[S812] MIII Plus 2Gb\16Gb eMMC

    Quote from MakaaiD

    Hi Balbes,

    Can you please update to Leia 18 final version.. waiting since Nov. 2018.

    Thanks in advance.

    Not to take away from the good work that Balbes has done, but have you tried going back to the pure android version?

    The biggest reason I started using LE was that the pure android version of Kodi 17.6 had horrible jidder problems when it tried to play a movie at 24FPS and it couldn't change refresh rate of the TV away from 60FPS.

    Just a few weeks ago I decided to give Kodi 18.1 a shot because of the fact that S812 has a kernel issue, being stuck at 3.10, which is making it difficult for the developers here to create a 9.0.1 version.

    I was stunned to see little or no jidder. There was a tinny amount when the movie started. Then I cranked up "Enable HQ scalers to 90%" and that disappeared.

    So now I am happy just running the standard android distro and now I can use android again if I wish.

    Quote from balbes150

    I'm working on it, but it's not fast. Kernel 3.10 is very outdated and the main work is to add support to the main kernel.

    Thanks Balbes, I will wait until you release the new version.

    Thanks Roel, But I have never used AlexELEC. I used Balbes builds since Belbes started to release here - one of the earliest adopter of Belbes releases.

    Thanks Kingsombra - I will test android build too but I prefer LibreELEC more compared to Android environment. Lot easy and fast and reliable.

    • Official Post

    Test version of LE-10 (KODI-19) with the 5.10 kernel from Martin. :)

    Versions for s8xx are located in directories with the s8xx extension

    LIBREELEC — Yandex.Disk

    KODI works well, the interface is fast even when starting the system from USB media. I didn't get the sound through either HDMI or analog 3.5, but I have a USB sound card for$ 2, with it the sound works fine (no video brakes). HW video does not work yet (this is understandable), but even in SW mode, the system works smoothly with 720p video and USB sound.

    Great job Martin. :)

    Just test it on my M8S. Boots fine with the mxIII-plus dtb, but not with the M8S dtb.

    Could test further as it seems I got a overload on the usb ports and now the usb doesn't work anymore. I hope there is some kind of overcurrent protection on this box, so when it's cooled down, it works again.

    Regarding the wetek core. It seems there is no dtb for the wetek core in mainline.

    Edit: My usb-ports don't work anymore...

    Edited once, last by roel (December 27, 2020 at 2:33 PM).

    If I could help I would, but I don't understand a thing about making device trees. I once started reading the documentation, but I have zero background, so it's all chinese to me.

    If I find another wetek core, I will contact you regarding Martin's adress.

    • Official Post

    Purchase is done. Martin is rather amazingly persistent with Meson8 support. I'd liken the reverse engineering effort to working a crime scene where you already know whodunit but there are few clues. The older BSP kernels are full of magic values so there's a lot of detective work involved.

    hello, wondering if anyone is still testing this box (mine is Tronsmart MXIII Plus); i was able to get LibreELEC-S812.arm-9.0-devel-20180718130923-f2dced1-MXIII_Plus.img.gz flashed to emmc / internal with wifi+ethernet working well, however, given the build of kodi is outdated i cannot update any addons (i might try this and report back : RE: SOLVED: Cannot Install/Update Addons (on LE9.0 and older versions) )

    for reference and anyone testing this box out trying to get LE installed to emmc / internal from stock fw :

    - i started from latest stock tronsmart fw, tried many different roms, flashed LibreELEC-ARMv7.arm-10.0-devel-20210507164412-8bd19d9-s8xx.img.gz initially to sd card ( balbes150 )

    - had issues using toothpick method on this box (ultimately ended up running reboot update from terminal emulator while root and while sd card inserted) then was able to launch the flashed LE image successfully which also modified boot going forward to allow boot from sd and usb no problem for subsequent roms

    - could run this image quite nicely although wifi was not detected and i had some issues with noise coming through (noise was largely resolved by toying with audio settings in kodi), addons updated fine

    - could not for the life of me figure out how to flash to emmc successfully for 20210507 build, tried many different variations on LE settings, waited patiently for box to shut itself off etc., also tried installtointernal and emmctool via ssh with no luck (commands not found, i guess not included in these builds), tried to also copy img.gz file in .update folder and reboot with nothing happening (tried this after flashing the first mentioned build in this post to internal emmc successfully; next point)

    - flashed LibreELEC-S812.arm-9.0-devel-20180718130923-f2dced1-MXIII_Plus.img.gz to sd card and was able to successfully create back up (box shut off after about 40min), then restored to emmc (about 25min then shut off), then rebooted via kodi menu with option 'Reboot from instal to EMMC' and LE is now on the box

    other things i've tried :

    - booting other roms : LibreELEC-n200-AP6330_2G.arm-9.2.8.8.img.gz and LibreELEC-MXIII-Plus.arm-9.2.8.8.img.gz respectively to no avail

    - booting chewitt's newer roms LibreELEC-AMLMX.arm-10.85.0-box.img.gz and LibreELEC-AMLMX.arm-10.88.0-box.img.gz where boot just hangs after repartitioning and LE doesn't load (eventually bootloop; also tried using different dtb's to no avail)

    my ultimate goal right now with this box is to have LibreELEC-ARMv7.arm-10.0-devel-20210507164412-8bd19d9-s8xx.img.gz flashed to emmc if anyone has had any success in this (or any other working rom for this box that is 10+); as i can run this rom largely without issue (can figure out what's wrong with wifi later), if anyone has any suggestions or advice please do share

    many thanks to both balbes150 and chewitt for their great work and information in this thread and in many others

    Quote from zxcv789

    - booting other roms : LibreELEC-n200-AP6330_2G.arm-9.2.8.8.img.gz and LibreELEC-MXIII-Plus.arm-9.2.8.8.img.gz respectively to no avail

    I have a hunch that you only have 1GB of RAM in your box, and then these images won't even start.

    Please try this method:

    Quote from dtech

    I have a hunch that you only have 1GB of RAM in your box, and then these images won't even start.

    Please try this method:

    Hello, thank you for the suggestion, I just reflashed the same build ( LibreELEC-n200-AP6330_2G.arm-9.2.8.8.img.gz ) replacing the .dtb file you linked as: dtb.img and also kernel.img file; still no boot from sd card or usb.

    Now that you mention it, my device is showing as 1528MB total RAM in kodi, also of note, when I was on stock fw, the terminal shell prompt had mentioned 'n200', I suspect that mine is a falsely branded MXIII Plus box (originally I bought it from geekbuying) though most of the other builds specific to MXIII Plus I have been able to boot thus far (except for for the newer ones)

    UPDATE: this method RE: SOLVED: Cannot Install/Update Addons (on LE9.0 and older versions) still works for people running an older build (<9.0) on this box like I am, I am able to connect to and update the LE and kodi repos, however, no third party repos work unfortunately.

    Beyond any of the commands/scripts that sometimes come bundled in community builds for writing to emmc, is there any other way that I can flash a working (i.e. running off of sd card/usb) 9.2+ build onto this box, like using dd via ssh ? I know that may not be ideal and probably risky, but I'm willing to brick this box to find out.