[raymw]

When you got that recovery screen you have shown above Ed, what I then did that worked brilliantly for me, was to power the ATV1200 box off, as I new it was now unbricked and would boot of course. I then removed the empty boot SD card and inserted the SD card I had made with the new EmbER convert files and rebooted simply with the reset button pressed for 10 - 15 seconds (no shorting pins now as not needed at this stage of course) and then waited for a minute or two with the blank screen as you always should.for the installation flashing to commence, once again must repeat NEVER power off at this stage but be patient for several minutes if necessary.

The box then booted of course from the SD card and straight into the Linux installing screen with the progress bar showing the installation was going ahead. When that process finished the installation, then the screen went blank as it auto booted in the usual way into EmbER Linux Helix 14.2. Using the EmbER convert flash files of course I then knew the NAND partitions had been repartitioned and reformatted for the brand new OS as indeed the EmbER information states..

BTW as I said those Linux Empty boot card files are not my work Ed, I just made them easily available to you after I found they worked well for me. The real folk to thank are croniccory and Josh5 at XDA and folk like Auxbox and Bobones here for their excellent advice and all their compiled builds we use and enjoy a lot.

[ed_davidson]

I need some help in figuring what is going on with my ATV1200 boxes. I have 2 of them. I have tried running all version of Helix including Ember.

Everything seems to be working fine one day then the next day I go turn them on and it gets stuck Ina boot loop at the Kodi helix logo. They must have both done it about 5 times now. It seems that the Gotham builds we're never this problematic for me.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Also on the one box no matter what files I use I can't get a new install of Android.

Thanks

[ed_davidson]

On may occasion as well now I have has it booting to a black screen with now way to recover from it apart from reflash. I get the big Kodi logo then a black screen.

Remote will not power the unit back off.

[Syntagma]

Try making a bootable SDCard with this
Format SDCard
Use this u-boot_MX.bin file for the tool.

After the tool is finished, extract all of this zip file to the SDCard.

Unplug the power cord from your device
Plug in the SDCard
Hold the reset
Plug the power cord back in
Release the reset button after 15 seconds

WAIT for at least 2 minutes, DO NOT TURN IT OFF.
Hopefully that works. If not you'll have to open the box and short some pins

I'm desperately trying to revert my ATV1200 back to Android, coming from your Gotham 13.2 build after upgrading to EmbER - but whichever method I try (the one described above, the reversal package provided by EmbER, the HowToRevertToBox4.1.zip from the 1st page of this thread or any other I know of), I always get stuck:

• Power on the box while pressing the upgrade button, waiting 10-15 seconds
  
• Linux/Tux upgrade screen appears (not the Android one)
  
• Loading bar is slowly progressing, suddenly jumps to the end
  
• System boot menu appears, always showing this error:
  Code:

  assert failed: getprop("ro.product.device")=="stvmx" | | getprop("ro.build.product")== "stvmx"

Apart from that, my box seems to work fine - however, I wanted to perform a new & clean installation of XDA Developers Gotham Build 13.2, because since the upgrade to EmbER / Kodi 14.2 and the "downgrade" to XDA Gotham 13.2 my mp4 movies do not play smoothly any more (video hangs every 2-3 seconds, already tried to change that by playing around with the audio/video sync settings with no success) ... with EmbER Kodi 14.2, video playback is fine. However, I think I want to stick to Gotham for a while ...

... so does anybody know what prevents me to revert back to Android?

Many thanks in advance!

[bobones]

After a few months running my own Helix compile from January 27, I finally got around to installing Ember last night. I used the conversion files and it was a pretty painless process. I first backed up my configuration to a USB stick using PuTTY and tar

Code:

tar cvf /media/sda1/kodi.tar .kodi

and then inserted the prepared SD card and typed 'reboot recovery' to kick start the update process. Once it was up and running with WiFi configured I restored my backup

Code:

/etc/init.d/kodi stop; tar xvf /media/sda1/kodi.tar; /etc/init.d/kodi start

and was back to my usual familiar configuration. I can't say I've noticed any massive improvements (perhaps videos load quicker?), but I like that the LED is back to being green! I did also have a problem with subtitles not downloading, but it was easily fixed by changing the subtitle location from "Next to the video" to the Kodi temp folder. Disappointingly the 250ms audio lag bug is still there for some videos, but I am hopeful that the hanging bug may be fixed. I think I'll stick with this build as it seems to work at least as well as the MX Linux Helix builds.

[AuXBoX]

Try making a bootable SDCard with this
Format SDCard
Use this u-boot_MX.bin file for the tool.

After the tool is finished, extract all of this zip file to the SDCard.

