[Announce] Community Firmware for Squeezebox Radio/Touch/Controller and LMS 8

[dzenc]

Please tar up all the files from the atheros directory on your working radio and send them to me? I want to be sure we are working from the same files. Thanks.

Sent in PM.

[P Nelson]

Same here. Esp. howto remove wlanpoke. I have enough devices to do some alpha testing as well.

I hope removing Wlanpoke will be easy. Go to the simplified installation instructions in the Radio forum.
I think the key to stopping Wlanpoke is to remove the file in step 9, and then reboot the Radio. The wlanpoke files will remain, but it will no longer start-up after the radio is rebooted.
I hope someone smarter than me can confirm this uninstall method.

Paul

[P Nelson]

Thank you guys for volunteering to test! I look forward to hearing how it works for you. Since Ralphy has indicated he'll get a beta firmware build out later this week, which will include the updated driver, I would suggest waiting for that, because I think that will be the easiest way to install it. ( Thanks, ralphy )

Also, a quick update on my testing: It's been almost 48 hours now; the old-driver-Radios are dropping connections at a rate of about 2-3 times/day each; the new driver has yet to drop a connection. From my perspective, this seems to have resolved my wifi connectivity issues, at least at this one problematic location. Fingers crossed.

The Wifi6 (ax) interference problem, in my situation, has been frustrating. Before Wlanpoke, sometimes my radio would remain connected for only a few hours, but on other days it might run for a week, and then disconnect. The timing of the interference is random. (After Wlanpoke, the Radio might require rebooting after several weeks.)

My fingers are crossed.

Paul

[yosherl]

ralphy my Squeezebox Radio directory looks a bit different than the one from the other test candidate:

# ls -lt /lib/atheros
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        150975 Jan  1  1970 ar6000.ko
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root        177073 Jan  1  1970 athwlan.bin
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         11448 Jan  1  1970 bmiloader
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root           768 Jan  1  1970 calData_ar6102_15dBm.bin
-rw-r--r--    1 root     root           836 Jan  1  1970 data.patch.hw2_0.bin
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         14212 Jan  1  1970 eeprom.AR6002
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         12312 Jan  1  1970 loadAR6000l.sh
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         73476 Jan  1  1970 wmiconfig​

Do you need this versions as well? Running your latest community firmware...

[KeBul]

Top work dzenc and ralphy, fingers crossed for continued successful testing.

As ever thanks for all the hard work you guys put in to this community.

Kev

[ralphy]

ralphy my Squeezebox Radio directory looks a bit different than the one from the other test candidate:

# ls -lt /lib/atheros
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 150975 Jan 1 1970 ar6000.ko
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 177073 Jan 1 1970 athwlan.bin
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 11448 Jan 1 1970 bmiloader
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 768 Jan 1 1970 calData_ar6102_15dBm.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 836 Jan 1 1970 data.patch.hw2_0.bin
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 14212 Jan 1 1970 eeprom.AR6002
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 12312 Jan 1 1970 loadAR6000l.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 73476 Jan 1 1970 wmiconfig​

Do you need this versions as well? Running your latest community firmware...

Thanks. No that appears to be the files that are currently included with the radio firmware.
dzenc provide me with the files I wanted.

[gegen]

Top work dzenc and ralphy, fingers crossed for continued successful testing.

As ever thanks for all the hard work you guys put in to this community.

Kev

Here's hoping and to add, great work. Thankyou for all your dedication. Happy to test and feedback at some relevant point.

[dzenc]

New driver still running strong in that known problematic location. This morning I updated the rest of the radios in my house, with the exception of 1 of the 3 sitting next to each other. So there remains one old driver Radio left for comparison, but the rest are new. Will continue to keep you all posted.

[gegen]

Thankyou.

[dzenc]

The one remaining Radio with the old driver continues to disconnect regularly and all of the Radios with the new firmware (and new driver) have stayed connected and have been running smoothly all day, with the only hitch being during the initial upgrade on one of my Radios, the one that is coincidentally furthest from the access point. On that radio, when I updated the firmware and then rebooted, it had trouble finding WiFi immediately after startup. I quickly realized that I had just gone from 7.x to 8.x firmware without doing a factory reset, so I then performed a factory reset and upon restart thereafter (and re-enter of wifi configuration), the radio connected to wifi with no issues and has stayed connected all day. Hopefully that was a one-time glitch, but it's something to watch out for in the future when Ralphy releases his firmware later this week.

[dzenc]

The eeprom.AR6002 binary might not be needed either if eeprom.* are not used.

I think you're right about this, btw. I just looked and can't find any remaining references to eeprom.AR6002. Haven't tested removing it, though.

-Dan

[mherger]

The one remaining Radio with the old driver continues to disconnect regularly and all of the Radios with the new firmware (and new driver) have stayed connected and have been running smoothly all day, with the only hitch being during the initial upgrade on one of my Radios, the one that is coincidentally furthest from the access point. On that radio, when I updated the firmware and then rebooted, it had trouble finding WiFi immediately after startup. I quickly realized that I had just gone from 7.x to 8.x firmware without doing a factory reset, so I then performed a factory reset and upon restart thereafter (and re-enter of wifi configuration), the radio connected to wifi with no issues and has stayed connected all day. Hopefully that was a one-time glitch, but it's something to watch out for in the future when Ralphy releases his firmware later this week.

Woah!... I almost missed this topic. But what progress! Thanks a lot for you hard work on this!

[yosherl]

dzenc using the patchfile here on the loadAR60001.sh or the updated loadAR6000.sh both fail as the patch on the squeezebox thinks it is already applied. I don't know why really, but
I'm gonna do it by hand I think. Just in case someone with less knowledge on linux etc comes across this step :-)

Update: After reviewing, the patchfile includes all patch changes to get to the latest community firmware. Therefore: If you already have the latest community firmware: no patchfile needed.

[ralphy]

I think you're right about this, btw. I just looked and can't find any remaining references to eeprom.AR6002. Haven't tested removing it, though.

-Dan

Thanks for confirming. I left eeprom.AR6002 in the test firmware for now. I'll likely remove it in the future release.

[ralphy]

Okay, so an initial shake down of the newer SDK83 wifi driver for the radio is complete. Thanks dzenc

If you'd like to try it the first step should be to disable wanpoke, if it's installed, otherwise testing the update is pointless. I've never used it so can't help with this step. P Nelson suggests how to do this in post 707 above.

Second, if you installed the earlier build of the updated ar6000.ko and firmware files, remove them. A factory reset is my suggestion to ensure you have the latest files after installing r16917.

Download baby_8.0.1_r16917.zip from the link below and unzip the file in the LMS cache/updates folder. The cache folder location is listed at the bottom of the LMS settings->information page.

Rename

baby.version to custom.baby.version

and

baby_8.0.1_r16917.bin to custom.baby.bin

then restart LMS.

You might also have to restart the radio, after LMS has restarted, for the update to be presented in the menus right away.

Once you are done testing/updated , remove the custom.* and *.sha files from the update folder. LMS will NOT provide newer firmware updates to the radio when they are pushed out, if the custom.* files still remain.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gf0gs7hnz53noey/baby_8.0.1_r16917.zip?dl=1