Solution for stuck in Android load AML8726-MX Dual Core TV Box Android 4.2.2

[kerikhaos]

NEW UPDATE - AUGUST FULLY LOADED 15.1 KODI RESTORE FILE NOW AVAILABLE

http://www.vectordroid.com/vectordroidforums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=355

This is compatible on both android and windows users. Just follow instructions how to use the restore file. Grab it now and enjoy kodi as it was meant to be.

note:
tweaks have been made to the accelerator settings in this restore file to give the best possible kodi experience for all android blood line boxes (MX2, MXQ, M8, M8N, M8C and M8S). Tested and working 100%

[leestow]

Thank Thank u Kerikhaos. I was unaware of that info. I was under Impression that I couldn't run matricom firmware on cmx mx2 box. After looking at vector Droid I am unsure. Can u confirm?

[doan2005]

leestow,

Can you give me a simple guide in list format on how to make the recovery SD in ubuntu. I am running a test use of ubuntu and trying to make the SD card.

Thanks


Update: Ignore the above. I managed to get uart to display the below. My question is how do i get a terminal to pop up so I can enter the commands? Putty is open but I can't seem to type anything.




EEEE I3000000032940xf300110303;77520EEEE I400000004294_M6_BL1_3431>2534313
TE : 411834
BT : 07:56:57 Apr 4 2015

CPU clock is 1200MHz

wait pll-0x03 target is 0198 now it is 0x00000197

DDR clock is 408MHz with Low Power & 1T mode

DDR training :
DX0DLLCR:40000000
DX0DQTR:ffffffff
DX0DQSTR:3db04001
DX1DLLCR:40000000
DX1DQTR:ffffffff
DX1DQSTR:3db04001
DX2DLLCR:40000000
DX2DQTR:ffffffff
DX2DQSTR:3db04001
DX3DLLCR:40000000
DX3DQTR:ffffffff
DX3DQSTR:3db04001
Stage 00 Result 00000000
Stage 01 Result 00000000
Stage 02 Result 00000000
Stage 03 Result 00000000

DDR init use : 42507 us

HHH
CLK81=199Mhz
0x12345678
Boot from ext dev
TE : 619277

System Started

[leestow]

U must short pins 7 and 8 on spi chip. That's small chip located next to nand that has 8 legs (4 on each side). Pin 1 has a dot on corner. Pin 8 Is opposite corner. Short those 2 pins with a small screwdriver or something small and metallic. U must short with sd card In and while plugging In power cord. Have uart attached with putty running. This shorting will cause box to boot with bootloader on sd card that u made earlier since bootloader on box is most likely corrupted. Then u should see different boot sequence on putty. Press enter on keyboard a few times until it comes up with a sorta command terminal where u can type commands. Hope this helps.

[leestow]

Make sd card in ubuntu by extracting script on desktop. U should have 1 folder called bootloaders and a file called MakeRecoverySD. Open the terminal and type these commands:

sudo su
cd /Desktop
mount

This should give u a list of mounted drives (make sure ur sd card Is Inserted Into computer). Locate which one Is ur sdcard. Look at bytes and compare to ur sdcards size. Mine was and 4 gb card and was something like 3800000 but not exact. And mine was also mounted and let /dev/mmcblkp01
MAKE SURE U USE CORRECT MOUNT POINT BEFORE NEXT COMMAND!!! U DON'T WANT TO ERASE HARD DRIVE!!!
Try running mount command without sdcard inserted andthen run command with sdcard inserted to make sure u have right mount point.
then type:
./MakeRecoverySD /dev/mmcblkp01 (substitute ur drive of course)

It will run script and when it asks u if u installed g18ref firmware say yes.

Make sure to have sd card in computer. Make sure u use uppercase and lowercase letters accordingly. Linux commands have to be exact. Hope this helps.

Also: if shorting pins 7 and 8 on spi doesn't work. Try shorting pins 1 and 2. That worked for me also.

[kerikhaos]

Thank Thank u Kerikhaos. I was unaware of that info. I was under Impression that I couldn't run matricom firmware on cmx mx2 box. After looking at vector Droid I am unsure. Can u confirm?

