crusherjoe2000

For a beginner like me this is a difficult box to install Armbian on. Before attempting the installation I had managed to install Armbian on a NexBox A95X (S905), and a M8S (S812). I want to share my experience with others because even though every box is different, what I did to install Armbian may give other users ideas on what to try on their own boxes. It is also good to record what I did in case I have to do it again years down the road 😅 The problem with the unit is that it is heavily customized, specially the boot loader. Even though it has a reset button, the usual toothpick method always result in the built-in rescue, i.e., it ignores aml_autoscript. The Android 6 that came with it is also heavily customized and does not have the usual "Update & Backup" app that can be used to trigger aml_autoscript. Fortunately, the unit does have the JTAG connectors already soldered and ready to go, so I can see what is going on. I remembered that on some S905 systems one can do a "recuscue" of a bricked unit via a bootable SD card, using a program called BootcardMaker.exe supplied by AMLogic, which is a way to basically mimicking USB burn but without a USB link: https://chinagadgetsreviews.com/download-amlogic-burn_card_maker-v2-0-2.html For the burn to work one must use the correct u-boot.bin which I have obtained previously for when playing with the M8S from M8S_S812_2GB_26102015.zip via links I found in OTT M8 BCM4335 Bricked/Unbricked: https://forum.freaktab.com/node/550706 https://mega.nz/#!V08yhQ6C!e37b8y7F6mDCc_vQ0c_7IgNNeuHGhT1b5Ld2vwmTJa0 After all this work, I still cannot trigger aml_autoscript, but something did haapen and I see the following lines in the boot log: [mmc_init] mmc init success Device: SDIO Port B Manufacturer ID: 3 OEM: 5344 Name: SU02G Tran Speed: 25000000 Rd Block Len: 512 SD version 3.0 High Capacity: No Capacity: 1.8 GiB mmc clock: 25000000 Bus Width: 4-bit reading auto_update.ubt ** Unable to read file auto_update.ubt ** wipe_data=successful wipe_cache=successful So it look like the bootloader is trying to load from a file called auto_update.ubt. With nothing to lose, I simply copied aml_autoscript to auto_update.ubt and rebooted again. Lo and behold, I got into TWRP. By accident I left a copy of TWRP as recovery.img on the same SD card. This recovery.img is from TWRP_S905X_V3020_generic_AndroidPC.zip download from https://androidpctv.com/tutorial-install-twrp-android-tvbox-amlogic/ http://uploaded.net/file/48zxgple So I took the opportunity to backup my Buzz TV XPL3000.😁 After that I looked at the boot log again and I see that after loading auto_update.ubt it tried to look for a file called factory_update_param.ubt not finding it, it read recovery.img: reading factory_update_param.ubt ** Unable to read file factory_update_param.ubt ** reading recovery.img So I tried the same trick, this time copying the file s905_autoscript to factory_update_param.ubt and rebooted the unit. Now I am able to boot into Armbian. Victory!