S905X box doesn't boot LibreELEC after update

    I have a Nexbox A95X box which hosts an S905X soc and I have been happily running LibreELEC 7.0.3.012 for some time but decided to update to the newest version if there is any. Turned out there is so I SSH'ed into the device's update folder, wget-ted the newest image from here and rebooted. The update looked fine, the device booted to LibreELEC splash screen, told me to wait, informed me about progress and finally rebooted itself. After it did, though, it no longer boots to LibreELEC - it stops on the Nexbox splash screen :-/ How can I make it boot to LibreELEC and then to Kodi like it used to? And why does it no longer do it on its own, in the first place?

    Edited once, last by Tigro (August 25, 2018 at 9:28 PM).

    Oh, didn't know about it! Seems like it doesn't do the trick, though :( From what I've been able to google, for my device (Nexbox A95X B7N 1G/8G), I should use the gxl_p212_1g dtb file. Tried both the gxl_p212_1g.dtb and gxl_p212_1g_nand.dtb files from the Kszaq website (I'm booting from memory card so I transferred one to the microSD and renamed to dtb.img, tried booting, then did the same with the other) but to no avail - still stuck at Nexbox's splash screen :( Why is that so?

    Quote from Tigro

    Oh, didn't know about it! Seems like it doesn't do the trick, though :( From what I've been able to google, for my device (Nexbox A95X B7N 1G/8G), I should use the gxl_p212_1g dtb file. Tried both the gxl_p212_1g.dtb and gxl_p212_1g_nand.dtb files from the Kszaq website (I'm booting from memory card so I transferred one to the microSD and renamed to dtb.img, tried booting, then did the same with the other) but to no avail - still stuck at Nexbox's splash screen :( Why is that so?

    Do you have s905 or S905x?

    Download, the old tar file, & old dtb, put them in the update folder & reboot.

    Or, download newest image tar file & dtb, & again put them in the update folder & reboot.

    As far as I remember, you can update or go back, just by placing a tar file in the update folder, I think you can just put the correct dtb file in, without renaming to dtb.img

    Hmm, can I? I just tried that but to no avail - I created an ".update" folder in the root of my card, put the update and the corresponding dtb there and plugged it in but still the device gets stuck on the Nexbox splash screen, doesn't progress to the LibreELEC one which is where the update procedure would take place. I tried both the newest and the oldest versions, nothing changes.

    I've also tried using the pinhole method (as this is the method that I used back when I installed LE for the first time on this device) so I removed the .update folder, copied back my previous img.dtb file and then tried the method but no matter how long I keep pressing the button for, the LibreELEC splash screen never shows up - it's stuck on Nexbox's as if I didn't use the toothpick at all :( What should I do, then?

    Perhaps start again, burn the image to a different sdcard, using rufus or similar, then copy the correct dtb file into the root, renaming it to dtb.img

    IF that boots, you should see the update folder in the storage folder. I use coreftp lite to copy files over,

    READ, from [8.2.3.1] LibreELEC 8.2 for S905/S905X

    If you forgot to use a new device tree or used wrong one and your device doesn't boot:

    • don't panic!
    • if booting from SD/USB, simply connect SD/USB to your computer, download a proper device tree, rename it to dtb.img and place on SD/USB
    • if booting from internal:
      1. Boot this build from SD card or USB with correct device tree.
      2. Login over SSH and execute dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/dtb bs=256k count=1 then dd if=/flash/dtb.img of=/dev/dtb bs=256k
      3. Power off, remove SD/USB, boot from internal.

    Edited once, last by bubblegum57 (August 26, 2018 at 6:34 PM).

    Ha, solved! I decided to go through all the .dtb files before I try something different. Turns out for my device I should have used the _tx3mini version, despite what everybody I read has been claiming. As soon as I put this one on the SD and renamed it to dtb.img like I did with the previous ones, it booted up in an instant and works flawlessly :) Thanks guys for the help and guidance along the way ;)

    Thanks! Will surely give it a whirl in some time, for now I'll stick to the thing that we finally managed to fix, though, to see it in all its glory ;)