Customising the JUSTOP Android 4.0 TV Box

[GerryActive]

I haven't found a link to this anywhere but if it has already been done elsewhere then can you give me a link so I can move over.

Anyway.. as the supplier support seems to have dried up across all JUSTOP products, and their forum seems to be dying, I thought I would have a go at customising the image file.

There are a lot of clever people out there who have worked out how to get into the various Android images and there is a mountain of information/tutorials on how to do it all. If you can join up the dots then it really is possible to unpack your downloaded image file and make all the changes you need. Then repack the image and load it back onto the box.

I have stripped out all the apps that I don't want and loaded up the apps that I do want. Changed the setup config eg: UK/english/GMT and switched off the TvdLauncher so that it boots as a normal Android tablet. It works faster than ever and doesn't need so much configuration at first startup.

If anyone is interested on the theme of customisation then we can together find all the switches and levers to get this box customised to the max. I can help with the image unpack/edit/repack bit but I don't want to reproduce the clever stuff that others have done. I can point to their work and help with some of the more difficult bits though.

This is the TV Box that I am talking about:
JUSTOP Android 4.0 TV Box - MPA040BKT
JUSTOP_A054_V1.8.1_20130809_ytb_fix.img << The most stable image file

OK I know it's an old box now but I still use mine and the latest ones don't seem much better.

[GerryActive]

So there don't seem to be any users of this box...
Anyone know what forums they are on ?

Now customising JellyBean 4.1 which is working pretty well.
Just a few more tweeks and it will be good.

[grogan197]

I use this box too, shame about the odd firmware issues otherwise it could be a great box.

My main issue is apps aren't able to write files to usb / external sd card

[GerryActive]

I use this box too, shame about the odd firmware issues otherwise it could be a great box. My main issue is apps aren't able to write files to usb / external sd card

That is to do with the permissions in the system/etc/permissions/platform.xml file.
Look for the section on external write and edit it to this.

<permission name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE">
<group gid="sdcard_rw"/>
<group gid="media_rw"/>
</permission>

That will give you USB writing.
There are two SD memory areas. Internal SD and external SD.
I haven't written to the external SD card myself so I don't know if this also works for that.
If it doesn't then you could try adding this line.

<group gid="sdcard_r"/>

The box is pretty good if you can get in and alter it to your own requirements. Info is difficult to come by tho. As you can see I am currently customising JellyBean 4.1 and am quite impressed with how smooth it is compared to ICS and seems to be faster.

Fixes include:
Flashes in under 10 mins (light stops flashing)
Rooted
English settings
Stable operation
Remote control works (except mouse button)
USB read/write

Also:
Play Store/wireless connection/USB keyboard fully working
"App not responding" messages are history

There are no audio and video settings. So no external audio. HDMI resolution is fixed. Have to live with that until JB4.3 or later. Don't think I will be going back to ICS. Trying to find a JB4.3 image that I can unpack to customise for this box.

If enough people are interested I could look to set up a download file but there don't appear to many users left.

[grogan197]

Thanks for that fix. I've just made the changes on the box and tried to download a file to usb and it works

Very happy, I'd been trying to sort this for ages and had wasted time flashing different roms to see if that helped.

Sounds like your JB customisations are coming along well. I tried flashing JB when I was looking for the usb writing fix but couldn't even get it to boot fully.

[GerryActive]

Thanks for that fix. I've just made the changes on the box and tried to download a file to usb and it works

Very happy, I'd been trying to sort this for ages and had wasted time flashing different roms to see if that helped.

Sounds like your JB customisations are coming along well. I tried flashing JB when I was looking for the usb writing fix but couldn't even get it to boot fully.

Glad to help.

The two beta JB downloads from JUSTOP are broken. The first does load (just wait 20 mins !) but the settings are way out. The second has a broken BOOT partition and doesn't load. I had a look and there aren't any useful changes in the second one. It's actually an earlier development version. I think they lost their tec and just published what was available.

[drinksbud]

Hi GerryActive
I have one of these Justop boxes and it works quite well. I installed firmware 1.8 with the youtube fix but I am having problems with insufficient memory although there is 8gb onboard and only 3 apps installed.
I read that you have firmware working on your justop 4.0 smart tv box. Any chance of a copy of your 4.1 firmware. Did you manage to get 4.3 working.

