very little progress to report

Wow, so many things to get through to get E2 working...

First, upgrading the bootloader. I held down the channel up button while turning on the receiver, and it booted as normal. So I tried pulling the plug to do a hard boot rather than coming out of standby, and that worked. They could've documented that.

Second, loading E2. Also had to do a hard boot while holding the channel down button. I got a screen with a logo, and a lot of flickering lines like the video memory was corrupted. Then, it went blank. Letting it sit for a while, it occasionally flashed a picture, but only for an instant. The instructions were of NO help at all, because they apply to a model with a front panel display, which the Gekko doesn't have! But eventually I had the thought that, if you have to select your output port as the instructions indicate, it might be defaulting to another port. So I hooked up the composite port, to find a blank screen there too. But eventually an image popped up, asking if this mode was OK. (Apparently, the first-boot wizard cycles through modes automatically if it doesn't get any input within a certain amount of time.) So I selected yes, and I was in business.

I really wanted to configure it for HDMI, so that I could get an HD picture, but nothing I tried worked. No matter what resolution I selected, the HDMI output had the previously-mentioned flickering lines and dots, and worse, it kept disappearing altogether. I think the video driver in this release of E2 is bad! So reluctantly, I went back to the composite output.

A few words about the composite output. It's in PAL, and there's no way to change it. There's no option for composite at all, in fact. There's one for component, and one for SCART, neither of which this receiver has. (In other words, this version of E2 apparently hasn't been customized for this receiver at all.) The settings on the SCART menu appear to affect the composite output, but it's still locked in PAL, there are no other options if you try to change the resolution or frequency.

Nevertheless, I thought I'd at least try a scan. There aren't any North American satellites in the default list, but I tried a few of the Atlantic ones that I know I can see. It took quite a few tries to find the motor settings in the menu, but even afterward, I can't seem to scan. It just immediately brings up a screen saying "scan done! 0 services found!" So, I'm not sure whether it even has a blind scan at all, or whether it's trying a transponder scan -- but even if it's doing that, it's not finding anything for some reason, unless the transponder list is wrong. (There doesn't even appear to be an option to edit the transponder list anywhere, but maybe that's just my lack of familiarity with E2.) On top of that, I'm not even sure if it's moving the motor. (It's dark, so I can't just look out the window.) Sometimes it brings up an icon of a swiveling dish, which never goes away, other times it just goes straight to the scan done screen.

I think I'm going to have to dive in to the satellite list, which I've heard is stored somewhere in the filesystem as a plain text file (well actually an XML file, but that's plain text), and see if I can put one together with known good satellites and known good transponders, before I can draw any absolute conclusions about whether it is or isn't really scanning.

But the HDMI video problem is a showstopper anyway. I don't know what's going on there, but it's got to be fixed.

Jim S. As you may already know Enigma 2 OS was developed specifically for Dreambox. Dreambox was the first box capable to offer C/S.
Most people especially in Europe are used to the E2 Menu and its features so they do prefer this over any other OS.
For the time being E2 wont work properly in the US since it lacks most of the features needed. However you can run E2 if you want just for experimental purposes ONLY.
Improvements and fixes will be made to the official Fortis OS in order to resolve the problems you are facing. Expect a new FW soon......

I was assuming that it would be a supported version of E2, since ViP3R said that it would in this post: [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]

It is a supported version, but not designed for US. The E2 projects are carried by interdependent teams and not the vendors.

Does anyone have a link for a support site for this version of E2? A PM will be fine if it's on a board that violates forum rules. For the record, my interest in E2 isn't in cardsharing, it's in advanced features such as web control and live streaming.

I uploaded a Western Hemisphere satellite list tonight (generated from [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]) and I can't even scan existing transponders. I get a continuously-flashing moving-dish icon (even after the dish has moved to the proper position, as verified visually) and the scan screen stays on "scan in progress - 0% done! 0 services found!"

Am I missing something, or is this release completely non-functional?

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jim S. [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]

I uploaded a Western Hemisphere satellite list tonight (generated from [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]) and I can't even scan existing transponders. I get a continuously-flashing moving-dish icon (even after the dish has moved to the proper position, as verified visually) and the scan screen stays on "scan in progress - 0% done! 0 services found!"

Am I missing something, or is this release completely non-functional?

