[ROM] Unofficial OpenELEC for MK808B+ and MXQ

[sonofdibnah]

People, please could I ask you to read the first entry on page 1 again. The all black mxq in all its variants is a nightmare. If you've bought one, I fully understand why you want it to work BUT there comes a point when you have to admit the mistake and call it a day. The kodi android forum has been similarly swamped with support requests about them. If they could be fixed, it would have happened by now!

The beelink boxes with the red MX on are much better and are supported here by the very patient kszaq. Save yourself a load of grief and buy one! I love mine and want kszaq to have more time to spend on making it even better.

I've set the fuse and await the explosion.

[kszaq]

My box is bricked!!! Please help how do I try and un-brick via USB?

Here's a guide by gcsuri: http://freaktab.com/forum/tv-player-...xq_v03-unbrick

sonofdibnah These are words of reason. Actually, OTT MXQ boxes are not that bad but only if you got factory firmware and you want to tinker a bit (or a lot, depending on your luck) with getting the firmware to work.

[jed]

Well what kszaq was suggesting re back to working android and then 6.0.1.1 is what I did and reported on - see above somewhere and that gave me my MXQ logo back and a working (non incremeneting, non 012345 Mac address) stable IP address. BUT my original bootlader only suspended and not powered off and so with OpenElec on top of it, thats all it does too. So to me, what needs fixing is probably the bootloader, but that would be only for my version of board, so not worth it. The mystery still is that my bootloader+android works the LEDs fine but they get reversed once OpenElec goes on top and so I am happy to fix this myself but I would need to know how to do this - and I dont. I am more than happy to produce an OpenElec for the MXQ_A variety, which is mine, sorting out the poweroff and the LED problem but I dont know how to do this. If I was told how to, in a clear way, I could probably do it, but is there anyone that knows ? Probably only kszaq and if he had to tell me how to do it, it would be longer than him doing it I guess and so I dont blame him for not wanting to do that - so we're stuck with these minor issues with nowhere to go. I have ordered a different MXQ in the hope its native bootloader is better, but what more can I do ? Thanks kszaq for all you have done ! Oh and I do enjoy the tinkering around :-)

[anemeth]

kszaq,

Re: bootloder?

I have a red MXQ with 5.0.8.20 working nicely in NAND. Should I use .tar file to update to 6.0.1.1 or should I use toothpick method and install it from the zip files? Also if the 6.0.1.1 does not work for me can I reinstall (toothpick method) 5.0.8.20 without bricking the box?

[PatrickJB]

Think my box is "hard bricked"! Can't get a dicky bird out of it just the blue LED and that's it. I'll have a bit more of a look around the web but I think it's dead.

[jed]

[/LIST]
A wise thing to do is to replace device tree in kernel with every upgrade with a one working with your unit.

I would love to know how to do this and presumably this is the fix for the LED ? So from what I've read now the LED is reversed *because* something in the device tree for the android build is different to the device tree in the OpenElec build. Is this something that can be tinkered or would it be a complete lesson on compiling and device tree etc that would be needed for someone like me to fix it ? Happy to be a 'deeper' tinkerer ! :-)

[jed]

Think my box is "hard bricked"! Can't get a dicky bird out of it just the blue LED and that's it. I'll have a bit more of a look around the web but I think it's dead.

You should be able to fix by USB flashing using the procedure kszaq gave you. The Android USB image you need is the one you posted in the thread about which builds work with which boards. The file was called "aml_upgrade_package_mxq_20151113.rar" if that helps.

[niros]

I have mk808b+ with openelec 5.9 installed on sd card and would like to upgrade to 6.x

From github I understand that I should update recovery as well.

What should be done first? update recovery and then update openelec or vise-versa?

thanks

[PatrickJB]

Can't get the box to be recognised by burning tool. USB to USB burning, let windows 10 install unsigned drivers and still won't appear on my laptop. Just a blue LED and nothing else! Can you give me a link to the post you're on about, can't remember off hand.

[freezer2k]

My box is bricked!!! Please help how do I try and un-brick via USB?

There are more ways to unbrick those boxes,
I forgot how I did it exactly with mine after flashing the wrong uboot.

But basically what I did with my MXQ, I shorted two NAND flash-pins with a needle, which caused the device to try and reading uboot from SDcard.

Now you can prepare a sdcard with uboot on it (starting sector 0, used dd under Linux). You can do this while still have a FAT partition on it. On the fat partition you can then put the recovery.img and it will boot that. With this, you can re-write the correct uboot to NAND.

[PatrickJB]

There are more ways to unbrick those boxes,
I forgot how I did it exactly with mine after flashing the wrong uboot.

But basically what I did with my MXQ, I shorted two NAND flash-pins with a needle, which caused the device to try and reading uboot from SDcard.

Now you can prepare a sdcard with uboot on it (starting sector 0, used dd under Linux). You can do this while still have a FAT partition on it. On the fat partition you can then put the recovery.img and it will boot that. With this, you can re-write the correct uboot to NAND.

I'm working through this thread at the mo: http://mbox.co.za/forum/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=182 USB method didn't see my box but I may try again with differenrt USB ports. Trying SD card method at mo.

EDIT: Think I've had enough, I've tried everything and no joy! Oh well let this be a lesson to us all if you get one of these running pretty well, leave it alone! So I'm looking for a new one, what do people recommend?

[JoeyDaPhish]

I'm working through this thread at the mo: http://mbox.co.za/forum/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=182 USB method didn't see my box but I may try again with differenrt USB ports. Trying SD card method at mo.

EDIT: Think I've had enough, I've tried everything and no joy! Oh well let this be a lesson to us all if you get one of these running pretty well, leave it alone! So I'm looking for a new one, what do people recommend?

I got my all black MXQ to show up in the usb burning tool and under windows 10 device manager by using the USB4 (Port on back near the spdif port) with an Type A to Type A usb cable Holding the reset button for about 10 seconds after plugging in on usb only and windows chimes that it sees a new device. if I let go too soon it just stopped finding the device like it was unplugged. Make sure you have installed the USB Burning tool so the drivers are available. Worked for me.

[PatrickJB]

OK almost sorted, just getting my backup loaded. WHAT A FRIGGING NIGHTMARE!!!!

[Mudda_funkA]

I got my all black MXQ to show up in the usb burning tool and under windows 10 device manager by using the USB4 (Port on back near the spdif port) with an Type A to Type A usb cable Holding the reset button for about 10 seconds after plugging in on usb only and windows chimes that it sees a new device. if I let go too soon it just stopped finding the device like it was unplugged. Make sure you have installed the USB Burning tool so the drivers are available. Worked for me.

never new this

many thanks for the info

[PatrickJB]

OK peeps, I survived! I was sat there with my MXQ board, USB cable, my laptop and a needle and gave it one last shot, I had already given up and figured I was going to have to order a new box, but after poking about on, what is apparently, the Nand memory chip I got my laptop to see the box and install the image!

It was a last ditched attempt and it worked. So all is pretty much back to normal apart from:

1. My wifi antenna wire came loose and I may solder it back but it didn't work properly anyway.
2. Can't boot the box from remote anymore, well I need to unplug it every night anyway, as the USB memory sticks get really hot, so no biggey having to plug it in once a day.
3. On a plus note it does seem a bit smoother / snappier, not that it made up for the stress in anyway!

So I may not be too keen to update in future, think I'll let jed and Kosta lead the way for a while!

Now I am going to try and chill. Goodnight all!