DCLoad blue screen flash issue

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Silent Marauder
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DCLoad blue screen flash issue

Post by Silent Marauder »

So, I've just gone through the process of setting up my shiny new BBA. I'm trying to use DCLoad-IP to send a simple program to the Dreamcast. When I attempt the upload, the Dreamcast's screen flashes blue with a bunch of white hexcodes on it, then returns to the green idle screen. DCtool is still running, so I have to CTRL-C out of it. Running the exact same command again results in an upload and program execution. I'm not sure why it magically works on the second try, but I'm looking for a way to make it work on the first try. Back when I was using a serial cable, it worked on the first try.

I've seen other intermittent problems as well. Sometimes, the DC's screen will read "executing...", and it will hang on the first try, without the blue flash. I'm also not seeing my printf() output most of the time, but when I put printf() statements after every line in the main loop of my program to verify that it was working, I did get the output in Cygwin.

I'm also wondering why DCLoad-ip sets /pc to be the Cygwin root directory. I swear that when I was using the R1 DC Dev ISO and a coder's cable, back in the day, /pc was set to the working directory from which dc-tool was run.
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Re: DCLoad blue screen flash issue

Post by BlueCrab »

Silent Marauder wrote:So, I've just gone through the process of setting up my shiny new BBA. I'm trying to use DCLoad-IP to send a simple program to the Dreamcast. When I attempt the upload, the Dreamcast's screen flashes blue with a bunch of white hexcodes on it, then returns to the green idle screen. DCtool is still running, so I have to CTRL-C out of it. Running the exact same command again results in an upload and program execution. I'm not sure why it magically works on the second try, but I'm looking for a way to make it work on the first try. Back when I was using a serial cable, it worked on the first try.
Most likely, there was an error in uploading part of your program on the first try. Not sure why it would work on the second try, but it may be an issue with something on your network.
I've seen other intermittent problems as well. Sometimes, the DC's screen will read "executing...", and it will hang on the first try, without the blue flash. I'm also not seeing my printf() output most of the time, but when I put printf() statements after every line in the main loop of my program to verify that it was working, I did get the output in Cygwin.
There's been a long-standing issue that I've noticed (but never been able to track down) with printf(). I find that if you printf() right near the beginning of your main function the issue doesn't seem to crop up, and all later printf()s work fine. Whenever I go to try to track it down, it never seems to want to rear its head...
I'm also wondering why DCLoad-ip sets /pc to be the Cygwin root directory. I swear that when I was using the R1 DC Dev ISO and a coder's cable, back in the day, /pc was set to the working directory from which dc-tool was run.
The default behavior of dc-tool is to set /pc to /. On Cygwin, this usually happens to be C:\Cygwin. You may be able to use dc-tool's -c option to obtain the result you want (on *nix, you'd have to be root to use it, but on Windows you may not). I don't use Cygwin myself, so I really can't comment any further on issues related to it.
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Re: DCLoad blue screen flash issue

Post by Silent Marauder »

Thanks! I'll try the -c option and see if it works. It could be that my old makefile took care of this.

As far as my network goes, I have the Dreamcast hooked up to a router that's set to give it the same IP address each time it connects. My computer is attached to the same router, so it's on the same subnet. I've been using arp -s to associate the DC's IP with its MAC address before running DCTool, since I've read that DCLoad doesn't support DHCP. I set up the BBA to use DHCP using the XDP browser's setup function, configuring the data in the DC's "second ISP memory bank," as XDP calls it. (The first bank didn't seem to support BBA data, so I'm assuming I set it up correctly, since I can load pages via XDP.)

Have I missed something in my network setup? I've searched the forum to come up with the information I currently have, but a lot of the people with questions were using ICS rather than connecting through a router.

Thanks again for taking the time to help!
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Re: DCLoad blue screen flash issue

Post by SWAT »

Maybe I'm a little out of topic I write, but still.
I also connected DC through the router. Maybe this is the cause of all my troubles with the network :) KOS network stack does not work even if I prescribe the settings manually (in bba code) instead of flash ISP. DC hangs...
lwip stack works, although with some glitches...
dc-load works fine...
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Re: DCLoad blue screen flash issue

Post by BlueCrab »

Silent Marauder wrote:Thanks! I'll try the -c option and see if it works. It could be that my old makefile took care of this.

As far as my network goes, I have the Dreamcast hooked up to a router that's set to give it the same IP address each time it connects. My computer is attached to the same router, so it's on the same subnet. I've been using arp -s to associate the DC's IP with its MAC address before running DCTool, since I've read that DCLoad doesn't support DHCP. I set up the BBA to use DHCP using the XDP browser's setup function, configuring the data in the DC's "second ISP memory bank," as XDP calls it. (The first bank didn't seem to support BBA data, so I'm assuming I set it up correctly, since I can load pages via XDP.)

Have I missed something in my network setup? I've searched the forum to come up with the information I currently have, but a lot of the people with questions were using ICS rather than connecting through a router.

Thanks again for taking the time to help!
If you're assigning a static DHCP lease from the router, it may be better off to just use XDP to set up a static IP on the Dreamcast. Granted, unless you're using KOS' network stack in your program, it won't really make any difference anyway. I can't think of anything off the top of my head that you're missing.
SWAT wrote:Maybe I'm a little out of topic I write, but still.
I also connected DC through the router. Maybe this is the cause of all my troubles with the network :) KOS network stack does not work even if I prescribe the settings manually (in bba code) instead of flash ISP. DC hangs...
lwip stack works, although with some glitches...
dc-load works fine...
Your case still confuses me. Honestly, I don't have any clue what's wrong with your setup, as I've expressed previously. I'd lean toward guessing that your problem is unrelated to the one in this topic, since the user here isn't even using the KOS network stack (it seems it may possibly be a dcload issue in Silent Marauder's case).
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