Harmony Encore - garbled characters

[jasonw970]

Hello,

 

I just received a Harmony Encore and all I can say is ... WOW! This little gem brings back MANY childhood memories. The issue that I am having is that I have copied some games to an SD card, then plugged the SD card into the Harmony Encore cart. When I fire up the Atari 2600, I can get to the game list, but the names on the list do not match what the actual names of the files are.

 

Example: Adventure

Name of file: advntr.bin

Name that shows on Harmony Encore list: a3~15d.bin

 

There are others as well. Some do show the correct file name but a lot of them show this type of text.

 

Any ideas how to resolve?

 

Thank you,

Jason

Edited December 24, 2017 by jasonw970

[+groundtrooper]

Where did you get your roms from?

 

I found the easiest way it to just use RomHunters 2600 Pack - It has a set for Stella and a set for Harmony.

All with great naming conventions that work great. I have never had that Issue with my Encore.

[jasonw970]

Thank you groundtrooper. Let me ask this - Would it matter where the ROMs are from? I ask because if I have one ROM on the SD card and name it 123.bin, shouldn't it show as 123.bin on the Harmony cart? I didn't manually name the ROMs a3~15d.bin or anything like that yet that's how they appear on the cart. On the SD card (via Explorer), that ROM shows as adventr.bin yet the Harmony lists it as a3~15d.bin Strange indeed. I'll play around with the ROMs and see what happens.

Edited December 25, 2017 by jasonw970

[Thomas Jentzsch]

What OS are you using? And do you have a lot of Adventure ROMs on the cart?

[+groundtrooper]

Sounds like he is using Windows - Explorer.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jasonw970]

Yes, I am using Windows 10 x64

 

I have one Adventure ROM - downloaded right here from AtariAge

Edited December 25, 2017 by jasonw970

[jasonw970]

Okay, did more testing. The first time I fire up the Harmony Encore cart, most of the games show their proper file name. If I move the joystick back one page and then forward to the first page again, the game listing becomes jumbled (incorrect file names). If I turn the power off then back on again, the game list shows jumbled text and not the proper game list. If I power off and back on again, 3 out 4 times the game list is jumbled and incorrect. The 1 out of 4 times it shows the first two pages correct but then after that, jumbled text. Very strange.

 

It doesn't matter where I get the ROMs from. It does this no matter what ROM sets I use.

Edited December 25, 2017 by jasonw970

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Hard to tell what's the reason, so here are some guesses, measures and tests you should try:

1. The SD card is incompatible/broken or has dirty contacts. Try a different one or clean the contacts.
2. The power supply is too weak, try a different one
3. Something in the console is starting to fail. How does the Encore play the games? And how about normal carts?

If nothing helps, maybe the Encore is broken.

 

Some more questions to narrow the problem origin:

1. Can you post pictures of the garbled text?
2. What happens when you display long filenames (long fire button press). Do the long filenames behave like the directory display?
3. And what happens when you return to the directory display? Does it look like before or does it change?
4. And how about the credits screen [.]? Same problem here too?

[alex_79]

Seems similar to the behaviour of the first 1.06 beta firmware released a while ago. The "beta2" release in the same thread fixed it.

What firmware version are you using? Did you try to reflash it?

[jasonw970]

I have firmware 1.06 - the firmware that came with the Harmony Encore cart when I received it a few days ago. I haven't tried to do any updates to it as I assume 1.06 is the latest version.

 

Well, I seem to have it working, sort of.

 

If I power on the Harmony Encore the game list will sometimes be garbled.

If I power off and on once or twice, the game list looks normal.

If I move the joystick to the left, the game list becomes garbled.

If I move the joystick to the right, the list stays normal and remains normal

If I move the stick to the right, all is okay. If I move the stick to the left, the list stays normal UNTIL I get to the beginning of the game list. I f I move to the left from the beginning of the list, the game list becomes and stays garbled, no matter how I move the stick.

It seems that as long as I move the stick to the right, all is well.

I tried another joystick and got the same results

I tried replacing the SD card and got the same results.

At this point, I am going to enjoy the Harmony Encore and just deal with what I have, as long as I can get A list to work, I don't care how I have to move the controller.

 

Thank you for all that have tried assisting me with theis very strange issue.

 

Jason

Edited December 26, 2017 by jasonw970

[jasonw970]

Update for those with similar issues (garbled characters in game list):

 

- I re-flashed the BIOS to from 1.06 to 1.05 (thank you Fred Quimby!)

Issue was still present

- I re-flashed the BIOS again from 1.05 to 1.06

Issue resolved

 

All is well with the game list (no gabled characters at all, no matter what way I move the stick).

 

Again, a HUGE THANK YOU to Fred for assisting me with this

 

Jason

Edited December 31, 2017 by jasonw970