Solution to "Loading GUI String Table...FAILED"

[Thumps]

That is not the proper solution.

The real problem here is that there are 2 ways for a program to be launched from HDD, while myPS2 only supports one of them.

The one commonly used by homebrew uses the 'fakehost' IRX module, and this passes an argument to the launched program holding the launch path that for this case begins with "host:". When myPS2 sees this it will test for existence of the fakehost IRX in the system, and when that is found it will classify this launch as being on HDD. And ONLY then will the HDD-related variables in the CONFIG.DAT file be used.

The second method, used by Dev2, simply mounts the partition on pfs 0, and passes an argument holding the launch path that for this case begins with "pfs0:". This is not supported at all by myPS2, so it will ignore the HDD-related variables.

The proper solution would be to add a new test for the string "pfs0:", and when this is found to set the same flag as used for the other HDD boot method, so that the HDD-related variables will be used the same way too.

Unfortunately I think that all attempts to do this are doomed, however, because so far all my attempts to recompile myPS2 have broken part of its network support. (bye-bye Samba )

If someone can solve that problem, then the Dev2 fix is a piece of cake.

Best regards: dlanor

I have managed to recompile a new version of myPS2, I wanted to add the ps2link.irx. Although I had to build a seperate version of the ps2sdk to get myPS2 to compile properly it works and I've managed to add ps2link support and fix an error in the sort by name feature.

I'm not sure the problem with booting off hard drive, I've been doing it for awhile. I simply copied all myPS2 files to the hdd0:+MYPS2 partition and use the config settings of

hdd_boot_part = hdd0:+MYPS2
hdd_boot_path = /

that way I can load myPS2 from elflauncer and I don't have to keep anything except elflauncher on my mc.

if you need a special copy of myPS2 compiled let me know, I'll see what I can do.

Mike

[dlanor]

I have managed to recompile a new version of myPS2, I wanted to add the ps2link.irx. Although I had to build a seperate version of the ps2sdk to get myPS2 to compile properly it works and I've managed to add ps2link support and fix an error in the sort by name feature.

I think you've misunderstood my earlier problems. I too can recompile myPS2, and in most respects it works fine. It's just that the Samba networking is broken in these versions, giving no response whatever.

I'm not sure the problem with booting off hard drive, I've been doing it for awhile.

No. From your descriptions you have been launching it from HDD, after booting another program from MC. This is a Dev1 type of booting (or possibly exploit booting).

The problem I was posting about had to do with Dev2 type booting (modchip starts ELF directly from HDD). This is much trickier, as there are NO specifications for how it is to be done properly, and we can't rely on different chip manufacturers to have implementations that are even similar to each other (and we really need them to be identical).

I simply copied all myPS2 files to the hdd0:+MYPS2 partition and use the config settings of

hdd_boot_part = hdd0:+MYPS2
hdd_boot_path = /

That is an incorrect method which leads to other errors. When launched from HDD myPS2 will automatically want to mount two PFS partitions. One is 'its own' partition "+MYPS2", and the other is the partition named in "hdd_boot_part", and the original code does not check for the case where these two are identical.

So if they are identical, this will result in an attempt to mount the same partition twice, using two different mount points, and the second attempt will always fail. This is likely to mess up the mounting list, making correct access to additional partitions fail (at least that's the effects it had in my earlier tests). Naturally it should be possible to add new code to fix those problems, and maybe you've already done so. (?)

that way I can load myPS2 from elflauncer and I don't have to keep anything except elflauncher on my mc.

That's an excellent way of doing it, and similar to my own, but it doesn't address the problem of Dev2 booting at all.

To be honest, I don't see any real need for Dev2 booting, since any chip capable of it is also capable of Dev1 booting, and that has many other advantages too. (Allows simpler 'back to browser' implementation for other apps, such as SMS and PS2MP3.)

if you need a special copy of myPS2 compiled let me know, I'll see what I can do.

