Hi all,
I recently got hold of one of these OTT M8S boxes and have been banging my head against a wall ever since then. My ultimate objective is to load Openelec onto this and be done. The Android Firmware it comes with is flaky - especially on MPEG2 content (which is amazing considering how well the Pi Zero does with that content).
Trouble is the Firmware that mine came with has no functional recovery partition. Eventually I loaded a new firmware with a recovery using USB_Burning_tool using a stock .img . This image didn't have my WIFI support so I upgraded it using another zip file and the stock recovery method. This went fine, but really I was no nearer my goal since the new recovery firmware has built in signature checking and will only allow firmwares in the same series to be loaded. It seems that this has become a standard feature of all the firmware for these boxes now coming out. So there is no pathway to loading TWRP or Openelec using the standard Firmware - but it won't allow you to break out of the standard firmware signature checking. Deadend !!!
I attempted to dd a functioning TWRP onto the box using shell emulator, but this simply broke the recovery. This suggests that this issue is deeper than just the way the recovery is setup, it suggests that the issue is with the second bootloader (u-boot.ini) which seems to have signature checking built in as well. So no longer can you pick any functioning u-boot.ini file and make a bootable SD-card with Amlogics SDcardMaker.
Fairly locked down altogether, and it would seem that this feature is going to proliferate to all of these boxes since they are all using variants of the same basic Android ROM, which I suspect is issued by AMlogic themselves.
It seems to me that the only way forward is to create alternative ROMS such as Openelec as pure .img files which can be loaded at the raw NAND level using USB_Burning_Tool. None of the developers seem to be addressing this, simply repeating the old approaches which no longer work on these new generation boxes.
A lot of people are thrashing around and bricking their boxes and without a functioning recovery partition these become defacto hard bricks.
So I make a call out for the developers of the unofficial Openelec firmwares to package them as raw .img files rather than OTA zip files which can no longer be sideloaded.
Maybe someone reading this with a functioning Openelec M8S S812 box can do a dd dump and post up a .img file for me to burn into my box. Please.
Stephen
I attempted to use USB_Burning_Tool to burn an Openelec Wetek Core .img file and the program wouldn't pass it. So it seems that not even this is a suitable method of bypassing the bootloaders.
Stephen
However here is a heads up for anyone out there struggling to get a decent performance from their Kodi. I have just loaded up my box with the Wetek Core Kodi 15.2 and I can report that out of the box it solves almost all of the Amlogic codec issues people have been facing and runs all three hardware acceleration tabs. On Tvheadend PVR playback it occassionally does a black screen on channel switches and can be very slow to switch channels, but if you switch channels again and then back to the black screen channel it usually comes back. no stuttering or audio lag what so ever. Can be found here:
http://wetekforums.com/v/index.php?...-2-to-fix-23-976fps-video-sync-issues?p=23662
Here is an interesting quote from the users of this Kodi version, which suggests that the Kodi developers know what the issue are but refuse to address them, I suppose they hate these "pirate boxes" that much :
Blame Kodi for this. By default mpeg4 / divx is not Hardware accelerated. I'm not sure what WeTek did with this version, they may or may not have patched it to re-enable Hardware accelerated mpeg 4 / divx for the Core.
Try playing with the Video > Playback > Hardware acceleration options.
The Android Kodi devs know about this problem and refuse to change what is distributed by default.
Note other Kodi issues on AML.
mpeg2 in .vob files will not play in Kodi on ANY AMLogic platform, they stutter.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I had to factor in my time to the cost of this box, the WETEK core starts to look a very cheap deal.
Stephen
I went back to this on a hunch and downgraded my Firmware to cyx_m8s_ap6330_8g2g_150728_SD.rar
this ROM has fully functioning recovery and it Flashes Openelec upgrade ROM by default with the toothpick method. So I tried as many different versions of Openelec for M8S as I could find and the sad news is that they all soft brick my box with the M8 v8_8 board. They all reproduce the same behaviour of preventing the box from booting and no Blue light on power up. Fortunately USB_Burning tool version 2.0.5.13 recovers the box without difficulty (though it usually takes two tries to get it past 3%).
It is my conclusion at this point in time that there is no functional Openelec available for this version of the board.
Stephen
Working TWRP?
Shoog03 said:
I went back to this on a hunch and downgraded my Firmware to cyx_m8s_ap6330_8g2g_150728_SD.rar
this ROM has fully functioning recovery and it Flashes Openelec upgrade ROM by default with the toothpick method. So I tried as many different versions of Openelec for M8S as I could find and the sad news is that they all soft brick my box with the M8 v8_8 board. They all reproduce the same behaviour of preventing the box from booting and no Blue light on power up. Fortunately USB_Burning tool version 2.0.5.13 recovers the box without difficulty (though it usually takes two tries to get it past 3%).
