Ok, I've searched and it seems that the softmod should work the same as it did on the previous firmware, however, I'm not able to get it to work.

I got my SD cards from Pioneer yesterday and did the upgrade. I thought I'd be smart and mod the data.zip file first before upgrading but the installer detected a change in the file, so I put the original back on and upgraded. Everything went fine. I can now boot into testmode, copy over a new data.zip file with the modified pioneer_config file, but once I reboot the device it gets to the system is starting up screen and just reboots endlessly. I replace the original data.zip and it works fine.

Any ideas?

Make sure that you don't unzip the data file to make the mod to the configuration file. You want to make the mod on the ziped file using 7-Zip

I'm opening it with WinRAR and editing it directly for from there. Then saving and updating the .zip file.

Nobody has any ideas? At worst case, I can just pull the unit and and rewire the damned thing, but I'd really rather not have to do that.

You have to fully unzip the data.zip to make the change and then zip it all back together. You can't edit the file from within the zip utility (don't knnow why, it just doesn't work). You may even have to use 7zip to rezip it. Yes the unit is that picky!

Interesting, I didn't have to do that on the 2.0 firmware, but I'll give it a shot. If it works, I don't much care how it happens.

Well none of that worked. I tried 7zip with no luck. Unzipped and rezipped or editing it directly using 7zip resulted in the same thing. Gets to "system startup in progress" sits for a few seconds and reboots.

Use your testmode card to copy the data.zip from the 'working' AVIC and use that ?

Sounds like your data.zip is either corrupted or it's the one from before your update ?

I pulled the data.zip file directly from the Pioneer update SD card. It's the same data.zip file that when modded, it wouldn't even install the update properly until I put the original back.

OK, follow this exaclty and it should work.

1.Copy the perfect, fresh copy of data.zip to the SD card.

2.Open the DATA.zip with WINRAR. Extract the file you want to edit to the desktop. Make the changes and save the file.

3.Delete the file you extracted from DATA.zip (through WINRAR).

4.Drag the file you saved on your desktop to the DATA.zip (through WINRAR).

5.Save....done

Haha, well I'll give that a try.

FWIW, what I'm currently doing worked perfectly on v2. I'm wondering if v3 is just more strict on it's file checking. I don't know if it's looking for a specific CRC checksum on the file I'm modifying or what but it's getting to be very annoying.

What I was suggesting thirdeye was to not use any data.zip but the one directly from the AVIC unit itself after it is running 3.0 correctly (I am guessing there is some sort of file change when the updater copies them to the AVIC).

When I did the softmod on my F910 (already had 3.0 on it) I copied the data.zip to the SD card with testmode 2.3 , then used WinRAR to open the zip , edited the file directly from within the zip with notepad (didn't extract it to the computer) and then allowed WinRAR (version 3.71) to update the file within the zip. After all that , I just copied the data.zip back onto the AVIC with testmode 2.3 again.

Gotcha, well I'll give that a shot and see if that works. And to think this is supposed to be EASIER than the wire bypass mod.

Well TimboZero, you earned a beer. Sure enough the data.zip on the original SD gets modified on install because even modified date was different. I pulled that file, modded it via Winrar and it did the trick. Thanks!

You are most welcome sir , glad I have helped

Well TimboZero, I have the same error as you.

I boot with WinCE to run ezrider.exe --> I have a splash windows Pioneer saying API init and then it closes after 1 second.

Then I checked the date of the data.zip in APL2\iGo and the date wasn't updated --> 08/05/2009

What do you suggest ?