Just for the record and for others who may have similar problems in the future:
I restored the multitool backup using sudo ./rkdeveloptool wl 0x0 tvbox-backup.data. The unpacked image had no extension. I simply added ".data".
This may have been a mistake, because the box seemed to be really bricked now, because the box doesn't start anymore and no LED lights up.
I no longer get any input via picocom, only brief confused characters when I press the reset button.
Even without pressing the reset button, the box appears via USB as "2207:320a Fuzhou Rockchip Electronics Company RK3288 in Mask ROM mode".
It also does this without me connecting the power supply.
rkdeveloptool can no longer do anything with the box. Every operation "failed".
I removed the battery and left the board without power for a while, but this behaviour does not change.
All right, so now I have plugged in the multi-boot SD card and lo and behold: now I can get back into the multitool. This box seems to be unbrickable.
I installed the above-mentioned Armbian image again, but the screen remains black.
Via picoterm I see that the start-up procedure stops at "Starting kernel ...".
I will now try another image and report back.
Or how would you proceed?
And yes: the device tree is very reminiscent of the Kext (kernel extensions) of macOS, which you sometimes have to deal with if you want to get natively unsupported hardware to work on a Hackintosh.
Unfortunately, I would have to get _some_ OS to work on the box before I could read out the configuration. Dumb.
Edit:
Oh yes, okay, that doesn't work properly, because after the Armbian installation it is again not possible to boot from the SD card.
So I wanted to install the original image again with the rkdeveloptool, even if this is not executable, you can still boot from an SD card with it.
But now I have the problem that the rkdevelop tool no longer recognises the box. Every operation ends in a failure, even if lsusb shows me the box correctly.
Status:
Box boots with non-functioning armbian (kernel panic?)
Box no longer boots from SD card
rkdevelopetool can no longer read the box (Getting flash info from device failed!
Any suggestions? 🙂