Unplug the power cord from your device
Plug in the SDCard
Hold the reset
Plug the power cord back in
Release the reset button after 15 seconds

WAIT for at least 2 minutes, DO NOT TURN IT OFF.
Hopefully that works. If not you'll have to open the box and short some pins

I'm desperately trying to revert my ATV1200 back to Android, coming from your Gotham 13.2 build after upgrading to EmbER - but whichever method I try (the one described above, the reversal package provided by EmbER, the HowToRevertToBox4.1.zip from the 1st page of this thread or any other I know of), I always get stuck:

• Power on the box while pressing the upgrade button, waiting 10-15 seconds
  
• Linux/Tux upgrade screen appears (not the Android one)
  
• Loading bar is slowly progressing, suddenly jumps to the end
  
• System boot menu appears, always showing this error:
  Code:

  assert failed: getprop("ro.product.device")=="stvmx" | | getprop("ro.build.product")== "stvmx"

Apart from that, my box seems to work fine - however, I wanted to perform a new & clean installation of XDA Developers Gotham Build 13.2, because since the upgrade to EmbER / Kodi 14.2 and the "downgrade" to XDA Gotham 13.2 my mp4 movies do not play smoothly any more (video hangs every 2-3 seconds, already tried to change that by playing around with the audio/video sync settings with no success) ... with EmbER Kodi 14.2, video playback is fine. However, I think I want to stick to Gotham for a while ...

... so does anybody know what prevents me to revert back to Android?

Many thanks in advance!

Can you get into recovery?

[ed_davidson]

Try making a bootable SDCard with this
Format SDCard
Use this u-boot_MX.bin file for the tool.

After the tool is finished, extract all of this zip file to the SDCard.

Unplug the power cord from your device
Plug in the SDCard
Hold the reset
Plug the power cord back in
Release the reset button after 15 seconds

WAIT for at least 2 minutes, DO NOT TURN IT OFF.
Hopefully that works. If not you'll have to open the box and short some pins

I'm desperately trying to revert my ATV1200 back to Android, coming from your Gotham 13.2 build after upgrading to EmbER - but whichever method I try (the one described above, the reversal package provided by EmbER, the HowToRevertToBox4.1.zip from the 1st page of this thread or any other I know of), I always get stuck:

• Power on the box while pressing the upgrade button, waiting 10-15 seconds
  
• Linux/Tux upgrade screen appears (not the Android one)
  
• Loading bar is slowly progressing, suddenly jumps to the end
  
• System boot menu appears, always showing this error:
  Code:

  assert failed: getprop("ro.product.device")=="stvmx" | | getprop("ro.build.product")== "stvmx"

Apart from that, my box seems to work fine - however, I wanted to perform a new & clean installation of XDA Developers Gotham Build 13.2, because since the upgrade to EmbER / Kodi 14.2 and the "downgrade" to XDA Gotham 13.2 my mp4 movies do not play smoothly any more (video hangs every 2-3 seconds, already tried to change that by playing around with the audio/video sync settings with no success) ... with EmbER Kodi 14.2, video playback is fine. However, I think I want to stick to Gotham for a while ...

... so does anybody know what prevents me to revert back to Android?

Many thanks in advance!

I had exactly the same issue as you are having. I was stuck on Kodi and couldnt get back to Android. What eventually worked for me was using the empty linux boot SD image whilst shorting the pins. Then using the Android revert to 4.1 zip. This did not work until I tried it many times. I had blue screens Gary screens then finally it booted back into android all the way. Hope this helps.

[AuXBoX]

I've updated the first post to EmbER v1.01

[ed_davidson]

I've updated the first post to EmbER v1.01

Is it possible to put Ember or mxlinux or something similar on a Neo X8? Or is this something you are going to be working on?

Kind Regards

[rukmal12]

Does this work with GBox midnight MX 3

[Syntagma]

[...}
... so does anybody know what prevents me to revert back to Android?

Many thanks in advance!

Can you get into recovery?

I'm not sure what "recovery" exactly is ... after the error message described above is being displayed, there is a menu (above the console output with the error message) offering to boot the system, apply update (*.img), wipe data/cache/media etc. ... if that is "recovery", then: YES.

Is there something that I could do from there on? Should I try to re-apply an image?

Many thanks!

[raymw]

I've updated the first post to EmbER v1.01

Yes tried that AuxBox on a new ATV1220 with default Android and it bricked it using the full convert version on V1.0.1 !! Now this is a very very rare experience for me and indeed I cannot remember any bricking when installing a new Linux build to a default Android build on a G02Ref board box. Recovered the box by shorting the pins and using an Empty Boot SD card this got me back into the recovery screen. Simply then rebooted with reset button and with the V 1.0.0 Ember convert set of files, and as with all other G02Ref boxes I flashed before, I simply had no problems.