It is my conclusion at this point in time that there is no functional Openelec available for this version of the board.
Stephen
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I worked with Abdul over on this forum and he was able to port a OTT S812 2G/8G M8 4335 TWRP which might work for your box. It was for my M8 v8_6 box. I tried all other TWRPs and they didn't work. I was his guinea pig and this result works great
If you go to the Freaktab dot com forum and look into the "TWRP for Amlogic devices" folder (which is under the "AMLogic based TV Players" folder, go to message 900 and you'll see a link to a TWRP recovery which may work on your machine.
I cannot post the URL due to rules in this website to prevent spam.
Hope it helps you.
Thanks a lot, that TWRP works very well off of a SD-Card.
It also successful boot into TWRP recovery on my box.
Finally some progress and the possibility of loading Openelec open's up.
Cheers.
Stephen
I attempted to use my new power of TWRP to flash a WETEK-Core Openelec development OTA. The result was a soft brick again.
However TWRP opens up new possibilities since I can now flash my Openelec image and then flash the bootloader from a stock rom - since I believe it is the bootloader packaged with Openelec which causes it to soft brick.
Will report back if I am successful.
Update: this strategy still produces a soft brick so the problem must run deeper than the Bootloader.
Maybe you could persuade Abdul to express an opinion on why Openelec soft bricks these boxes as I am sure he would have a good understanding of what was going wrong at the boot sequence.
Stephen
So good news folks. I have manged to get openelec loaded onto my box and its working fine.
My method was to use BootCardMaker and to load onto it the u boot.ini file from my second stock ROM.
I then placed the same u boot.ini file into the root of the same SD-card and then unzipped the image "OpenELEC-Amlogic.arm-M8S-6.0.0.2.zip" into the SD-card root (which I believe I got from the WETEK site). All seem to work fine out of the box and HD works fine. It still has lip sink issues when handling streamed MPEG4 content - but it is definitely using the built in amcodec hardware decoding. Last thing to do is to replace the recovery with the working TWRP and make a full backup of the configured system.
So the issue with all the other builds of Openelec was an incompatible u boot.bin
Openelec is a lot more snappy in the interface than Kodi as an Android app, which is really noticeable when using the crappy remote it came bundled with.
Last thing to check is if the Amcodec has the same zoomed screen issue when outputting composite that exists in the Android version. Hope not.
I can now reload either the working Android or the Openelec using TWRP which is great.
Update: It appears at first glance that this build has no AV support at all.
Stephen
Hi firstly thank you i managed to get twrp on my OTT M8s following your instructions with the link to post 900~
Now i have made a complete backup of my rom but when i try to update a different rom it always reloads my original rom - It goes through the updating apps process but is always my stock rom
Now when i say stock rom that is a bit of a lie, i bricked this box within 20 mins of getting it and had to find a compatible rom, i ended up having to use the usb flashing tool and shorting out pins 28 and 29
there is a problem in the recovery/bootloader/u.boot bin somewhere that will not let me update the firmware
I am currently on a ap6330 but have had it on bcm4335 previously (go figure)
Also when i tried to update it to the latest acemax firmware last night it said 'this rom is for n200c and this box is k200 etc' but CPUZ clearly states my box is a n200c (again go figure)
I am by no means an expert on the file system of Android as a whole but am pretty experienced in flashing roms/cyanogenmod/xposed/twrp etc
Getting twrp running is a small achievement in itself....
It seems that the stock recovery process for installing OTA's checks signatures and will not allow "incompatible" ROM's to be flashed. The only way to get a ROM on there would be to find a full TWRP backup of that ROM and sidestep the standard recovery process.
I am still having issues with mine in that now that I have a working version of Openelec 6.0.0.2 it will not allow me to use the standard method of installing Openelec to downgrade to the 5.95.5 version. I am very happy with the way that Openelec performs, but without AV output it is a dead duck for me.
Looks like it was a wise move to do a full TWRP backup of the Android system as it seems that is the way I am going.
Stephen
Hi Stephen
Yes been trying to update and continually getting the E:error executing updater binary in zip
Could i take the meta-inf file from my working rom and swap it out?
I am not familiar with the more complicated stuff :/
See this comment by abdul in another forum:
On newer versions i have changed device id to k200. What device do you have ? I don't recall having made a TWRP for the MXQ.