Well, if your recompiled myPS2 still has a fully functional Samba interface, then I'm definitely interested, as that's one thing I haven't been able to get here.

Best regards: dlanor

[Thumps]

I think you've misunderstood my earlier problems. I too can recompile myPS2, and in most respects it works fine. It's just that the Samba networking is broken in these versions, giving no response whatever.

Yes, the version I managed to compile does work with samba, The whole reason I wanted to play with myPS2 in the first place is for samba. I have 2 linux servers that offer several samba mounts. So all my mp3's, photos, personal work is only available to samba or NFS.

No. From your descriptions you have been launching it from HDD, after booting another program from MC. This is a Dev1 type of booting (or possibly exploit booting).

The problem I was posting about had to do with Dev2 type booting (modchip starts ELF directly from HDD). This is much trickier, as there are NO specifications for how it is to be done properly, and we can't rely on different chip manufacturers to have implementations that are even similar to each other (and we really need them to be identical).

Ahh ok, I wondered about that. I don't have a modified ps2 myself. I loaded the exploit onto my memory card using the AR network update method. I have the mod chips sitting on my desk but never installed them because all I wanted was the ability to really play with my ps2 from a developers point of view.

That is an incorrect method which leads to other errors. When launched from HDD myPS2 will automatically want to mount two PFS partitions. One is 'its own' partition "+MYPS2", and the other is the partition named in "hdd_boot_part", and the original code does not check for the case where these two are identical.

So if they are identical, this will result in an attempt to mount the same partition twice, using two different mount points, and the second attempt will always fail. This is likely to mess up the mounting list, making correct access to additional partitions fail (at least that's the effects it had in my earlier tests). Naturally it should be possible to add new code to fix those problems, and maybe you've already done so. (?)

Yeah I was wondering about that myself. It wouldn't be the first time I've taken the hard route to get something done . Although in my case it seems to work perfectly, I can access the other mount points using the pfs1..pfs2 and the myPS2 partition is mounted on pfs0 without any issues.

Considering I come from the Unix world. I'm used to multiple mount points and partitions and from the way I read the code the hdd_boot_part refers to the partition you're booting from and the hdd_boot_path refers to the path for that partition. Because the hdd0:/+MYPS2 gets mounted as pfs0: the path becomes root. Although the logic might be flawed for the ps2 world it appears to work properly. I have full support for hard drive partitions and no error messages appear.

That's an excellent way of doing it, and similar to my own, but it doesn't address the problem of Dev2 booting at all.

To be honest, I don't see any real need for Dev2 booting, since any chip capable of it is also capable of Dev1 booting, and that has many other advantages too. (Allows simpler 'back to browser' implementation for other apps, such as SMS and PS2MP3.)


Well, if your recompiled myPS2 still has a fully functional Samba interface, then I'm definitely interested, as that's one thing I haven't been able to get here.

Best regards: dlanor

Thank you, I just wanted to have it on my hard drive and not the memory card considering that I didn't use a packer while recompiling myPS2 the binary is over 3 megs and I would like to have game saves on my memory card not just myPS2. I can understand the need for Dev2 booting. It would be much nicer to boot directly then stick a CD in the ps2 or having to boot from the memory card. I have considered doing something similar for my kids ps2, I dont really want to allow them access to the elf launcer.

And yes I have support for Samba on my compiled version of myPS2, but it did require me to recompile the entire ps2sdk and supporting irx's. Although having been working with GCC for over 10 years on the unix side of the world, I'm no stranger to makefiles or build environments.


Take Care,
Mike

[Thumps]

That is an incorrect method which leads to other errors. When launched from HDD myPS2 will automatically want to mount two PFS partitions. One is 'its own' partition "+MYPS2", and the other is the partition named in "hdd_boot_part", and the original code does not check for the case where these two are identical.

So if they are identical, this will result in an attempt to mount the same partition twice, using two different mount points, and the second attempt will always fail. This is likely to mess up the mounting list, making correct access to additional partitions fail (at least that's the effects it had in my earlier tests). Naturally it should be possible to add new code to fix those problems, and maybe you've already done so. (?)

