CHDK auto-load on G15 with broken card-lock switch?

DieterVDW

« on: 18 / May / 2021, 18:03:00 »

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Backstory: a few years back, the card lock switch in my Canon G15 broke, making all cards write-protected ALWAYS, which is obviously very annoying.
I didn't know about CHDK yet, so I opened up the camera and removed the switch. The default position after knocking it off the board seems to be unlocked, so I was happy with that. However, in the process I damaged a ribbon connector and a few buttons don't work anymore, most notably the button to start recording video.

I managed to install CHDK somehow, and I even got it to auto-load. Great success! I managed to map another button to a LUA script to start recording video, and saved my trusty little G15.

However, because of reasons I recently had to switch SD cards, and I simply copied over all the contents.
But now I can't get CHDK to auto-load anymore!
The procedure to enable auto-load involves toggling the card write-protection, which doesn't work anymore on my camera.
I have no clue how I got CHDK to auto-load before!? The install procedure must have been different?

Anyway, is there a way to make the camera ignore the card-lock status, or enable CHDK auto-loading without needing to toggle the card-lock state?

Thank you very much!

« Last Edit: 18 / May / 2021, 18:04:47 by DieterVDW »

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reyalp

13353

Re: CHDK auto-load on G15 with broken card-lock switch?

« Reply #1 on: 18 / May / 2021, 20:16:41 »

Quote from: DieterVDW on 18 / May / 2021, 18:03:00

Anyway, is there a way to make the camera ignore the card-lock status, or enable CHDK auto-loading without needing to toggle the card-lock state?

No. The only way CHDK's diskboot.bin gets loaded at startup is if the original Canon firmware detects the card is locked along with the BOOTDISK flag and required filesystem characteristics.

I realize this seems to contradict what you've reported, but if there's a way to get the Canon firmware to load CHDK without locking the card or without other hardware/firmware modifications, no one has reported it here in the 11+ years I've been involved with the project.

For completeness: The romstarter uart loopback method may not require card lock, but does require hardware mods. You could load CHDK from a Canon basic script, but there's no known way to autostart those either. You could potentially modify the Canon ROM to bypass the lock switch check. Mirco SD cams don't have a card lock switch and check the battery door switch instead.

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DieterVDW

Re: CHDK auto-load on G15 with broken card-lock switch?

« Reply #2 on: 18 / May / 2021, 20:41:07 »

Edit: solved, see below. Leaving the original reply for context.

Well I'm a bit mystified now. I swear I had auto-load working on the other SD card, and I installed CHDK because I broke the buttons after ruining the switch.

I wonder if maybe I installed CHDK while the camera was open and I manually shorted the switch to get it installed...
But then the default state of the switch would need to be locked...

Very weird, I have no idea how it worked and the card lock switch circuit is definitely permanently fixed to the unlocked position.

I guess I could open up the camera and short the switch so it is permanently set to the locked position, which would enable CHSK auto-load of I understand it correctly...
I'm just not sure if I'm brave enough to do that again 🤐 . It was very delicate.

Or just do the firmware load trick every time I want to record a video...

Edit: after typing all if the above i started wondering if it was maybe the battery hatch sensor I permanently destroyed, and I actually fixed the card sensor.
And that's it! I just enabled the card lock and it works now! 🤦‍♂️

Slightly unrelated, while I have you here though:
I accidentally set the "record video" lua script to auto-trigger when I press the shortcut button, and now I can't get in the CHDK menu anymore to disable this because pressing the shortcut button immediately starts recording a video.
Is there an easy fix for this?

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reyalp

13353

Re: CHDK auto-load on G15 with broken card-lock switch?

« Reply #3 on: 19 / May / 2021, 00:37:46 »

Quote from: DieterVDW on 18 / May / 2021, 20:41:07

Edit: after typing all if the above i started wondering if it was maybe the battery hatch sensor I permanently destroyed, and I actually fixed the card sensor.
And that's it! I just enabled the card lock and it works now! 🤦‍♂️

Nice to have the mystery solved

Quote

I accidentally set the "record video" lua script to auto-trigger when I press the shortcut button, and now I can't get in the CHDK menu anymore to disable this because pressing the shortcut button immediately starts recording a video.
Is there an easy fix for this?

You should be able to interrupt the script by clicking the shutter button, and then enter the CHDK menu to change the autostart setting. Otherwise, if you remove the .CFG files from the CHDK directory, it will reset your settings to default.

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