That check is made by the update-script inside the flashable zip, I DID NOT MAKE IT CHECK. And "toggle signature verification" is there but it's not related to this.
Just delete the assert in update-script or use a newer version
I have been messing about with some roms and now i cannot restore my backup:/
E: unable to mount storage
Got a feeling i am going to have to start from scratch with usb burning tool
USB Burn tool will generally solve most issues. Only once or twice did it fail to find my Box and then the NAND shorting trick sorted that out.
Stephen
Shoog03 said:
So good news folks. I have manged to get openelec loaded onto my box and its working fine.
My method was to use BootCardMaker and to load onto it the u boot.ini file from my second stock ROM.
I then placed the same u boot.ini file into the root of the same SD-card and then unzipped the image "OpenELEC-Amlogic.arm-M8S-6.0.0.2.zip" into the SD-card root (which I believe I got from the WETEK site). All seem to work fine out of the box and HD works fine. It still has lip sink issues when handling streamed MPEG4 content - but it is definitely using the built in amcodec hardware decoding. Last thing to do is to replace the recovery with the working TWRP and make a full backup of the configured system.
So the issue with all the other builds of Openelec was an incompatible u boot.bin
Openelec is a lot more snappy in the interface than Kodi as an Android app, which is really noticeable when using the crappy remote it came bundled with.
Last thing to check is if the Amcodec has the same zoomed screen issue when outputting composite that exists in the Android version. Hope not.
I can now reload either the working Android or the Openelec using TWRP which is great.
Update: It appears at first glance that this build has no AV support at all.
Stephen
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the exact same PCB board M8 V8_8 and am also trying without success to get openelec running on it. Can you please explain the steps and firmwares you were using please and thank you - you are a god to me right now lol
I got the openelec file from the the VectorDroid website where i grabbed the file "OpenELEC-Amlogic.arm-M8S-6.0.0.2.zip" from their download section.
I grabbed Amlogics Bootcard maker from Chinesegadget Reviews. This runs in Windows, but I had no problem using it in VirtualBox running Win7.
I extracted the file "u boot.bin" from the stock ROM "cyx_m8s_v8.6_bcm4335_8g2g_kodi_addons_151013_SD##.rar" (hash represent chinese letters). This is the most critical part since this is the layer which points Openelec to all of the available hardware. Use Bootcard maker to burn this file into a SD_card, and then for good measure add it into the root by a simple file transfer.
Copy the Openelec file into the SD cards root, and then extract it into the root.
The SD card should now be setup and ready to roll. However it will depend on the recovery setup that you have on your box. I cannot remember at this stage whether I used the stock ROM's "cyx_m8s_ap6330_8g2g_150728_SD升级.rar" or "cyx_m8s_v8.6_bcm4335_8g2g_kodi_addons_151013_SD升级.rar" to boot into recovery. My gut feeling at this stage is that the ap6330 has a less secure recovery partition and will recognise the Openelec card better than the bcm4335.
If you have the correct recovery img from the correct ROM it will boot into Openelec via Android stock Recovery and flash the files to you box. Give it at least 15mins as the screen is likely to go blank. Take out the SD card and reboot.
I used TWRP to back up my stock ROM and Kodi setup before I did all this, but if you decide to do this (a good idea) you will need to reload the STOCK ROMs recovery img using TWRP before you can get Openelec to boot since it uses a functional unlocked down version of Android recovery to do the flash.
If this fails to create a working box it will most likely brick your device, but its a simple matter to reflash the "cyx_m8s_ap6330_8g2g_150728_SD升级.rar" ROM using USB_Flash_Tool and start all over again !!
Hope that works for you.
Stephen
Good to know that a change to openelec can brick it because i tried to install
it. I like more the wetek stuff but my box is cheap chinese trash where the
ota-update have a failure.
Well, it's working but the pvr will not work (said no connection but 127.0.0.1
is already set and ports open in my modem...), and a settop box without the
ability to look tv or streams is useless.
any suggestions how to bring the pvr to work? Os is Kodi 15.2 bc jarvis
refused to run on this box.
Most of the versions of Kodi you get bundled with these packages have got no installed PVR support and no release candidates. They are sold purely as streaming candidates.
The only way to get round this is to completely remove the Kodi version and reinstall it from scratch. This will lose all the preconfigured Addons but most of them are useless anyway. Get a release candidate from the Google Play store or from Kodi Foundation and this should either have PVR support built in or should have a release candidate. Its important to get the right PVR support otherwise it will fail to load the dll of the addon and will report as broken. I had the self same problem with my Kodi version on my Opensuse Linux box and solved it by making sure that both the Kodi build and the PVR build came from the same source. Its not really a Kodi problem and you will get no help from their forums.