Actually after a little review. I found the source version available on svn does check if the two mount points are identical. During the start myps2 will check if it's being booted from it's own +MYPS2 partition and avoid mounting it a second time. in that case the elf path is set to pfs0: plus the boot_path.
In my example pfs0:/
That way when the config file is read it's read as the elf path plus "CONFIG.DAT". or pfs0:/CONFIG.DAT

.. ok getting back to booting directly from a mod chip..

From what i understand the issue is when setting the boot mode. Now most of this might be way off topic, if so I apologize. I am new to the ps2 development scene so bear with me.

It seems the boot method depends on the argv[0] or how the mod chip called the myPS2 application. It could be called as host:/ or hdd0:/ or possibly pfs0:/. The hdd0:/ and psf0:/ versions are not checked for by myPS2. so if we check for those boot methods we could set myPS2 to boot correctly. That wouldn't be hard to do at all.

the host:/ is what elf launcher seems to do and ps2link which leads to the check for the fakehost module to find out if myPS2 is getting booted by ps2link or a launcher. If the mod chip is loading myPS2 without the fakehost module we have a problem. Either we have to drop support for booting using ps2link or we have to find another way to figure out how myPS2 is getting booted.

That's just my newbie views on the myPS2 loading issue, but if we can get enough information on how the modchips load myPS2. Support could be added. The only issue is my version of myPS2 does support ps2link, although I'm adding it as a optional module similar to the ftp support. I want it so I can output debug messsages to my computer for any development. it would be available as a configure option of ps2link_enable though so that it could be turned off.

Mike

[E P]

Hum, this all sounds interesting. Especially now since I just finally got SMB to work. It works with Slax linux here. Windows XP Pro just couldn't cut it. Now if only I could tear myself away from Slax. Got my printer working with CUPS yesterday and now myPS2's SMB with Samba. Maybe I'll hit the lottery tomorrow. Linux a solution indeed.

Dlanor, I should now be able to help you to some capacity. All my tools are still on this XP machine so I'll have to shift Slax over to a different PC so I can continue to use this one for development.

Anyway I never did compile myPS2 but maybe now I should try to see if it's a packer issue as Thumps seems to believe.

[Thumps]

Hum, this all sounds interesting. Especially now since I just finally got SMB to work. It works with Slax linux here. Windows XP Pro just couldn't cut it. Now if only I could tear myself away from Slax. Got my printer working with CUPS yesterday and now myPS2's SMB with Samba. Maybe I'll hit the lottery tomorrow. Linux a solution indeed.

lol yeah, I have 4 Linux systems myself. I wouldn't network without them.

Dlanor, I should now be able to help you to some capacity. All my tools are still on this XP machine so I'll have to shift Slax over to a different PC so I can continue to use this one for development.

Anyway I never did compile myPS2 but maybe now I should try to see if it's a packer issue as Thumps seems to believe.

Actually thats not correct, I had trouble getting ps2-packer to compile, so I couldn't test it. However today I did manage to test it and a ps2-packed version of myPS2 works with samba. I believe its a loader problem based on how the modchip loads myPS2. The version I have compiled will test for being booted straight from HD and from pfs0:/ hopefully by today I'll be able to post my test version so someone else can either confirm or deny it for me.


Mike

[E P]

lol yeah, I have 4 Linux systems myself. I wouldn't network without them.

Well it wasn't as hard as I had earlier thought. In my networking computer science class, our team members were too afraid to deal with linux let alone Samba. I have done things with linux to some degree but only command based things like Oracle. Never really got to play around with it until now. I really wanted to get into linux the right way with Fedora but Slax does quite nicely. It's great to be able to take an OS with you with Slax on a stick.

