Help! PRS1 error folder on your machine? SOLVED

[SleepyCPAP]

Dear PRS1 owners,

My CPAP created an "e" folder hidden in the P-series folder. I noticed this a long time back. My machine kept on working, but now I have word that the circuit board (bench tested) had a failure. Now more than ever I'm guessing "e" stands for "error" and I wonder if anyone else is finding this folder on their SD card.

The "e" folder contains files that end with ".004" in their name. I asked (long time ago) if our CPAPTalk heroic decoders had figured out those, but they had not. I'm now doubly interested and have started trying to figure out the hex codes.

Do you have an "e" folder within your P-series folder (within the serial number folder)? Did you have a PRS1 machine that failed in some way and with that folder? Am I the only one "special" enough to have a machine that created such a folder. Please look and let me know.

By the way, about a year ago it might be only one night a month produced a .004 file in that e-folder. Now that I look back I see that last October it had 42 files.

This is not my new machine, it is the CPAP I've had for about 2.5 years. The PRS1 machine I had before that (first generation, which I use in my photo) never had the "e" folder either.

--SleepyCPAP

[robysue]

Yes I have the e folder. Right now there are four files in it, including one dated 7/28/2013 and there was no problem with the data from that night.

I've also gone back through my some of my innumerable back up copies of my PR data. (I routinely back this data up by copying it to my computer's hard drive about once a week.) I've had an e since at least October 2011.

I have no idea what they are for and your theory seems as good as any. And like you, all the files in my e folder are *.004 files.

For what it's worth, my original System One also had a e folder appear before I had to send it back for a warranty problem: I woke up to it rebooting itself one morning for no reason at all.

[Pugsy]

I have had 3 or 4 different PR S1 machines.
All have had the e folder in the serial number folder...I never bothered going deeper until you now ask.

I don't know about the Jan 28 files (though I suspect it happened at the factory as the machine has a manufacture date of Jan 10, 2013) ...I didn't get the machine till this past May but the files from yesterday...July 29...I did get a service required notice flash on the screen and I know why. I was attempting to try to power my machine with a cpap battery.
My machine now is a 60 series machine and it is not compatible with the cpap battery pack I was attempting to use.
I tried twice and got the service error twice on the screen when I plugged the machine into the cpap batter pack.

Image below.

[DiverCTHunter]

does anyone know what CPU is in the PRS's? I'm guessing an Amtel or PIC16 based on the size of the core dump.

[SleepyCPAP]

Thank you robysue and pugsy for letting me know you've had the "e" folder show up too.

The fact that robysue's returned machine was replaced after getting the "e" folder fits the theory that it is related to errors, as does pugsy's remembering what she was doing and seeing an error screen. I looked around for error codes, and it seems some are the type that would shut down the machine, while others (such as pugsy's wrong battery) just get logged.

I'd never seen an error screen, other than sometimes the SD card not being inserted right (and putting it right back in would be enough to clear that screen). I save my data downloads too, robysue, and can go back and look. It would be interesting to see if I could figure out when errors were happening during therapy, and when it was when I put the SD card in.

DiverCTHunter, I'll look up information for your question and respond.

--SleepyCPAP

[SleepyCPAP]

DiverCTHunter asked:
does anyone know what CPU is in the PRS's? I'm guessing an Amtel or PIC16 based on the size of the core dump.

Have you seen an "e" folder too? Unlike pugsy, I've never seen a core dump on my data card.

When I looked at the innards of the machine,* I think it was stamped STR911FAW44. Here is what I found online back at that time, from STMicroelectronics:
"STR91xFA is a series of ARM-powered microcontrollers which combines a 16/32-bit ARM966E-S RISC processor core, dual-bank Flash memory, large SRAM for data or code, and a rich peripheral set to form an ideal embedded controller for a wide variety of applications such as point-of-sale terminals, industrial automation, security and surveillance, vending machines, communication gateways, serial protocol conversion, and medical equipment. The ARM966E-S core can perform single-cycle DSP instructions, good for speech processing, audio algorithms, and low-end imaging."

It is interesting that "audio algorithms" is mentioned, as the early decoding of the .005 code showed the breathing waveform would open in an audio editing program such as Audacity.

*I see you have a signature line saying you like to open the cases of things. I don't recommend people open their machines, especially if in warranty and you don't have a back-up. There are pressure circuit parts inside that must line up perfectly to fit together, delicate wire connectors, etc. I'm just a lucky idiot and managed to get it back together without damage or "spare parts."

--SleepyCPAP

[jdm2857]

I have 2 .004 files in the e folder. My machine is a late-2010 750 (BiPAP Auto). I've only
had it since mid-June, so I have no data from before that time.

[DiverCTHunter]

Have you seen an "e" folder too? Unlike pugsy, I've never seen a core dump on my data card.