Stephen
"Most are useless anyway", so right. I tried to install the wetek firmware
(device is rooted) but it seems this chinese counterfeits miss a lot of
system settings ....change thru twrp and uboot-button also failed.
I'm clueless what to do.
Mine settled down quite nicely in the end. I could be running Openelec if it had AV plug support. As it is I settled for nothing fancy - but a version of KITKAT firmware with a fresh install of Kodi from the Google Playstore, has been working OK for months. Any of the WETEK ROMs are likely to be unsatisfactory. Go back to the post where I point out the specific two ROM's which worked for me and use the ROM burning tool from Amlogic. There is very little to be gained by trying to get anything more complex working.
Stephen
lost finding right firmware
please dont be mad if i did something wrong in this forum i have never post before or subscribe on any forum but here i am very confused with my box (sorry no picture) but here are the spec as a friend opened it once for me :
m8s box from ott (M8S on the top and the sticker on the bottom of the box)
inside amlogic s802b and wifi 6330
connect succes with usb burning tool
didnt find the right firmware, the only one that worked had no wifi no bluetooth and remote issue (with color button) i tried several firmware but invain, your are my last hope,
not looking for openlec, just an android rom sorry again and thanks in advance
Hello. I have been given this box by a friend as it as misbehaving. I flashed it with the latest MX firmware(1.6) and now it wont boot. It gives me a blue light and the box is seen by my PC and USB Burning tool. I cannot get into recovery mode with the tooth pick method. I also tried Bennies magic files with now luck. I dont know what firmware was on the box originaly but it had Openelec installed. The Board is a HD18 V2.22. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
kPATm said:
Hello. I have been given this box by a friend as it as misbehaving. I flashed it with the latest MX firmware(1.6) and now it wont boot. It gives me a blue light and the box is seen by my PC and USB Burning tool. I cannot get into recovery mode with the tooth pick method. I also tried Bennies magic files with now luck. I dont know what firmware was on the box originaly but it had Openelec installed. The Board is a HD18 V2.22. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
kPATm, did you have any luck or receive any help elsewhere? I'm in the same position as you
I have not mate. I keep coming back to it after a few months. I just looking into it again and thats how I found my old post. Sorry
maiz box
i got the box two and not boot up and no recovery it had Openelec and kodi 14.2 got no firmware for it
Hi folks, I'm hoping someone can help me unbrick my MXQ Pro 4k. I've searched high and low for the stock firmware but it is nowhere to be found. My box seems to be a peculiar variant and the specs are as follow:
S905x 1GB/8GB S905XQ_V2.0 2017.05.16
SV6051P Wifi
SK Hynix H27UCG812ETR DDR3
It became bricked when I tried to flash different atvXperience firmware img files with the Amlogic USB burn tool. I had successfully flashed it with a version posted by minixfreak on the freaktab forums.
Although not with exactly the same specs, it worked pretty well except for the remote control wouldn't function. So I tried to flash again with what I thought was the stock firmware but unfortunately, that bricked the box pretty good. I tried to revert to the atvXperience firmware that worked from the post, but it now always fails at 7% when trying to format with USB tool. In all cases, I've tried every possible combination of pushing in the reset button in the AV port, shorting the NAND pins, switching the order of USB ports... The box always has a red light when powered and is always recognized by the USB Burn Tool driver when connected to the OTG port on the box but always stops at 7% when it attempts to format.
I hooked up a serial usb/ttl cable to capture boot output, turned on the box and it seems the box is in an infinite loop with the following output:
LOOP:8F;EMMC:800;NAND:85;SD:800;USB:8;LOOP:90;EMMC :800;NAND:85;SD:800;USB:8. It appears the bootloader is corrupt or maybe has been erased.
I tried making a bootable sd card using both burncard maker and bootcard maker but that didn't work either as it can't get past intial boot attempt, even pressing reset or shorting nand pins. I'm not sure if it's because of the boot loop or perhaps incorrect firmware. I haven't been able to find the definitive stock firmware anywhere. I would appreciate help in finding this elusive firmware.
I've scoured the internet for a solution and tried many different things but nothing can get me out of this loop. I'm now at a dead end.
I once had a bricked router that I was able to fix by connecting usb/ttl and putty and repeatedly hitting Ctrl-C after rebooting to get a CFE prompt. At that point I was able to manually flash the router with firmware and revive it. Maybe there's a tool available that would possibly do something like that with the android box?
Also possible I guess that something in the hardware is toast and it's just a paper weight now. Anyway, any help and suggestions would be appreciated.
