Laura nailed it - the new computer was not ready when it went it.  I had tried installing it and failed a week before the old computer locked up.  I spent 6 hours a day at Acme on Sat/Sun after the old computer locked up making the new computer work well enough that people could play, and it took another few trips to fix up the minor display glitches - that's how far from ready I really was at the time I had to throw it in.  If it was still at home, I'd have been able to continue putting in a few minutes here and there toward patching up minor problems - now any work I do directly on the computer requires taking the whole machine offline for a while, so minor problems require having enough time (I only have so much time) to get to Acme when the arcade isn't busy (so that I don't take the machine down while people are waiting to play).  The most significant remaining problem is USB, which I am working on from home - it happens to be the single remaining problem I can work on from home, since it requires OITG code changes, rather than system configuration changes.

There are a few reasons for the new computer staying:

First, the old computer locked itself up - I'm not sure how or why, but it changed its own settings and enabled some features that it doesn't actually support, causing it to crash when loading OITG.  I can change it back, but without knowing how it got into such a state, I can't keep it from happening again.  This is a tradeoff between some minor issues on an otherwise playable setup (the new computer) and a fully functional setup that may spontaneously kill itself (the old computer) - even though the fix is simple, it means the machine becomes completely unplayable until I can make my way to Acme, which could end up being a few days.

Second, the crashes happen about as often as they did before.  It's only a few Jayce charts (specifically, those with a lot of animated elements onscreen) and I've talked to another OITG admin who says he has the same issue (original CPU/GPU, new hard drive, new OS, OITG b1 and b2 have different Jayce charts crash).  Throw in too many animations and the game is unstable, plain and simple - I finally copied the crash logs off the machine and will investigate after USB is fixed, but these crashes aren't machine specific, they're a bug in OITG, possibly (and inexplicably) tied to the input drivers, since no Jayce chart ever crashed the machine when I was testing the new computer at home with a keyboard, whereas they crash pretty reliably now that the computer is installed in the machine.

Third, the old computer can barely run the game at this point.  The menus were laggy, coins were being eaten during load screens, etc.  If a song used a background video which was the same resolution as the monitor (640x480) - which is a pretty common video resolution - the arrows would stutter because the game couldn't maintain a proper framerate (this can be rememdied by resizing or removing videos, but that means more overhead before adding content, since someone has to go through and fix everything rather than being able to know it'll run fine ahead of time).  Furthermore, OITG will only grow more feature-rich with time (even though the OITG project is somewhat abandoned at the moment - no code changes since April, IIRC - I've been talking to one of the Thursday regulars about features to add, so we may be taking over the OITG project), meaning it will push the same hardware harder.

Fourth, continuing from above - the new computer runs smoothly.  I played in Utah and Vegas over the last month, on machines with the default hardware, and the wait times for everything are noticeably longer.  Having the input system run with 5 times the precision is nice too.

The issues at hand are all software issues.  USB is an OS issue, rather than OITG- the old computer runs a very old version of the Linux kernel and the ITG USB logic depended on the kernel not having certain features which were already common at the time.  Everything else is an OITG bug and has nothing to do with the new computer.

That all said, I fixed the autoconf issues I was running into, and can now try to compile the code.  There's a new problem that makes the build fail, but it's still progress toward fixing the USB problems.

You could always play at Narrows; I believe the USB works fine there.

Had to head to work before the build finished, so I don't know for sure that it actually worked, but I resolved the issues that were causing it to immediately fail.  At that point, it should only fail because of issues with the code, and, in theory, there shouldn't be any since I'm using the beta 2 snapshot.

Will check the results when I get home tonight, will probably forget to post an update until tomorrow.

Actually Narrows and other machines (such as Tom's) can often wipe one's USB data, plus its further away than Acme and while the USBs (partly) work, it's an upgrade cab and the pads are shit compared to Acme.

I know it seems a dumb status thing to try to keep up but I dunno it helps keep me motivated to keep playing and getting better. Anyway I appreciate all your work on this! Do let me know if there's anything I can do to help.

Not actually, no. That never happens. lol

Hello, I curious about the usb problem, so I installed Ubuntu and openitg on my laptop.  It does seem like usb does work with the latest Ubuntu and openitg release.  Might be an ok temporary fix, but I'm not sure if there is a significant difference between an arcade build and a home build. 