Hi leestow,

with CMX like every other compatible matricom midnight board (apart from clone boards) you can successfully jump to matricom firmware. The problem is the current firmware which are on the boxes before you attempt this jump. We have issued a very detailed post in the vectordroid forum explaining what is needed to be done to take the box successfully to matricom. It involves having to downlgrade to a very older MBOX firmware first then using the original matricom 1.1.5 firmware to upgrade. This is used to also get to a successful 1.1.6 matricom firmware ready for openelec. benni method for magic disk does not successfully upgrade to 1.1.6 on most boxes and suggests that no disk space is available to do anything. A problem with the bad MTD layout caused by the magic disk recovery.

Our members have emailed approving our vectordroid jump methods allowing them to use openelec on the MX2 boxes where before it was mission impossible

hope the info helps

[kerikhaos]

leestow,

Can you give me a simple guide in list format on how to make the recovery SD in ubuntu. I am running a test use of ubuntu and trying to make the SD card.

Thanks


Update: Ignore the above. I managed to get uart to display the below. My question is how do i get a terminal to pop up so I can enter the commands? Putty is open but I can't seem to type anything.




EEEE I3000000032940xf300110303;77520EEEE I400000004294_M6_BL1_3431>2534313
TE : 411834
BT : 07:56:57 Apr 4 2015

CPU clock is 1200MHz

wait pll-0x03 target is 0198 now it is 0x00000197

DDR clock is 408MHz with Low Power & 1T mode

DDR training :
DX0DLLCR:40000000
DX0DQTR:ffffffff
DX0DQSTR:3db04001
DX1DLLCR:40000000
DX1DQTR:ffffffff
DX1DQSTR:3db04001
DX2DLLCR:40000000
DX2DQTR:ffffffff
DX2DQSTR:3db04001
DX3DLLCR:40000000
DX3DQTR:ffffffff
DX3DQSTR:3db04001
Stage 00 Result 00000000
Stage 01 Result 00000000
Stage 02 Result 00000000
Stage 03 Result 00000000

DDR init use : 42507 us

HHH
CLK81=199Mhz
0x12345678
Boot from ext dev
TE : 619277

System Started

be aware also that during the formatting process in UART take note of the messages. If you see a message claiming BAD FACTORY NAND (or similar) CNX are famous for these bad chips - you will not be able to successfully flash a full working system. It will be unstable and crash and cause many other problems because the NAND was already faulty before the used it in their boards. We discovered this from our members sending us a high number of clone boards, some CNX ones. Thats why they are cheaper. The parts used were labelled defective and you can only see this message when attempting fixes in UART.

[leestow]

be aware also that during the formatting process in UART take note of the messages. If you see a message claiming BAD FACTORY NAND (or similar) CNX are famous for these bad chips - you will not be able to successfully flash a full working system. It will be unstable and crash and cause many other problems because the NAND was already faulty before the used it in their boards. We discovered this from our members sending us a high number of clone boards, some CNX ones. Thats why they are cheaper. The parts used were labelled defective and you can only see this message when attempting fixes in UART.

I just wanna note that I also believe it depends on how many bad factory blocks are on the nand. I had 3 bad blocks I believe, but I was able to successfully flash ember and have been running it smoothly now for a few weeks. No crashes or anything. Smooth as silk. But as kerikhaos said, too many of those and u r ready for the trash bin.

[doan2005]

Make sd card in ubuntu by extracting script on desktop. U should have 1 folder called bootloaders and a file called MakeRecoverySD. Open the terminal and type these commands:

sudo su
cd /Desktop
mount

This should give u a list of mounted drives (make sure ur sd card Is Inserted Into computer). Locate which one Is ur sdcard. Look at bytes and compare to ur sdcards size. Mine was and 4 gb card and was something like 3800000 but not exact. And mine was also mounted and let /dev/mmcblkp01
MAKE SURE U USE CORRECT MOUNT POINT BEFORE NEXT COMMAND!!! U DON'T WANT TO ERASE HARD DRIVE!!!
Try running mount command without sdcard inserted andthen run command with sdcard inserted to make sure u have right mount point.
then type:
./MakeRecoverySD /dev/mmcblkp01 (substitute ur drive of course)

It will run script and when it asks u if u installed g18ref firmware say yes.

Make sure to have sd card in computer. Make sure u use uppercase and lowercase letters accordingly. Linux commands have to be exact. Hope this helps.

