same command on the "Working" WB and I get the same result.

[Bloodwych]

It's a strange one this. Many people use the ClassicWB with CF cards, but as Thomas said Scalos does use different routines to Workbench and it did cause a similar problem with WinUAE in the past. The thread should be on here somewhere... Here it is:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=34009

That was fixed and it seems strange to pop up here. Most CFD problems are maxtransfer related: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=54703

[Quaxo76]

Hm. One user on the first link you gave me shows the very same symptoms I'm having - no icon at all, not even a dot, but when copying the files on RAM it's OK.
They were having this issue in WinUAE though, while I'm using a real A1200. Now there are 2 things I want to try: using a lower resolution (KillerGorilla said standard resolutions might work fine) and disabling "Use ExAll" in Scalos prefs. Hopefully one of these will solve the problem.
About the Maxtransfer value, I can't find a way to change it, as the PCMCIA card isn't seen as a drive in the HD tools.

Now, I'd like to have a standard resolution on my WB also because I get some interlacing artifacts with my Indivision. Is there a way to change a ClassicWB ADV to a ClassicWB FULL without having to reinstall? If there is not, is there a way to install the FULL "over" the ADV without having to format the card, loosing all my files?

This is an almost out-of-the-box ClassicWB install, the only extra I installed are:
- the Indivision config program
- the PCMCIA CF card drivers
- Tons of WHDLoad games and lots of data.

[Bloodwych]

Yeah, just copy over the files should be fine, or if you want a cleaner approach boot from a Workbench disk and delete all the files but leave your own files intact. Then install the ClassicWB FULL.

If you are still struggling, then you could try AmigaSYS: http://amigasys.ultimateamiga.co.uk/index.html

It doesn't use Scalos.

I've never used these PCMCIA CF cards, so hopefully someone who uses them can help you out here. However, you could also use the multiboot feature to boot into Workbench when you need to use the PCMCIA card:

http://classicwb.abime.net/classicweb/multiboot.htm

I'd imagine the maxtransfer settings are in the CF cards mountlist - in the Devs drawer. Depends on how it works. But it's probably a driver/Scalos issue, although you are the first to report it.

[Bloodwych]

I'll just add that in the future you may want to partition your 4GB CF drive - a small one for the Workbench (DH0: say 300MB) and the remaining for games and demos (DH1: ).

You can change the assigns where the games and demos are installed like shown here:

http://classicwb.abime.net/classicweb/tutorials.htm

[Quaxo76]

Disabling "Use ExAll" seems to have done the trick. Thank you all! I didn't test extensively but I will tomorrow.
Now the important question: by disabling ExAll, what am I missing? What does that option do exactly?

Thanks,
Cristian

[Quaxo76]

Afterthought: I've seen that there is a new version of Scalos, released in May 2010 (while ClassicWB was released in 2009). Is it possible to update Scalos, to see if this problem is fixed?

Cristian

[Bloodwych]

The ExAll function is explained towards the end of that thread I linked. The downside to disabling it is filesystem performance may suffer - if it's noticeable, I'm not sure.

1.2d is the only stable release, and that's from 2003 I think! The rest are beta and seem to have worse performance and are geared towards newer Workbenches than 3.0/1, powerful Amiga's and RTG setups. Perhaps I never spent enough time working with the beta release however.

I've never tried the very recent ones, but updating it probably won't be a simple job as I think they changed the way some of the features are handled. Plus it may have new bugs as it doesn't get tested as much these days.

There are of course ClassicWB packs that don't use Scalos - LITE, 3.5 and 3.9 packs. Plus AmigaSYS. I love it however, as it adds a lot of nice features to 3.0/1 without hurting performance.

[Quaxo76]

OK, I will leave Scalos alone and not try to upgrade it.
I don't have OS3.5-3.9, so I have to keep with 3.1. And besides, I love CWB as it is (except for this bug, that is). I tried installing the FULL version over the ADV, and it worked; but the icons problem is still there. I still have to disable ExAll. But the system seems still reactive, so I don't really care.
I noticed another problem though, with file operations, but I'm opening another thread for that as it's unrelated with this post.

Thank you again,
Cristian