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The release is completely non-functional if it is not setup correctly.
I think you missed part of the setup to begin with because you could not see the screen and you do not have a display on the receiver.
You need Dreambox 101 or some other instruction manual for Enigma 2 that explains everything in detail. Unfortunately, I do not have such a manual.
Either get on the internet and search for every piece of information you can find on E2 or wait until something comes along that is easier for you to operate. IMO, there is no need to mess with an operating system if you cannot get the basics to work. EB

I've tried reformatting the USB stick and reinstalling the files, and I can't even get the Gekko to boot into E2 anymore. No matter how long I hold down the channel-down button, either it boots into the Optibox firmware, boots into the Optibox firmware but without a display (I verified that it was the Optibox firmware and not E2 by logging in via telnet and checking the directory structure, among other things), or hangs with a green light but no display and no network access.

Totally clueless what's going on here. I've verified that the stick is bootable (or at least Windows claims it is), so I would expect that I could at least get into E2 with a defective video output like the first time, but I can't. I guess my next move is going to be checking whether I can re-flash the new boot loader.

The video is not defective. The default boot for E2 is PAL.

What kind of usb stick are you using? How much storage space is on it? How many files do you currently have on this usb stick?
What Optibox Gekko file are you trying to flash and where did you download it?

I have a Kingston DataTraveler G3 4GB stick, the only files are the uImage and root files from the E2 file I downloaded here. I tried re-flashing the boot loader 6.46 file, also downloaded from here, but no change.

I never had any problems with displaying PAL video from any device before, and when I had E2 working (or at least booting) the first time, I had no problem with the composite output, once I got it to use the composite output instead of HDMI. But the problem with the HDMI output really didn't look like a format problem. It had flashing lines down one side of the screen, like the video memory was being overwritten with garbage.

OK.
Let's see if we can get the Optibox part working again.

Unplug the Gekko and remove the Kingston usb. Then plug the Gekko back up and see if it powers up in Optibox.

After the Gekko has rebooted and is running Optibox software, upload the file that is attached here, unzip it and put it on a known good fat32 usb stick By Itself. Do not have any other files on the stick besides this one.
Insert the usb stick into the receiver, wait 15 seconds then push the red remote button. Hopefully Optibox video will be restored within 5 minutes. EB

I don't have any problem getting back into the Optibox firmware with full functionality, as long as the USB stick is unplugged. Sometimes I have to reboot once after a failed attempt at loading E2, but then I get the Optibox firmware back. The problem was that I couldn't get E2 to even attempt to load anymore for some reason. The problem I mentioned about it booting into the Optibox firmware but without any video was only if I was trying to boot E2.

IMO, the best thing to do is wait until more information is available for E2.
New Optibox firmware for the Gekko should be available soon. Fortis has already upgraded other receivers that are similar to the Gekko, but it is unknown if these updates will make the blind scan faster.

I got E2 booting again. I had tried formatting the USB stick on my computer and then copying the files from the archive to it to start fresh, with the results as in my previous message. But then, running the Optibox firmware, I noticed that it didn't recognize the USB stick at all! I don't know why, because I'm sure I formatted it to FAT32 on the computer. But I formatted it to FAT32 with the Optibox instead, and it obviously recognized it then. So I tried E2 again, no go. I realized that the Optibox probably hadn't formatted it as bootable. I couldn't find any way in Windows 7 to format it as bootable either, so I resorted to using a Linux utility to set the boot flag. Then it worked! I have E2 back up and running, at least as far as I did before. It can still only use the composite output, and can't change it from PAL, because I still get no output whatsoever from the HDMI no matter what resolution I change it to. (Which is strange, because when it boots up I get the Team Ducktales Enigma2 splash screen via the HDMI output, albeit with the video noise I wrote about before.)

I ran the setup wizard this time, and then uploaded a North American satellite file. I got it to do a transponder scan of 97W Ku. (There doesn't appear to be any way to do a blind scan.) Then I tried a scan of 125W Ku, and despite being sure I had set up everything correctly, for some reason it scanned 99W instead! I haven't had time to figure out what's wrong there. Next time, I think I'm going to try uploading a satellite file with only Ku-band satellites. When I generated the file via the website I posted earlier, I had it generate it with C and Ku, but I think that's confusing the box, having two satellites at the same position, because even though the selection dialog only lists the satellites as C-band, the scan dialog says Ku-band.