Why not reflashing eMMC and Memory card and OS. This way you will see if the device is booting okay. It's either your eMMC got some unstable apps or something in the MicroSD causing it.

@YoDude:

Do you use a SIM?

Yes, I do use a SIM. Do you think it could be because of a bad SIM card? I have been using the same SIM in my old phone for about six years now; I'm not sure I want to change it because I would have to change my phone number (among other hassles that outweigh the disadvantage of just not using a N900).

you can get a replacement SIM from your operator if you are on contract it should be free i recommend it i upgrade my SIM once a year

Forget about a new sim card, that advice will not solve your issue, the N900 will just tell you the sim card is dead and continue booting. It's completely unrelated.

Flash your phone and do not make any modifications to it. None. Do not be tempted, just flash back to factory default. rootfs & eMMC. Don't try to restore any backups, nothing. Factory. Default.

Once you've done that, use the phone for a while, see if it still has the same problem.

On the previous page you said you had symlinked some directories but weren't sure if you had done that before or after the problem occurred. You need to be certain, so don't symlink anything.

Once you've done that you can then firmly establish any possible hardware fault vs software.

Agreed... see my edit.

A bad SIM card was not the reason I asked the question. Network connection errors were. Remove the SIM to eliminate that possibility however slim.

A bad sector or corrupt MMC on older Maemo devices has been known to create an infinite loop too. Remove that as well, to also eliminate that rare possibility.

At the very least I would have hoped that the OP eliminated these ancillary possibilities before declaring that the device itself had a fatal flaw in his thread title.

And finally the symlink, which I agree is the most likely culprit. Particularly if it is from one side of the house to the other.

Right you are YoDude, good advice, I need to cut down on the carbonated diet beverages I think.

@jd4200: I think being a phone is intrinsic to the N900, so "you can use it fully (minus making phone calls)" is a contradiction in terms. Once the SIM card is gone, I can't get software updates, I can't use it as a GPS (the Ovi Maps app has to download maps), I can't use my automated rsync scripts that backup my N900 data onto the home server --it would be little more than a $20 Palm Pilot. It's true that if I happen to be in a place where there is Wifi, the N900 could hook up to that, but if I had to hang around a Wifi hotspot to use my smartphone, I could do that with my notebook computer, which even has the advantage of a DVD burner.

In any case, it doesn't work even after I take the SIM card out. Sorry if I didn't make it clear, but I had already returned my first N900 to the store. When I did that, of course I took out the microSD card and the SIM card before giving it back. I had to demonstrate to the store that it was still non-functional (otherwise they would not refund all my money), and it was not. While it is still possible that the bad SIM card or bad microSD card was the cause, we already know that once the problem is triggered it is not resolved by removing the SIM/microSD card (yes, I did try rebooting after removing).

@matthew maude: Thanks. Could you give me the link to Nokia's Maemo forum? I thought this *was* the Maemo forum.

@YoDude: That is scary if a symlink can nearly brick the device, but I agree that that might be something other people might not do, which would account for the "We've never seen your error on the N900 so there must be something wrong with you and not the N900."

@YoDude again: Thank you for trusting me to have eliminated the basic possibilities and not treating me like some idiot to be talked down to. Indeed, I have done my best to eliminate the possibility of corrupt eMMC on my N900:
- for a corrupted eMMC image, correctable by reflashing, I have reflashed (about 4 or 5 times).
- for hardware corruption of eMMC, I have actually returned my first N900 and bought a second N900
It's possible that that both N900's were from the same bad batch since I got them from the same store, but then that would speak volumes about Nokia's quality control and whether I should use Nokia products in the future.

@maxximuscool: I did reflash the eMMC and OS; sorry if I wasn't being clear when I said in the original post: "there is only one thing I've found which can make it usable again: I have to flash the firmware and the "eMMC" image ... (It's not enough just to flash the firmware.)" As for "reflashing" the "Memory card", I take it you mean the microSD card. I'm not sure what you mean by "reflashing", but I replaced the old 128MB card with a brand new 16GB card, and the error still occurs --I think that answers you.

I have returned my N900 for a refund.

I would say that, after having owned a N900 for six weeks without being able to prevent (or even identify the trigger for) the boot-up error, I cannot realistically rely on the N900 as a phone, much as I'd like to use it. One might say that I could have spent more effort debugging during these six weeks, but if I was too busy to do so, then realistically I won't be able to do so in the future, either. I need something that just works.

Who knows, maybe I'll still try buying it off Amazon.com for $450, hoping that it was just a bad batch that went to my local electronics store.

@dchky: Hey, I like carbonated diet beverages, too! You don't suppose THAT could be the problem, maybe? just kidding

Okay, I bought a new N900. Would appreciate continued help in eliminating the problem.

You can call me a glutton for punishment, but I really want a handheld computer with an open platform. I was also hoping that, by ordering from Amazon, I would get a unit from a different batch that would not have the same defect, but ... guess what? Right after reflashing firmware+eMMC and restoring from backup, I got the Forever Dots bootup error again.

We can eliminate the following as potential causes of the error:

- symlink (from ext3 to vfat) is eliminated as a possible cause of this error, since this time there was no symlink
- SIM card is eliminated: I contacted my cell phone provider and got a brand new SIM card. No luck.

At this time, the salient point seems to be: why is it that I'm the only one who has seen this error? Why has no one else seen this error? Is it something that I'm doing wrong, and if so, what exactly? I'm trying to come up with all the things that make me different from any other N900 user that might cause errors:

- my SIM card (no: I got a new one)
- my microSD card (no: I got a new one)
- my software (no: I installed no software from extras-devel, and only "mc" from extras-testing)
- far-fetched ones:
- my phone holster has a magnetic clasp. Is it magnetizing the accelerometer triggering a rare bug?
- I am using a screen protector sheet. Is it causing a sensor problem?

I know this sounds crazy, but if anyone can confirm you're using a screen protector or a magnetic holster and are having no problems, it would be much appreciated.

I keep hoping for a magic solution like, "Oh, all you have to do is press B when it boots and this goes away" or something like that.

I'll try to contact cpitchford as suggested by Matthew Maude. Meanwhile, the only other thing I can think of is to reflash with a different eMMC image, like "specific to USA" or something.

Comments appreciated.

why did you reflash your device just after you bought it?

it probably worked before you did, so that probably means you dit something wrong with the reflashing (wrong file?) or your backup is broken

@kwtm

In case you need to talk to cpitchford.

http://discussions.europe.nokia.com/

http://discussions.europe.nokia.com/...user-id/130480

Magnets near the N900 are known to wake up the device from sleep and mount/unmount the SD card.

https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6689
https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8235

I don't know if your holster could be causing the reboot problems though. But might as well give it a try