Strange behaviour and lost settings after reboot

[superfreak79]

The problem is strange behaviours and lost settings after reboot. Issues I've seen include: sdcard not mounted; custom remote.conf stopped working; XBMC addons reset to stock; lost Android home screen background; fan art not displaying in XBMC; and having preinstalled apps show up after uninstalling them.

My setup is a generic ATV1200 box that has been flashed with the Geniatech firmware. This box is literally identical to the ATV1200 except it has a layer of proprietary software that I can't access (that's all I'm going to say about the original box and firmware ). So I flashed the two Geniatech firmware files from 20130805: 1) SPI and 2) STVMX.

After initial boot-up, I have root (thanks Geniatech) and uninstalled the bloat apps. I reconfigure Android to my liking and setup addons/menus in XBMC. I even remapped the remote to work with Geniatech firmware. Things are going very good for my box... until I reset or power off for a period of time.

I unplugged the box last night and let it sit until this afternoon. Now when I power it up again, the preinstalled apps are coming back again and my XBMC setup is jacked. I even lost the modified remote.conf file (double bummer). The android home screen and wallpaper is still there - but sometimes it isn't. There was another time that my sdcard wasn't mounted after reboot and so I couldnt have any changes to sdcard. That was weird and apps were automatically saving to external sdcard.

I did some reading about the sdcard mount issue and found others using Android who said it could be that cache or partitions need to be wiped post firmware installation. So I now flash firmware and then do wipe/reset from recovery before initial Android boot up. That seems to have solved the sdcard mount problem (I think).

Has anyone seen similar behaviour from other AMLOGIC 8726-MX boxes? Is there an explanation for why this might be occurring? How can I fix these problems?

Thanks in advance and my apologies for double-post across two discussion boards.

[superfreak79]

Following up to my first post...

The serial communication log tells me the stock device is "Machine: Amlogic Meson6 g02 customer platform".

And the stock MTD layout is...

0x000000800000-0x000000c00000 : "logo"
0x000000c00000-0x000001400000 : "boot"
0x000001400000-0x000021400000 : "system"
0x000021400000-0x000040800000 : "cache"
0x000040800000-0x000053400000 : "backup"
0x000053400000-0x0000b3400000 : "userdata"
0x0000b3400000-0x0000fe000000 : "NFTL_Part"

After flashing Geniatech 20130805 firmware the MTD is...

0x00400000-0x00400000 : "logo"
0x00800000-0x00400000 : "boot"
0x20000000-0x00400000 : "system"
0x1f400000-0x00400000 : "cache"
0x12c00000-0x00400000 : "backup"
0x60000000-0x00400000 : "userdata"
0x4ac00000-0x00001000 : "NFTL_Part"

Did I make a mistake assuming it was okay to flash the Geniatech SPI/ROM? The chip inside the box says AML8726-MX and so I just assumed it was okay.

Cheers

[shaunmt]

I think these post flash partition mounting issues seem to be common among all Amlogic devices. I see them on the Nextbooks, and have read about them on the Ainol series and elsewhere.

Be aware dalvik cache is located on /data.

Also, in my experience wiping once, doesn't always work. I usually recommend wiping twice before rebooting to fix these issues.

I wonder if we should start putting a double wipe at the end of our updater-scripts????

ShaunMT

[superfreak79]

I think these post flash partition mounting issues seem to be common among all Amlogic devices. I see them on the Nextbooks, and have read about them on the Ainol series and elsewhere.

Be aware dalvik cache is located on /data.

Also, in my experience wiping once, doesn't always work. I usually recommend wiping twice before rebooting to fix these issues.

I wonder if we should start putting a double wipe at the end of our updater-scripts????

ShaunMT

Thanks Shaun. I hope you can answer a few questions.

What is dalvik cache and what is the implication of it being located at /data? I assume it's related to flashing a new MTD or firmware.

When I wipe a device, I usually take the kitchen sink approach - that is factory/media/cache. Is that what you'd consider a proper wipe?

Should I try to restore the original MTD layout? I'm not quite understanding what harm a new layout would be as long as the firmware matched it.

[shaunmt]

Thanks Shaun. I hope you can answer a few questions.

What is dalvik cache and what is the implication of it being located at /data? I assume it's related to flashing a new MTD or firmware.

When I wipe a device, I usually take the kitchen sink approach - that is factory/media/cache. Is that what you'd consider a proper wipe?

Should I try to restore the original MTD layout? I'm not quite understanding what harm a new layout would be as long as the firmware matched it.

My understanding is dalvik cache is cache for the java virtulization program. It should probably be wiped on every ROM install. Because it's in /data instead of it's own partition, you have to wipe all of data to clear it.

Media should not need to be wiped, but sometimes that is the only way to fix internal / external sd card mounting problems on Amlogic.

On all the Amlogic ROMs I've worked on the MTD partition layout (size, position, filesystems) is hard coded in the kernel. I don't have any alternate kernels, nor have I learned to compile one, so I leave the partition layout and filesystems alone.

ShaunMT

[superfreak79]

My understanding is dalvik cache is cache for the java virtulization program. It should probably be wiped on every ROM install. Because it's in /data instead of it's own partition, you have to wipe all of data to clear it.

Media should not need to be wiped, but sometimes that is the only way to fix internal / external sd card mounting problems on Amlogic.

On all the Amlogic ROMs I've worked on the MTD partition layout (size, position, filesystems) is hard coded in the kernel. I don't have any alternate kernels, nor have I learned to compile one, so I leave the partition layout and filesystems alone.

ShaunMT

Thanks Shaun. Based on that you've said, I'm going to chalk up the "strange behaviour" to not wiping enough. I'll to a double or triple wipe moving forwards. Does each (factory, media, cache) need to be done individually or does factory do all three?

[shaunmt]

Thanks Shaun. Based on that you've said, I'm going to chalk up the "strange behaviour" to not wiping enough. I'll to a double or triple wipe moving forwards. Does each (factory, media, cache) need to be done individually or does factory do all three?

Theoretically, it should only need to be done once, but in reality that just doesn't seem to be true.

Factory reset wipes data and cache. It does not wipe media It also does not do anything to system (system is assumed to be read only because you can't normally change anything on it.)

ShaunMT

[superfreak79]

Theoretically, it should only need to be done once, but in reality that just doesn't seem to be true.

Factory reset wipes data and cache. It does not wipe media It also does not do anything to system (system is assumed to be read only because you can't normally change anything on it.)

ShaunMT

Thanks. I'll do factory+media x2. Sometimes it feels superstitious to do these things... maybe if I do the rain dance it'll fix it too