Thanks.

[GerryActive]

Hi GerryActive
I have one of these Justop boxes and it works quite well. I installed firmware 1.8 with the youtube fix but I am having problems with insufficient memory although there is 8gb onboard and only 3 apps installed.
I read that you have firmware working on your justop 4.0 smart tv box. Any chance of a copy of your 4.1 firmware. Did you manage to get 4.3 working.

I thought the box only came with 1GB RAM + 4GB NAND Flash (internal sdcard). Can you give more info on how the problem manifests itself and how your xtra onboard memory is connected and how it is used. I don't have any such problems.

The best/latest ICS firmware is V1.8.1 - not sure if that is what you have. - ie: JUSTOP_A054_V1.8.1_20130809_ytb_fix.img

You can get messages about Apps not responding and do you want to close them. This is not a bug. It is a "feature" of ICS and you should wait for the program to catch up. I have read that its due to sloppy programming by the app writers.

Maybe your firmware is broken in some way. It does happen after some use. I have had memory disppear/become read only.
Check in settings/storage to see what memory is available/used for each partition and device.
Re-flashing should fix it. A real pain - which is why I wanted to customise the image to reduce the setting up afterwards.

I think JB4.3 maybe a step too far for this box. Unless a manufacturer comes up with an image that is suitable then I don't think that it will be possible. Just started looking at Cubieboard images which seem to be very similar and are still under development. They are now at JB4.2. The changes may be too difficult for me - to early to tell.

I wrote earlier that I wasn't going back to ICS but then I found a "show stopper". There isn't a problem with JB4.1 as such but the standard browser won't stream flash videos and I haven't found any others that will either to a good enough standard. In ICS the standard browser plays pretty well apart from the variable lip sync. Tried swapping the browser from ICS and JB4.3 but neither installed so I'm back to ICS.

A copy of 4.1 is possible. Any clue on how to do it as it's a big file.

[drinksbud]

Hi GerryActive
The unit I have has android smart tv written on the box and boots up with the justop logo. When I look at the storage it has 1gb internal and further down the list it has another internal storage with available 5.32gb. This is not an sd card or usb. I can save to it as sd card but I don't have one installed. Thanks for taking the time to help.
I installed JUSTOP_A054_V1.8_20130116.img last night and it seems to be a little better but problems with youtube.
Thanks
Gerry(me)

[GerryActive]

Hi GerryActive
The unit I have has android smart tv written on the box and boots up with the justop logo. When I look at the storage it has 1gb internal and further down the list it has another internal storage with available 5.32gb. This is not an sd card or usb. I can save to it as sd card but I don't have one installed. Thanks for taking the time to help.
I installed JUSTOP_A054_V1.8_20130116.img last night and it seems to be a little better but problems with youtube.

Surprised that the JB firmware didn't work for you. I flashed this many times as I tried out different ideas and didn't get one failure. Maybe connected with your other problems. Could it be errors occuring during the flash. Have you tried different SD cards for flashing. Could be unstable power supply which need a bit more juice during flash.

My storage reports 0.98Gb free + 200Mb applications (RAM) and 1.42Gb which comes up as internal SD card. So that means the Android OS occupies 2.58Gb of the rest of the memory. Yours just seems bigger.

Version 1.8 does have probs with youtube but 1.8.1 should work OK. (apart from variable lipsync).
The JUSTOP screen logo is only on the 1.8.1 firmware AFAIK (but there are 2 versions up to 1.8 one for old and one for new remote and I only get the old)

[drinksbud]

Thanks GerryActive for the help.
I have installed 1.8 with the youtube fix and it is working well. It seems that the box I have is not justop but mostly compatible with their firmware. As it is hard to update and is lacking a little in the cpu / gpu dept.
I think I will give this box to my kids and get something with a quad core.

Thanks again.

[GerryActive]

Script.bin Exposed and Explained

This is the script.bin file (converted to fex to be readable) from version 1.8.1 which I have used in JB4.1
It defines various aspects of how the SoC (system on a chip) works on the JUSTOP TV Box. It configures the GPIO pins and sets up DRAM, Display, etc

script.txt

Here is a description of what the settings do.

http://linux-sunxi.org/Fex_Guide

Just wish I could find the config file for the kernel.