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Unable to select anything in disc menu on G3 B&W

Open michael-mjd opened this issue 1 year ago • 11 comments

When I boot off of the disc I burned from the 0.04 release, I cannot use the keyboard to select anything in the boot menu. I am using an ADB keyboard as I read that a USB one won't work. I have the drives daisy chained together and plugged into the motherboard (to the port marked IDE and not Ultra ATA). I have the jumpers on both drives set to cable select, and have tried the CD drive as drive 0 and drive 1 and am experiencing the same result. The hard drive shows up in the menu, but the system appears to completely lock up once it gets to the menu - I can't even hold down the power button to force power off and have to unplug the power cable. Was wondering if anybody else is experiencing this.

michael-mjd avatar Jul 17 '24 17:07 michael-mjd

Have you tried booting into Open Firmware, exiting with "mac-boot", and then immediately holding C to boot to the CD? Had this issue on my rev B blue and white G3, seems to work most of the time but occasionally it will still just not accept any inputs.

It's possible there is some issue with ADB initialization causing this.

Goldfish64 avatar Jul 17 '24 18:07 Goldfish64

I really need to look into this. Until I figure this one out, known workarounds include:

  • booting manually from the open firmware prompt with boot cd:,\\:tbxi
  • plugging in a USB keyboard for holding down C key

Wack0 avatar Jul 17 '24 18:07 Wack0

When I boot off of the disc I burned from the 0.04 release, I cannot use the keyboard to select anything in the boot menu. I am using an ADB keyboard as I read that a USB one won't work. I have the drives daisy chained together and plugged into the motherboard (to the port marked IDE and not Ultra ATA). I have the jumpers on both drives set to cable select, and have tried the CD drive as drive 0 and drive 1 and am experiencing the same result. The hard drive shows up in the menu, but the system appears to completely lock up once it gets to the menu - I can't even hold down the power button to force power off and have to unplug the power cable. Was wondering if anybody else is experiencing this.

I am experiencing the same issue on my PowerBook G3 Lombard. Everything works fine in Mac OS, and can boot into Open Firmware and/or hold C at power on to get it to boot to the CD, but once it gets to the blue screen with the menu to begin the installation preparation, the entire computer locks up and does not respond to any input other and required removing both the battery and power to turn off. The lights on the keyboard for caps lock and num lock do respond however, so it is not entirely stuck, but it does not respond to holding the power button. I’ll try the suggestions and see if any of those help to get me further, thank you!

Outrun9430 avatar Jul 17 '24 18:07 Outrun9430

Here's a test build, does this help?

nt_arcfw_grackle_fwonly_test20240717_2133.zip

Wack0 avatar Jul 17 '24 20:07 Wack0

Here's a test build, does this help?

nt_arcfw_grackle_fwonly_test20240717_2133.zip

I tried this build and the same thing happened, but I was able to use a USB keyboard to boot from the CD and that solved it! Thanks for your help.

michael-mjd avatar Jul 17 '24 22:07 michael-mjd

Here's a test build, does this help? nt_arcfw_grackle_fwonly_test20240717_2133.zip

I tried this build and the same thing happened, but I was able to use a USB keyboard to boot from the CD and that solved it! Thanks for your help.

Unfortunately, the new build listed above did not work on my Lombard either.

booting manually from the open firmware prompt with boot cd:,\\:tbxi

I can, however, confirm this method worked!

Outrun9430 avatar Jul 17 '24 23:07 Outrun9430

Things are very.... touchy with regards to the keyboard on Lombard. I know with the initial 0.01 build, I had to release the "C" key once the CD started spinning up, otherwise the keyboard didn't work in the ARC loader.

NJRoadfan avatar Jul 18 '24 02:07 NJRoadfan

I had a sudden insight, this test build might fix the issue:

nt_arcfw_grackle_fwonly_test20240718_2222.zip

Wack0 avatar Jul 18 '24 21:07 Wack0

Testing the new 0.05 build, seems to be working much better. Haven't had any input issues when holding C normally with an ADB keyboard on a B&W G3.

Goldfish64 avatar Jul 20 '24 21:07 Goldfish64

I'm noticing inconsistent ADB lockups on my Trayloader with v0.05, the menu will often not respond to key presses, and when it does cooperate, the ADB seems to lock up at the NT4 installer.

It's not a full system lockup, as the counter is still counting down. If it does respond at the menu, sometimes inserting the NT4 disc and going to "Run a program" will also result in lesser to none responsive ADB, making it impossible to type in the setupldr path.

Booting off a v0.04 CD and going into the NT4 setup that way does not run into these issues. I'm suspecting some of the changes to ADB behavior in ARC FW in v0.05 has caused some regressions for (certain) CUDA systems.

TechandMusic462 avatar Jul 22 '24 14:07 TechandMusic462

hmm, so for some keyboards, the issue with sticky keys remains? is a valid workaround to press the last key that worked?

Wack0 avatar Jul 22 '24 16:07 Wack0