Actually thats not correct, I had trouble getting ps2-packer to compile, so I couldn't test it. However today I did manage to test it and a ps2-packed version of myPS2 works with samba. I believe its a loader problem based on how the modchip loads myPS2. The version I have compiled will test for being booted straight from HD and from pfs0:/ hopefully by today I'll be able to post my test version so someone else can either confirm or deny it for me.

Dlanor and I use the precompiled binaries of ps2packer from here. Although now that I have thought about it maybe our older ps2dev environment may be a factor. I don't know but I guess the only way to find out is to compile it myself. I didn't really care before since SMB didn't work but now that I got it working with Slax everything has changed.

[flamingo24]

there is another issue switching skins while running myps2 from the hdd, when I try and switch a skin running from my ps2 hard drive it drops to a bsod; if you can get myps2 to boot directly from dev2 this issue will need to be remedied.

lol yeah, I have 4 Linux systems myself. I wouldn't network without them.

I took a course in cisco systems and the actual use of samba is really not difficult weather it's through linux or windows (I have managed to use the myps2 samba without the imhost simply by changing the samba.xml from computer name to ip address after making some adjustments to my router settings) my in house systems are networked with windows since I play alot pc games

Hum, this all sounds interesting. Especially now since I just finally got SMB to work. It works with Slax linux here. Windows XP Pro just couldn't cut it. Now if only I could tear myself away from Slax. Got my printer working with CUPS yesterday and now myPS2's SMB with Samba. Maybe I'll hit the lottery tomorrow. Linux a solution indeed.

awesome

[dlanor]

----- snip ----- re: problems with recompiled myPS2 binaries

Yes, the version I managed to compile does work with samba,

Good. Then I'm very interested in seeing your sources.
But perhaps it would be best (before diving into those sources) for me to test one of your recompiled binaries, to ensure that it does work properly in my PC LAN as well as in yours.

The whole reason I wanted to play with myPS2 in the first place is for samba.

It's the same for me, though I do take every PS2 homebrew I find for a spin or two. But the Samba implementation is something I'd like to port into uLaunchELF as well, which is the main reason I've invested quite some time in experiments with myPS2.

I have 2 linux servers that offer several samba mounts. So all my mp3's, photos, personal work is only available to samba or NFS.

I don't run linux myself, but I did get the original myPS2 Samba implementation to talk to my Windows PCs without problems (one WinXPpro and one Win2K).


----- snip ----- re: modchip boot methods for MC (Dev1) and HDD (Dev2)

Ahh ok, I wondered about that. I don't have a modified ps2 myself. I loaded the exploit onto my memory card using the AR network update method. I have the mod chips sitting on my desk but never installed them because all I wanted was the ability to really play with my ps2 from a developers point of view.

As long as you have an HDD and networking, there's little real need for CD-R/DVD-R access, which is the main contribution of a modchip. The only things you'd really need it for are a few emulators that need ROM data files on CD, and a few games that don't work from HDL (so not really dev-related).


----- snip ----- re: problems I had using +MYPS2 partition for booting myPS2

Yeah I was wondering about that myself. It wouldn't be the first time I've taken the hard route to get something done . Although in my case it seems to work perfectly, I can access the other mount points using the pfs1..pfs2 and the myPS2 partition is mounted on pfs0 without any issues.

I see, and I also noted your later post where you verified having found code that checks this identity correctly. That's very good, of course, though I must add that it didn't work for me, but that was quite a while ago, so possibly the code has been changed since then. Once I got it working with two separate partitions, I stopped experimenting with just a single one.


----- snip ----- re: booting other launcher on MC to start myPS2 from HDD

I just wanted to have it on my hard drive and not the memory card considering that I didn't use a packer while recompiling myPS2 the binary is over 3 megs and I would like to have game saves on my memory card not just myPS2.

I know, and in the case of myPS2 even packing is no big help, as it requires a whole folder tree besides the binary, and packing that stuff is out of the question as the program needs it unpacked. I never even considered putting this stuff on my own MC (even though it's a 32MB type), so I never used it from any other media than HDD.