I just have the waveform files like you.

When I looked at the innards of the machine,* I think it was stamped STR911FAW44. Here is what I found online back at that time, from STMicroelectronics:
"STR91xFA is a series of ARM-powered microcontrollers which combines a 16/32-bit ARM966E-S RISC processor core, dual-bank Flash memory, large SRAM for data or code...

Huh, I wouldn't have expected something as powerful as an ARM processor in an C- or A-PAPs - ASV and Bi, yes but not A- and C-.

*I see you have a signature line saying you like to open the cases of things. I don't recommend people open their machines, especially if in warranty and you don't have a back-up. There are pressure circuit parts inside that must line up perfectly to fit together, delicate wire connectors, etc. I'm just a lucky idiot and managed to get it back together without damage or "spare parts."

--SleepyCPAP

As far as the tagline goes, I semi-agree with you on the warranty. If an item is >$100 to replace then yes keep the sticker intact until whatever it is becomes unusable. If it's over that amount, or you have an extended warranty, then by all means use the manufacturer's repair service.

I haven't opened my machine yet since it's under warranty. If it breaks after that point, then out come the precision screwdriver set, digital camera and box full of empty pill bottles.

There's a philosophical mindset that you have to develop when it comes to understanding technology. Simply (and literally) put, "If I break it, who cares?"

Sadly, the American Consumer Culture has done it's utmost to destroy this type of thinking. Between our broken copyright and patent laws, kids getting expelled for doing simple science experiments and zero-tolerance policies there are now three generations of people throwing away perfectly serviceable equipment. Most of them have never been inside a second-hand store and think RadioShack is where you buy kids toys, batteries and cell phones.

If I get bored enough I might do an OT rant thread about it.

[DiverCTHunter]

Oh, and hope you don't mind SleepyCPAP, but I re-posted that info to the PRS1 Firmware thread.

[SleepyCPAP]

The errors found on my machine's circuit board when I sent it to Accurate Biomed Services were:

error 55: Therapy Queue Full
error 63: Stuck knob key
error 100: Humid No Heat

I have not decoded the .004 file to see if any of those numbers match.

I don't recall any knob problem, nor a humidifier problem, but it was very humid and I use a low setting so I might not have noticed. I have no idea what "Therapy Queue Full" means, as the SD card always had the night's data for me to download to SleepyHead, and I zeroed the machine each night from the reset in the clinician's menu. Maybe it doesn't mean what it says? In any case, all these error types are "continue" level errors, meaning the machine will keep operating (worse errors would cause the machine to stop, or require a reboot).

--SleepyCPAP

[jdm2857]

It would be great if you could try and decode the .004 files. I'd love to
see what my machine has stored.

Now if someone out there has the list of System One error codes ...

[SleepyCPAP]

OK, so here is what I'm able to decipher. It was staring me in the face.

The .004 file in the "e" folder has a basic structure. Here is a sample from the first week of July on my machine:
2 1B 0 0 0 2 4 BE 8 0 0 D0 E3 D7 51 C4 37 CF E3 D7 51 5F BD 0A 0 8E BC

Starting with Byte 0, the first value is always 2, much like the header in the other "regular" data files in the P0 folder. Indeed, the structure of the .004 file is quite similar, although it's length is at minimum 26 bytes.
Byte 10-9-8-7 combines to give you the file name of the regular session for that night, not the error file number.
Byte 14-13-12-11 combines to give you the date/time.

The second half of the string is unlike the other file headers in what the bytes report.

We're interested in byte 16 -- that is the error code in hexadecimal. (in the sample "37" which translates to decimal "55")
The error is always followed by another date/time (Bytes 20-19-18-17).
In a single error record, this string ends at Byte 26 (10 Bytes past the error).

Byte 25 is also the error code if the error string is longer than the basic 26 bytes.
And error codes will keep showing up each nine bytes later (34 if the string does not end at 35, 43 if the string does not end at 44, etc.)

I see I have one night where my machine must have been frantic for a bit, with continued "37" "42" and "41" hex codes. That translates to Error 55 "Therapy queue full", and Error 66 and 65 which are both hardware "Stuck Encoder" descriptions.

I'd had Error 66 show early in the life of the machine, and I'm guessing those were times I put the SD card in the slot after reading it in my computer, and it would beep at me until I took it out and put it back in again.

I have so many error codes for so many nights over the past 2.5 years that I don't know that I'll ever wade through them. I just took a sampling. This summer, before I packed it and sent it, it was continuing with Error 55, and it threw in an error 102 (humidifier "Thermistor High") back in January (which is close but not the "Error 100" reported to me by the tech "Humid No Heat"). I have yet to see Error 63 "stuck knob key" in the few old error files I've looked at, and never noticed a knob problem in use, but maybe something happened in transit for it to show up for the tech?