Made a summary list below, so I don't bore anyone didn't put details in, but can write a detailed post on any of the steps on request.

Summarized steps I took:
1. Installed latest Ubuntu release.
2. Used http://openitg.gr-p.com/full-linux/OpenITG%20beta%202%20linux.zip
3. Confirmed that Openitg beta 2 worked. 
4. Turned off automount, configured /etc/fstab
5. added to /Data/static.ini
      MemoryCardOsMountPointP1=X:/  (where X:/ is mount point configured in fstab)
      MemoryCards=1

The problem with this solution is that /dev/sdb1 will get assigned to the first usb put into a usb slot.  So, doing this might mean you need to place a usb in player1 to get player 2 usb to show up correctly.  (this solution doesn't know difference between usb slot 1 and 2, so cards need to be placed in order)

I read about a different method to add usb support, I didn't try that, but I assume that is the more permanent solution that isn't working now.

Hope you found the post to be helpful for a temporary solution,
--Isra

I had USB partially working (one card, in any USB port, went to player 1, but a second card was ignored) following directions like that a few weeks before installing the new computer, but it had stopped working at all when I tried getting player 2 to work.

It might vary by Ubuntu release (my desktop and the machine run 10.04, 64-bit) or I might have messed something up on the Acme computer specifically, but the Acme computer assigns the same device file to both a USB drive's controller and the USB drive's single partition.  Instead of mounting the device at /dev/sdc, with the filesystem at /dev/sdc1, both mount as /dev/sdc*.  Whatever the cause, this is a nonstandard setup, so OITG doesn't understand it - it's assumes that the system will give it a numbered device for the filesystem and has a hardcoded fallback that uses partition 1.

*We're running a small SSD for fast booting and larger drive for storing song packs, so memory cards mount as sdc and sdd

The good news is that I've worked out most of the build issues.  The bad news is that OITG can't be build in a 64-bit environment (it's a known issue, but I had hoped it would be trivial to resolve).  I'm most of the way through setting up a 32-bit virtual machine on my desktop, which is hopefully (...) the last hurdle in getting my patched version to build.

I used Ubuntu 11.04 with kernel 2.6.38-8-generic #42-Ubuntu

I did get get a strange error message in the openitg startup, but both usb seemed to work fine.

I put unique songs on each usb and made sure they appeared and played in the playlist.  Due to an invalid signature file, I couldn't verify if the scores updated correctly though.

Openitg Error message:
00:49.564: Starting thread: WorkerThread (ThreadedMemoryCardWorker)^M
00:49.580: Change in USB storage devices detected.^M
00:49.580: GetNewStorageDevices^M
00:49.584: Couldn't access partition 1, using /dev/sr0.^M
00:49.584: Access to /sys/block/sdb/sdb1 okay. Using /dev/sdb1.^M
00:49.585: Access to /sys/block/sdc/sdc1 okay. Using /dev/sdc1.^M

(thought i posted before, hopefully this isn't a repost)

Maybe it was due to the ITG3 theme back a while ago, but yes I had his machine wipe my USB card and I had to use my backup data. I also had Narrows wipe my card once. I'm not trying to rip on his machine, I was just stating that using your USB in a variety of different machines under different themes or whatever can sometimes cause problems.

Honestly, I think Acme's machine might be the one that doesn't play nice with others. Even before I owned my machine, I remember visiting the west side and playing at Acme. After that trip I had to retrieve a backup copy of my USB data 'cause it wouldn't play on any other machine I went to.

Probably the case, though hopefully the new computer fixes this.

Probably was the old theme. I've never had it happen to me on Tom's machine. The machine is not only the factor though. It seems a lot of newer USB's are either not compatible/unstable with oITG in general.

If newer drives are specifically having issues, drivers could be implicated - USB drives use standardized drivers, so this shouldn't be the case, but if newer drives had a few slight driver tweaks and OITG (or a specific theme) were doing things that weren't quite right, that would cause some problems.

I can always set the Acme machine to use an alternate ITG folder (and fall back on the ITG2 folder if it's there).  I don't believe this would be an issue for the purpose of Groovestats, but I'd need to do some testing.  Obviously, this can't happen until after USB is working in the first place.

I'll be going in to ACME tomorrow, i don't know for sure which time, but I'll be sneaky since it'll be mainly my tournament guns that ill be playing hope to see any of you there, if so we can together practice our strong points, and also areas of improvement also, and exchange tips/questions. Kind of like a mini itg clinic, maybe I take this too seriously, but it's so fun. 