I can understand the need for Dev2 booting. It would be much nicer to boot directly then stick a CD in the ps2 or having to boot from the memory card.

Actually a boot from HDD will often be much slower than a boot from MC, even though HDD is the faster medium. This is because an HDD boot requires loading drivers and scanning the partitions, and if you have a lot of games installed (like most people do ) the latter will take a lot of time. So for these cases an MC boot will be much faster.

I have considered doing something similar for my kids ps2, I dont really want to allow them access to the elf launcer.

I'm not sure if you've followed recent discussions in the uLaunchELF forum, but some of the latest changes allow you to program all menu buttons of uLE, so that you can remove access to both FileBrowser and configuration menu from the main menu. This leaves the kids only with those launch key buttons that you have chosen for them (using it as mc1 in your own PS2 to set it up of course).

Doing this will require modifying the CNF file in a text editor, but that should be no problem for you.

And yes I have support for Samba on my compiled version of myPS2, but it did require me to recompile the entire ps2sdk and supporting irx's.

That is to be expected. We do the same kind of stuff for uLaunchELF too, since we have no way to update the SVN with some needed changes.

Although having been working with GCC for over 10 years on the unix side of the world, I'm no stranger to makefiles or build environments.

I haven't done much work on unix systems myself, but I've been around long enough to have a decent grip on most of this stuff too. So it should be enough for me if you explain any changes you made to the setup as supplied by ntba2.

Also, as I mentioned above, a good starting point for me is to simply test one of your recompiled binaries. Just to ensure that its Samba routines can talk to the PCs on my LAN, since that's what failed to work with those I recompiled.

Best regards: dlanor

[dlanor]

From what i understand the issue is when setting the boot mode. Now most of this might be way off topic, if so I apologize. I am new to the ps2 development scene so bear with me.

Don't worry. You seem to understand this well enough already.

It seems the boot method depends on the argv[0] or how the mod chip called the myPS2 application. It could be called as host:/ or hdd0:/ or possibly pfs0:/. The hdd0:/ and psf0:/ versions are not checked for by myPS2. so if we check for those boot methods we could set myPS2 to boot correctly.

Yes, that's the basic idea.

That wouldn't be hard to do at all.

I'm not so sure. At this point the IOP state is unknown, set up somehow by the modchip, with details unknown to us, and therefore not to be relied on (as chip manufacturers may differ).

I made some experiments with uLE, trying to load CNF from HDD at this stage, but ran into some odd problems. This often happens when trying to load drivers before a necessary IOP reset (specified in the loaded uLE CNF), as the PS2SDK drivers are mostly allergic to being loaded twice by the same EE application...

I'm not sure how this would affect myPS2 initialization, but we can't rule out similar problems until it has been tested thoroughly.

the host:/ is what elf launcher seems to do and ps2link which leads to the check for the fakehost module to find out if myPS2 is getting booted by ps2link or a launcher. If the mod chip is loading myPS2 without the fakehost module we have a problem. Either we have to drop support for booting using ps2link or we have to find another way to figure out how myPS2 is getting booted.

I disagree. It should still be possible to recognize all possible boot methods, as long as they all use argv[0] for the launch path. For the case of a DMS4pro chip (which I have), the Dev2 boot method is testable as:
"booted_Dev2 = !strcmp(argv[0], "hdd0:__boot/boot.elf");"

NB: I may have missed a slash separator there, as I can't check the debug info right now.

That's just my newbie views on the myPS2 loading issue, but if we can get enough information on how the modchips load myPS2. Support could be added.

Indeed. It may be tricky (remains to be seen), but it can be done.

The only issue is my version of myPS2 does support ps2link,

But that's really an unrelated issue. I don't see how this affects recognition of boot methods.

although I'm adding it as a optional module similar to the ftp support. I want it so I can output debug messsages to my computer for any development. it would be available as a configure option of ps2link_enable though so that it could be turned off.

Sure. I see no major problems with that.

Best regards: dlanor