Also: if shorting pins 7 and 8 on spi doesn't work. Try shorting pins 1 and 2. That worked for me also.

I tried it but no luck. However, with all the stuff I downloaded during initial research, I used a ms-dos program dd.exe to create a bootable SD. Next, I used the files (renamed aml_autoscript and bootloader.img) along with the ember recovery (in my case I used the G02REF). Once the SD card was prepared, I shorted pins 7 & 8 and uart showed me real promise and the light turned blue. I was able to hit enter to interrupt the boot and popped a terminal. From there on out it was a breeze with your instructions (thanks to ember team).

Hope this helps others when they get a stuck red light.

Thanks leestow and kerikhaos for your help and input!

Now my dilemma is using the Amazon FireTV box or the MX2 Ember box.

[leestow]

I tried it but no luck. However, with all the stuff I downloaded during initial research, I used a ms-dos program dd.exe to create a bootable SD. Next, I used the files (renamed aml_autoscript and bootloader.img) along with the ember recovery (in my case I used the G02REF). Once the SD card was prepared, I shorted pins 7 & 8 and uart showed me real promise and the light turned blue. I was able to hit enter to interrupt the boot and popped a terminal. From there on out it was a breeze with your instructions (thanks to ember team).

Hope this helps others when they get a stuck red light.

Thanks leestow and kerikhaos for your help and input!

Now my dilemma is using the Amazon FireTV box or the MX2 Ember box.

That's great u got it working! I love ember. I also have fire tv stick but like ember better. They also have Ota updates if u donate $10. I don't recieve anything if u decide to donate I just really appreciate everything they do and hope others do also. So far ember has worked flawlessly for me and it also has the added function of using the power button to turn off and on ur box.

[doan2005]

If anyone needs/wants the dd.exe I used I can upload it and share the link.

[leestow]

If anyone needs/wants the dd.exe I used I can upload it and share the link.

If u would please upload with direction on how u made card since some people may not be familiar with linux

[smilez]

Is there a video for uart?? I've been dealing with this stuck boot for a long time. Customers got tired of dealing with me for having to reflash it every time it got stuck. So I gave them half of there money back. I got 9 mx boxes that I would to fix.

[leestow]

No video sorry. This is tue most comprehensive tutorial as far as i know. And i looked everywhere before i contacted someone with more knowledge than myself. Just follow directions and u should be fine. If u have any questions just ask and I'll try and help.

[kerikhaos]

Is there a video for uart?? I've been dealing with this stuck boot for a long time. Customers got tired of dealing with me for having to reflash it every time it got stuck. So I gave them half of there money back. I got 9 mx boxes that I would to fix.

You wont find a tutorial because there are too many variables at stake and no one wants responsibility making a small problem into a big one. As leestow provided the best link to a UART connection is from the link he has posted already. UART which goes wrong could blow the board completely and worse so its the last resort for people who have some soldering knowledge and are quite computer savvy.

As to getting UART to work we have found that even on the same motherboards the procedures vary to get a good result. Its not always follow A to B as it is a really random execution and the results will always most likely be flakey. We have had to do extra things like short pins 7-9 on SPI, short pins 5-6 on SPI, short pins 7-8 on nand, even bypass some contacts just to get a result on putty but again still there is a percentage of boxes who dont want to wake up and they need overall nand replacements or spi replacements. Sometimes ICs go bad and power regulators on the board. They are so cheap now to buy we do not recommend users paying for these repairs and just pick up a new one with warranty. Our boxes over at www.vectordroid.com are all genuine and we hardly get anyone contacting us because of red light bricks or firmware deletion or corruption. They just work and our firmware upgrades and recovery are all posted in or forum for easy self maintenance.

I really feel sorry for those who end up buying bad batches of clone boxes. There is no way for people to know what they are buying until someone does a UART connection and sees the defective nand and chip.

Best thing to do (as we recommend to our clients) remove the motherboards from the boxes and send them to vectordroid for free attempt to repair. The only thing it will cost you will be the delivery if the repair cant be completed. The weight of a motherboard will be very cheap to send rather than the entire box itself. We dont need any extra items such as cables or remotes. We just need the motherboard (or the whole ox if you arent confident removing the board)

hope this info helps