Amen brother

A haiku for these dark times:

USB still down
It's been over two months my friends
Get this shit fixed please....


No seriously, other places have working machines and we're the technology capital of the world. I know it's a difficult fix but at this point install a different OS or something and try something else... Or give me the old computer and I'll find and fix the hardware problem and you can put it back in Or how about we just switch it out for the Narrows machine's computer and make appropriate theme/song additions? Sorry to constantly nag about it but I really thought this would be fixed long long ago...

Ok, Allan, I have watched as you have made many of these posts.  You know that offline you are my friend and I think that you are a cool guy, so no offense meant, but I gotta call this one as I see it:

Tony has done a lot of work for us, despite having a full time job.  Nagging him won't make USB come back faster, it will just make him angry, especially since we have been spending a LOT of our time working on tournament prep for you guys. 

I have played ITG in three other states in the past month and a half, including Sandy Nickelcade, which has a very active and technologically oriented community, and Gemini Arcade Palace, which is Gemini Arcade Palace, and we have the best machine software-wise, hands down.  Perhaps this is selfish, because I don't WANT the Narrows machine, or the old, laggy-as-balls-with-no-more-room-for-customs machine; I want the kick ass, loads-in-an-instant pile of awesome that we have right now.  I can attest to the fact that Tony is working really hard on fixing USB, while also balancing his full-time job, helping me get ready to run a tournament next week, and his personal life. 

If the fact that we have an amazing machine thanks to Tony, who is writing new code in his spare time just to get the damn USB ports working in the first place, isn't good enough for you, we can absolutely put it up to a vote: does Tony continue the project, or do we turn it over to Gerrak?  But honestly, I am pretty sure the result of that vote would not be favorable to you, so could you please chill?

I'll reiterate that the old computer died because of a configuration problem - OITG's settings were changed to ones that will crash on boot.  The machine was password protected, so I doubt anyone got into it and played with the settings (plus, the settings that changed make no sense - somebody trying to hack in would really only care about getting free credits, and that wasn't changed).  At this point, I can't begin to explain what caused the computer to do what it did, meaning restoring it to the machine would be akin to putting a time bomb back in there, because it will presumably happen again.

As for redoing the new computer with a different Linux distro - that's a completely valid option.  Unfortunately, every distro has subtleties because they come with different programs to accomplish the various things that an OS needs to do.  Ubuntu, with which I was already somewhat familiar, still took me a few reformats and a few months of working in my spare time to get into a sufficiently stable and stripped down state for use in the machine.  Even if USB were to take another 2 months to fix, that's still going to be faster than grabbing a different distro and trying to figure out all the lower level subtleties.  That all said, the USB fix should really be happening soon - I'm currently embroiled in tournament prep, and wouldn't install a new OITG build less than a week before a tournament anyway, so it'll be next week at the earliest, but I'm almost there - whether or not it happens soon, I definitely am making progress when I have time to work on it.

If you run OpenITG on your PC and connect your USB to that, doesn't it treat it just like an arcade game? What I mean is, if you really don't want to lose your spot on Groovestats, this could be a method to "boost your stats" while you can't use it on the dedicabs.

Using a PC build of OITG works fine if you have the ITG2 profile validation keys and plug them into OITG.

Those keys are closely guarded - if you ask for them at Boxorroxors, the response is "you should only have access to the keys if you rip them yourself from a machine that you have access to".  You can forge whatever scores you want once you have the keys and GS will assert your claims as valid (since they appear to have been signed by a machine), hence them not being made available to anyone who doesn't have admin access to a machine.

Yes but this would be cheating -.- And I don't actually know how to get my USB to show up on the computer version, not that I've really looked into it since I haven't had a reason, and probably wouldn't be groovestats valid anyway.


Anyway thanks for working on it...

I'll be coming on thursday :] i'm off at 9pm, so probably going from 9-11pm there.

I'll probably seeya there on Thursday evening, dude.

Couple songs I've been itching to improve on.

I'll be dropping my GF off at the airport on Thursday evening, so I may be there for an hour or so. Time to get my Super Nova on! (I pray the volume is high enough to be playable).

The volume nowadays is pretty reasonable, but certain songs on itg still overpower it.. Other than that its fine.