Yes, I found the Error Codes list for the System One machines, they go up to Error 126, but some numbers are not used. That is five pages long as a PDF, and I won't try to insert the pages here.

--SleepyCPAP

[pbriggs]

I have a new machine that I have used since 8-13 for the first time. My card has the e folder with a file called 000.004 and the file size is reported as 27 bytes. The date and time stamp on the e file is 8/13/2013 at 8:24pm, interesting is that I have a file in the P0 folder at 8/13/2013 at 8:23pm (001 file)

[robysue]

Yes, I found the Error Codes list for the System One machines, they go up to Error 126, but some numbers are not used. That is five pages long as a PDF, and I won't try to insert the pages here.

Care to provide us with a link to that five page long PDF file??

[SleepyCPAP]

Dear RobySue and others who contacted me,

I went to the trouble of turning the list into a text document so that I could cut and paste it here. Of course formatting will be lost as I post this, but this way anyone else who has a Hex reader can look at the .004 file string, count to 17 (or 16 if you call 02 zero) convert that Hex value to Decimal and look up the description.

The error code list I saw was for early PRS1 50-series models. I don't know if some "Not Used" numbers later became named error codes, other than I added #31 for 60-series firmware v3.03 which Mollet mentioned here:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=89356#p821050

Disclaimer: I present this for your entertainment. I'm a CPAP user, not a tech, and not from the company, and I didn't diagnose my machine from this list, I just notice that the error numbers the tech reported to me about my machine "on the test bench" correlated well to this list. I was curious about why the "e" folder showed up on my SD card, and was able to satisfy my curiosity. I see by a search of the forum that "tank" error codes were published years ago, so I'm assuming this isn't violating any rule for me to do the same for PSR1:

CODE ERROR DESCRIPTION ERROR TYPE ERROR CATEGORY
1 SOFTWARE STOP STOP General Errors
2 Not Used General Errors
3 INT RAM REBOOT General Errors
4 NULL PTR REBOOT General Errors
5 DATA REBOOT General Errors
6 STATE MACHINE REBOOT General Errors
7 SOFTWARE REBOOT General Errors
8-9 Not Used General Errors
10 WDOG TEST RAM REBOOT Watchdog & Timer Errors
11 WDOG TEST REBOOT Watchdog & Timer Errors
12 BACKGROUND WDOG NO CARD REBOOT Watchdog & Timer Errors
13 BACKGROUND WDOG SD CARD REBOOT Watchdog & Timer Errors
14 WDOG LOWRES TIMER REBOOT Watchdog & Timer Errors
15 CYCLE HANDLER OVERRUN REBOOT Watchdog & Timer Errors
16 RASP RESTORE TIMEOUT CONTINUE Watchdog & Timer Errors
17 ONEMS HANDLER OVERRUN REBOOT Watchdog & Timer Errors
18 Not Used Watchdog & Timer Errors
19 WDOG TIMEOUT REBOOT Watchdog & Timer Errors
20 MOTOR SPINUP FLUX LOW REBOOT Motor/Blower Errors
21 MOTOR VBUS HIGH STOP Motor/Blower Errors
22 MOTOR FLUX MAGNITUDE REBOOT Motor/Blower Errors
23 MOTOR OVERSPEED REBOOT Motor/Blower Errors
24 MOTOR SPEED REVERSE REBOOT Motor/Blower Errors
25 MOTOR THERMISTOR OPEN CONTINUE Motor/Blower Errors
26 MOTOR THERMISTOR SHORTED CONTINUE Motor/Blower Errors
27 MOTOR RL NOCONVERGE STOP Motor/Blower Errors
28 NEGATIVE QUADRATURE VOLTAGE VECTOR REBOOT Motor/Blower Errors
29 VBUS GAIN ZERO: REBOOT Motor/Blower Errors
30 MOTOR SPINUP FLUX HIGH REBOOT Motor/Blower Errors
31 (incorrect power supply - 60series) Motor/Blower Errors
32-39 Not Used Motor/Blower Errors
40 NVRAM REBOOT NVRAM Low Level Errors
41 STORAGE UNIT RAM REBOOT NVRAM Low Level Errors
42 UNABLE TO OBTAIN BUS REBOOT NVRAM Low Level Errors
43 NVRAM NO CALLBACK OCCURRED REBOOT NVRAM Low Level Errors
44 NV BUFFER NULL REBOOT NVRAM Low Level Errors
45 NV CALLBACK NULL REBOOT NVRAM Low Level Errors
46 NV ZERO LENGTH REBOOT NVRAM Low Level Errors
47 NVRAM INVALID BYTES XFRRED REBOOT NVRAM Low Level Errors
48-49 Not Used NVRAM Low Level Errors
50 DAILY VALUES CORRUPT LOG ONLY NVRAM Unit Related Errors
51 CORRUPT COMPLIANCE LOG CONTINUE NVRAM Unit Related Errors
52 CORRUPT COMPLIANCE CB CONTINUE NVRAM Unit Related Errors
53 COMP LOG SEM TIMEOUT CONTINUE NVRAM Unit Related Errors
54 COMPLOG REQS OVERFLOW REBOOT NVRAM Unit Related Errors
55 THERAPY QUEUE FULL CONTINUE NVRAM Unit Related Errors
56 COMPLOG PACKET STATUS REBOOT NVRAM Unit Related Errors
57 SESS OBS QUEUE OVF REBOOT NVRAM Unit Related Errors
58 SESS OBS NO CALLBACK REBOOT NVRAM Unit Related Errors
59 Not Used NVRAM Unit Related Errors
60 UNSUPPORTED HARDWARE REBOOT General Hardware Errors
61 PLL UNLOCKED REBOOT General Hardware Errors
62 STUCK RAMP KEY CONTINUE General Hardware Errors
63 STUCK KNOB KEY CONTINUE General Hardware Errors
64 DSP OVERTIME PWM REBOOT General Hardware Errors
65 STUCK ENCODER A CONTINUE General Hardware Errors
66 STUCK ENCODER B CONTINUE General Hardware Errors
67-69 Not Used General Hardware Errors
70 PRESSURE SENSOR ABSENT STOP Pressure Sensor Errors
71 Not Used Pressure Sensor Errors
72 PSENS UNABLE TO OBTAIN BUS REBOOT Pressure Sensor Errors
73 SENSOR PRESS OFFSET STOP STOP Pressure Sensor Errors
74-79 Not Used Pressure Sensor Errors
80 UNABLE TO INIT FLOW SENSOR REBOOT Flow Sensor Errors
81 FLOW SENSOR TABLE CONTINUE Flow Sensor Errors
82 FLOW SENSOR OFFSET CONTINUE Flow Sensor Errors
83 FSENS UNABLE TO OBTAIN BUS REBOOT / 2nd failure=STOP Flow Sensor Errors
84 FLOW SENSOR STOP STOP Flow Sensor Errors
85 FLOW SENSOR OCCLUDED CONTINUE Flow Sensor Errors
86 FLOW SENSOR ABSENT CONTINUE Flow Sensor Errors
87 FLOW SENSOR BUS CONTINUE Flow Sensor Errors
88-89 Not Used Flow Sensor Errors
90 OTP NOT CONFIGURED STOP OTP & RTC Errors
91 OTP INCORRECTLY CONFIGURED STOP OTP & RTC Errors
92 Not Used OTP & RTC Errors
93 RTC VALUE CONTINUE OTP & RTC Errors
94 RTC STOPPED CONTINUE OTP & RTC Errors
95-99 Not Used OTP & RTC Errors
100 HUMID NO HEAT CONTINUE Humidifier Errors
101 HUMID TEMP MAX STOP Humidifier Errors
102 THERMISTOR HIGH CONTINUE Humidifier Errors
103 THERMISTOR LOW CONTINUE Humidifier Errors
104 HUMID AMBIENT OFF CONTINUE Humidifier Errors
105 HUMID AMBIENT COMM CONTINUE Humidifier Errors
106-109 Not Used Humidifier Errors
110 STACK REBOOT Stack & Exception Handler Errors
111 EXCEPTION STACK OVERFLOW REBOOT Stack & Exception Handler Errors
112 EXCEPTION STACK RESERVE LOG ONLY Stack & Exception Handler Errors
113 EXCEPTION STACK UNDERFLOW REBOOT Stack & Exception Handler Errors
114 FIQ STACK OVERFLOW REBOOT Stack & Exception Handler Errors
115 FIQ STACK RESERVE LOG ONLY Stack & Exception Handler Errors
116 FIQ STACK UNDERFLOW REBOOT Stack & Exception Handler Errors
117 IRQ STACK OVERFLOW REBOOT Stack & Exception Handler Errors
118 IRQ STACK RESERVE LOG ONLY Stack & Exception Handler Errors
119 IRQ STACK UNDERFLOW REBOOT Stack & Exception Handler Errors
120 SVC STACK OVERFLOW REBOOT Stack & Exception Handler Errors
121 SVC STACK RESERVE LOG ONLY Stack & Exception Handler Errors
122 SVC STACK UNDERFLOW REBOOT Stack & Exception Handler Errors
123 DATA ABORT EXCEPTION REBOOT Stack & Exception Handler Errors
124 PREFETCH EXCEPTION REBOOT Stack & Exception Handler Errors
125 ILLEGAL INSTRUCTION EXCEPTION REBOOT Stack & Exception Handler Errors
126 SWI ABORT EXCEPTION REBOOT Stack & Exception Handler Errors