Hi All
I'm hoping somone has run into this and can share some advice.
Looks like i might have loaded the wrong firmware as my device is no longer being detected by AMLogic Burning Tool or Windows. Here is the device i have https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32811389146.html
I've tried the reset within the AV port which worked when I first flashed atvX-v4.1-S905W (which i should have kept it as it worked flawless) but i was curious and ended up loading the wrong version.
Now when I power it on, i just get red light. nothing on the screen. Nothing else. No response from the AV reset port.
I've read some people talking about shorting pin's but every box seems to be different and couldn't find anyone with instructions for the box i have.
Anyone run into this by any chance?
Face_11 said:
Hi All
I'm hoping somone has run into this and can share some advice.
Looks like i might have loaded the wrong firmware as my device is no longer being detected by AMLogic Burning Tool or Windows. Here is the device i have https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32811389146.html
I've tried the reset within the AV port which worked when I first flashed atvX-v4.1-S905W (which i should have kept it as it worked flawless) but i was curious and ended up loading the wrong version.
Now when I power it on, i just get red light. nothing on the screen. Nothing else. No response from the AV reset port.
I've read some people talking about shorting pin's but every box seems to be different and couldn't find anyone with instructions for the box i have.
Anyone run into this by any chance?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just tracing through back what I did and I believe I flashed it with S905X. Since then, all that I see is red LED and the windows no longer detects the device when pressing the reset button.
Anyone have any suggestions or is this box pretty much scrap at this point?
hey, no this box is far from scrap, you need to identify what nand/EMMC chip is in your box to figure out pins to short
Hi have same problem what I do box not deciding TV box on standby mood please help me if you do
This box was constantly freezing. Read somewhere that it requires a new firmware. The firmware that was on the box when I got it was 20181229. Tried to install a new firmware TANIX TX3 MAX & MINI "DUAL OS EDITION from usb stick using the method according to Tanix-box.com website " UPDATE FROM TF/USB MEMORY" . The software was loading fairly slowly so I stepped away for a moment and when I returned I had a blank screen on TV. Rebooted the box but only received the boot display and a black screen. realized I had bricked the box, Tried to download the same software using the usb burning tool but no go. I then tried the firmware TANIX TX3 MINI 20171220 using the usb burning tool. It downloads for about 7 seconds and then stops with an error. Obviously the wrong file. Here are the pics of my card. Sure hope someone can help me out. If I have to short a pin can you give me some details as I am pretty new at this. I do now have the original firmware and have looked everywhere, but can't find it. Thanks for any help on this issue, I've been reading and looking for a solution foe quit some time now.
Latest development, using USB Burning tool I loaded TX3Mini-20181210.img with no errors. I connected to TV and the T3 Mini logo cam on and the the android logo came on and was booting for just over 1 minute and then stopped and the display on the box was 0001.
billyfreeman said:
This box was constantly freezing. Read somewhere that it requires a new firmware. The firmware that was on the box when I got it was 20181229. Tried to install a new firmware TANIX TX3 MAX & MINI "DUAL OS EDITION from usb stick using the method according to Tanix-box.com website " UPDATE FROM TF/USB MEMORY" . The software was loading fairly slowly so I stepped away for a moment and when I returned I had a blank screen on TV. Rebooted the box but only received the boot display and a black screen. realized I had bricked the box, Tried to download the same software using the usb burning tool but no go. I then tried the firmware TANIX TX3 MINI 20171220 using the usb burning tool. It downloads for about 7 seconds and then stops with an error. Obviously the wrong file. Here are the pics of my card. Sure hope someone can help me out. If I have to short a pin can you give me some details as I am pretty new at this. I do now have the original firmware and have looked everywhere, but can't find it. Thanks for any help on this issue, I've been reading and looking for a solution foe quit some time now.
Latest development, using USB Burning tool I loaded TX3Mini-20181210.img with no errors. I connected to TV and the T3 Mini logo cam on and the the android logo came on and was booting for just over 1 minute and then stopped and the display on the box was 0001.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I installed TX3 mini 20181210.img on the box nd it worked. But the box is still freexing. Anyone else having this issue?
billyfreeman said:
I installed TX3 mini 20181210.img on the box nd it worked. But the box is still freexing. Anyone else having this issue?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yo could try my custom Android TV 9 ROM, there are tx3 versions available, may work for you but no guarantees,
aidanmacgregor said:
Yo could try my custom Android TV 9 ROM, there are tx3 versions available, may work for you but no guarantees,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No doesn't work. Keep getting getinitial error