With the pin shorting technique I have noticed that nothing happens even holding the shorting pins and the reset button in for a couple of minutes BUT if you then simply remove the pin shorting and reset button, power off the box and reboot still with the boot SD card in and just the reset button held in (no need to short the pins again this time) then you will get into old normal recovery mode. Then simply reboot with the Ember convert file set SD card in instead and of course just the reset button held in for 10-15 seconds in the normal way and bingo you have Ember V1.0.0

So far I strongly recommend staying with V1.0.0 from my experience as have heard of others having problems updating to V1.0.1 with bricked boxes too though do not know whether they did something silly like powering off the box whilst it was updating etc.. One contact of mine registered for the Ember donators edition (as I feel we all should anyway, simply to thank the developers for their hard and excellent work) and entered the code and commenced the update to V1.0.1 and the box went to an auto reboot and from then on nothing and the box will now not boot, just the red light on only. So seems the auto update has bricked his box which surprises me immensely :-(, I do not think he is technically competent enough to unbrick the box so he is probably going to have to post it to me to unbrick it. So by all means donate the US$10 to the Ember team but for now I would not go ahead with the auto update until this is sorted and solidly stable, v 1.0.0 is fine.

[raymw]

I did also have a problem with subtitles not downloading, but it was easily fixed by changing the subtitle location from "Next to the video" to the Kodi temp folder. Disappointingly the 250ms audio lag bug is still there for some videos, but I am hopeful that the hanging bug may be fixed. I think I'll stick with this build as it seems to work at least as well as the MX Linux Helix builds.

Hi Bobones, good to hear from you mate.

Great fix for the subtitles problem with Ember and indeed to works a treat, so many thanks for sharing that one. Was missing my subtitles as I need them for many US series and movies as of course they do not speak pucker true English and I miss so much of what is being said, same is true of course for Scottish content too I did notice that these .srt subtitle small files were left in the temporary folder (assume you meant the /root/.kodi/temp location) so instead I chose to use my SD card to download the subtitles to. So my question is do you know if there is a way to place them somewhere that a reboot will auto delete them to save cluttering up the system and having to manually delete them ??

Yes I to of course notice that 250mS audio bug in fact it is a video lag as I have to delay the audio by 250mS to get lip sync and happens so often it is almost worth considering making the 250mS delay as the default setting.

Yes the the hanging bug is indeed fully fixed with Ember as it says on the package and thus no need for any otherwise unneeded active screen savers now, so you can use none or just the old Dim one again if you prefer.

Ember V1.0.0 is indeed solid and stable so a thumbs up to it. Be glad when the Donators Edition (DE) update is fixed as so far either does not work or has problems when it does for many folk. As I said in an earlier post I still I strongly suggest everyone makes the US$10 donation to the Ember guys (croniccorey and Josh5) just in thanks for their hard and dedicated work for which we all benefit. Until the update problems are fixed though I would suggest staying with Ember V1.0.0 for now.

[raymw]

Try M3_HELIX_020515.zip

Many thanks for that Auxbox.

I Just tried this 020515 version with an old M3 box Auxbox and it fails giving me an error report in the recovery screen showing an assert failure issue. So maybe it needs signing for the M3 boxes possibly ?? I changed the .zip extension to ,img and put it on a USB stick which I accessed from the recovery screen after carrying out a Factory reset and cache/media clear. Installation started normally but then the failure with the assert error and tried twice with same result. Any suggestions on this as would be good to have the latest Linux based Helix of course if no problem.

So I have gone back to using the stable and solid Hydra V2 editions for M3 boxes with Linux KODI Helix 14.0 for my friends and contacts whose old single core boxes I am updating for them from Frodo 12.0.

[AuXBoX]

Try M3_HELIX_020515.zip

Many thanks for that Auxbox.

I Just tried this 020515 version with an old M3 box Auxbox and it fails giving me an error report in the recovery screen showing an assert failure issue. So maybe it needs signing for the M3 boxes possibly ?? I changed the .zip extension to ,img and put it on a USB stick which I accessed from the recovery screen after carrying out a Factory reset and cache/media clear. Installation started normally but then the failure with the assert error and tried twice with same result. Any suggestions on this as would be good to have the latest Linux based Helix of course if no problem.

So I have gone back to using the stable and solid Hydra V2 editions for M3 boxes with Linux KODI Helix 14.0 for my friends and contacts whose old single core boxes I am updating for them from Frodo 12.0.

Which box was it again Raymw?