Possible SD card issue

Possible SD card issue;

I just got a saber back that I had updated to OS6.7 with Fett263 edit mode by an installer, so I have no experience using Arduino. I‘ve added a bunch more fonts using copy/paste in the presets.ini folder, and everything seemed to be working fine and I just noticed that on particular sound fonts there is a crackle or click/distortion on some of the swing sounds, and in edit mode with some of the voice prompts. I don’t think this is a speaker issue as I had the speaker updated to a smugglers outpost elite, and it seems to be only on certain fonts. I’ve also noticed when the battery gets low it starts to say “font directory not found” when switching presets. The crackle is happening with a full charge, but again only on certain fonts.

Should I replace the SD card? How would I reformat the SD card if need be?

I also posted on TheRebelArmory to cover bases.

I moved this to a new topic for you instead of tacking your problems onto an existing thread.

There are a number of things you can do, and it’s hard to say which ones will help.

There is some advice on the second half of this page that might help:

Here’s what I would do first:

  • make a copy of all the files on your SD card.
  • make a copy of the copy
  • delete any fonts or files that you don’t need on the sd card.
  • make sure that font directories have short (8.3) names.
  • make sure all fonts use sub-folders for any group of WAVs that have more than one file.
  • format the SD card using the SD association formatter
  • put the files back
  • check if it works better

If it doesn’t work better, you can try checking the performance of your SD card using the sdtest command. Not that sdtest won’t work if you have DISABLE_DIAGNOSTIC_COMMANDS in your config file.

If the sdtest result is bad, you’ll probably need to get a new SD card.

I’m tempted to go write you a different reply over there, just to cover all bases… :slight_smile:

Thank you, I’ll definitely start with all that. How will I do the sdtest? Do I need Arduino? Where would I go to do that. And 8 characters or less for all folder names?

sdtest is run from the serial monitor.
And yes, you need Arduino for that.

The 8 characters or less makes it slightly faster to find files and folders in that particular directory.
Generally, filenames in one folder won’t affect how long it takes to find files in another folder though. But aren’t all the folders on your SD card fonts anyways?

Yes they’re all fonts minus my config folder and the gestures and preset files. Is running the sd test pretty self explanatory once I get into Arduino? Also I have blade styles that were from both the OS5.9 style library and the OS6 library does that cause any conflict?

Would the SD card also be the explanation for saying font directory not found when the battery is low?

Depends on your level of expertise.
It’s not hard, you just open up the serial monitor and type in “sdtest” and press enter.
That will test your current font, so you can go to the next font and do it again to test another font.

no

Probably. That’s not expected.

Ok great thank you for all the help; I’ll start with these tips and go from there.

Sorry to be redundant, just want to confirm even the font names should be shortened to 8 characters, and obviously changed in the presets.ini, and do you have a SD card recommendation for a replacement?

SD recommendations is a bit tricky.
ShtokD’s manual has some recommendations though: ProffieBoard_v2_User_Manual_07.pdf - Google Drive
I usually go with sandisk ultra or sandisk industrial myself.

I ordered some new SD cards and I think I’m going to start from scratch. Is there a default sd formatter on Mac? If not can I format on a pc the just add the files on my Mac? And do you have a recommendation for allocation unit size? the file system should be FAT32?

FAT32 is correct. The basic Disk Utility on my Mac does a good job for reformatting.

The SD Association formatter is available for Mac.

Higher allocation units make for slightly higher access speed, but wastes some space. Most SD cards have plenty of space, so I say go for the higher access unit size. :slight_smile:

Awesome thank you all!

Where are you seeing an ability to adjust the allocation unit size?
My MacOS 10.14.6 Disk Utility doesn’t do that.
Neither does SDFormatter.app. (Which is recommended over system formatting utilities)
?

I’ve only seen it as an option on the default Windows SD formatter on a PC, I wasn’t sure if I needed to format on a PC to adjust that option, as it isn’t on Mac. I’m just trying to sponge everything I’ve been able to find for the SD/config setup and trying to determine what is the best information to utilize, I’m still on the learning / just barely proffie literate side lol.

@profezzorn I loaded up a new SD card today to try to remedy this problem; prior to that made sure it was formatted to FAT32, made sure all file names were correct character lengths and in sub folders, and got rid of unneeded folders.

This initially seemed to help get rid of crackling on the fonts I noticed it on previously, but as I cycled the fonts to check, I’ve noticed it on fonts that didn’t have issues before and some of the same ones, and now the ignitions sometimes seem delayed or “stepped” like the LEDs light in quick section jumps and not always smooth, and during accent swings or blasters or playing force.wav the blade will freeze animations and the sound will be gargled and totally off or static. Sometimes it goes back but most of the time I have to remove the battery.

A lot of the presets in the presets.ini I copied and pasted to add new fonts and made necessary changes in edit mode. Can too many presets that aren’t “built in” slow the board?

I have tracks in a track folder for each font; do they need to all be in a tracks folder on in the common folder? I saw somewhere that perhaps OS6 prefers that?

Could this still be a SD issue? I replaced a Sandisk Ultra 16gb with a Kingston 32gb 100mb/s.

Thanks for any help

How many fonts do you have on this SD card?

No. But for every 16 fonts you add, ProffieOS has to do a little more to read the files. If you have lots of fonts, opening files eventually gets pretty slow. Note that the first 16 fonts are still going to be fast, regardless of how many fonts you add. This might be why some fonts worked fine before and don’t work so well now.

It shouldn’t affect the speed at all. The FET263 track player may care about where you tracks are in order to find them, but other than that it shouldn’t matter.

SD card issues are common, so yes, but this sounds more like you might just be hitting the limits of how many fonts you can have before it starts becoming unusuable.

You can test all of these things with the “sdtest” command. Have you tried that?

There’s about 46 which I know is ALOT. This first 29 are actual “built on” on the config, and the first one I noticed having issues is an actual built in that is in the first 16 fonts.

Should I just flash the board myself and put only 8 or so blade styles and use presets.ini and edit mode for additional?

I haven’t done the SD test I’m building up the courage to do Arduino and not possibly ruin my saber by flashing it myself lol

“first 16” in this context means the order the directory entries are listed on the SD card, not the order they are listed in the config.

It’s kind of hard to find out actually since almost every program that lists files and directories sorts them first. However dir / in the serial monitor will show them in the order they actually appear on the SD card.

I don’t think that will make any difference.

Try sdtest.
Flashing sabers is a bit scary, but:

  1. there should be no way to ruin your saber in such a way that it can’t be fixed. (Unless you cause a short or something.)
  2. you can backup your existing programming before you do it. Here is how: