[Help] Mecool BB2 Pro 2017 (S912, 3GB RAM) – Armbian doesn’t boot, device goes straight to Android

[Shadow13696]

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to run Armbian on my old Mecool BB2 Pro TV box but I can’t get it to boot at all – the device always goes straight into Android.

 

Device specs:

• Model: Mecool BB2 Pro
• CPU: Amlogic S912 (octa-core Cortex-A53)
• GPU: ARM Mali-T820MP3
• RAM: 3GB DDR3
• eMMC: 16GB
• Connectivity: 2× USB, HDMI, AV, SPDIF, Ethernet Gigabit
• Wi-Fi/Bluetooth: (chip unknown, maybe AP6255)

What I tried so far:

• Burned several Armbian images with Etcher and DD in Linux.
• Tried both SD card and USB stick.
• Tested multiple DTBs: gxm_q200_3g, gxm_q201_3g, p212_3g, and some generic ones.
• Formatted SD card partition as FAT16 as suggested in some guides.
• Flashed u-boot.bin manually using dd with byte skipping (e.g. bs=1 skip=444 seek=444 conv=fsync).
• CoreELEC partially boots, so the box can boot from external media.
• With Armbian, however, it never even attempts to boot – it just goes straight into Android.

What I’m looking for:

• Confirmation if Armbian can run on this device at all.
• Which DTB (if any) is recommended for this specific model.
• Any tips for debugging why Armbian is skipped but CoreELEC boots.
• If anyone has managed to run Armbian on this box, I’d really appreciate your guidance.
• Thanks in advance!

[SteeMan]

Read the instructions from this site.  It will tell you that if you have ever booted another os like coreelec, you will have made your box incompatible with the Armbian build.  

[Shadow13696]

Thank you for replying so fast, really appreciate it. No factory reset will solve this?

 

Best regards and thanks again