Bricked Wetek Hub ... now what

    Wetek Hub was running 8.2.5 (aarch) and I attempted an update to 11.0.3.

    Using this information here https://wiki.libreelec.tv/hardware/amlogic/wetek-hub-play2 as my guide, I did the following.
    -downloaded LibreELEC-AMLGX.arm-11.0.1-box.img and transferred the image to a microsd card via Rufus

    -the editing of the uEnv.ini file caused the microsd card to boot then hang at the Wetek boot screen

    -took the meson-gxbb-wetek-hub.dtb and renamed it to dtb.img and moved it to the root of the filesystem and rebooted and this worked

    then still following the directions

    -enabled SSH, and SSH'd into the wetek

    -ran these commands

    cd /storage

    wget https://releases.libreelec.tv/LibreELEC-AMLG…etek-hub.img.gz

    emmctool w LibreELEC-AMLGX.arm-11.0.3-wetek-hub.img.gz

    -i'll paste the output below
    -shutdown the wetek using the remote

    -removed the microsd card

    -plugged in the wetek and NOTHING ... just blue light with black screen; no DHCP entries on my router ... just nothing

    -rebooting again results in the same outcome (bricked).

    Solutions anyone?

    Many thanks in advance.

  • Go to Best Answer

    tried booting microsd from these images with no success (no changes on the screen - no boot logo ... nothing)

    LibreELEC-AMLGX.arm-11.0.1-box.img (with dtb.img at root)
    LibreELEC-AMLGX.arm-11.0.3-wetek-hub.img

    saw this thread
    Wetek Hub semi-bricked, NAND wiped but now I need correct .IMG file to restore via aml_usb_burn_tool V2

    copied the 3 files to a fat32 (then fat16) microsd card and with the wetwk hub off, press the recessed UPGRADE button, plugged in the power, and held the button for 8 seconds then released ... with no change still

    it looks like I'm on #3 of the referenced thread by Chewitt where

    "If eMMC is not wiped but vendor u-boot cannot recover things (is broken some way) the worst case scenario is to open up the box (screws are behind the foot pads) and short pins on the emmc chip to disable it. This prevents vendor u-boot (or whatever remains of it) from interfering in boot and effectively forces SD or USB boot; so you can use the AMLGX image I linked above. It works but most users feel uncomfortable about sticking screwdrivers on memory chips to short pins and it's best done with UART access so you can see what's happening.

    In all cases, having the UART cable that WeTek shipped in the box connected so you can see what's actually happening and/or where things are failing is always a good move."

    Does anyone have a UART cable pinout that I could reference?

    ok ... found this

    Wetek Play 2 RS 232 Cable Pinouts
    Here are the RS232 cable Pinouts for wetek Play 2 ..it works with many other Boxes tested it with KOQkit K1 mini [ATTACH] [ATTACH]
    jb8a8f8.com

    115200 8n1 off off was some settings that I saw for a similar chipset

    unfortunately this is my output

    (see image)

    edit: tried a bunch of different settings; switched RX and TX (reduced output); and even another UART device,
    checked my wires for connectivity and shorts (all good); went to manufacturer's website to download new drivers ... no change

    any ideas?

    Quote from thegooddoctor

    took the meson-gxbb-wetek-hub.dtb and renamed it to dtb.img and moved it to the root of the filesystem and rebooted and this worked

    ^ This step was completely unnecessary. With the mainline kernel-based versions, you no longer need to rename anything.

    Anyway, that's not what's causing your problem...

    Quote from thegooddoctor

    Verify pinout --- above images are correct

    I have my UART cable

    The factory UART cable uses a 4-pin Jack. Although I suddenly don't remember the wiring, I also have a DIY version that I built.

    But if you need it, I can measure the correct wiring when I'm home.

    By the way, the WP2 uses a 2.5 mm jack, which is not compatible just because of its size.

    Quote from thegooddoctor

    edit: tried a bunch of different settings; switched RX and TX (reduced output); and even another UART device,
    checked my wires for connectivity and shorts (all good); went to manufacturer's website to download new drivers ... no change

    It's not a TTL-level thing, so it has to be connected directly to a serial port with a DB9 connector. Do not use an RS232-TTL converter.

    Regardless, under LE11 the UART doesn't work on the Hub for some reason. I also only get static noise, and if the serial cable is plugged in, the image does not start. However, under LE 9.2 I can see everything on UART perfectly.

    So, if you're testing an LE11 image, please don't use UART, the Jack connector should be empty.

    Questions:

    • Does the Hub logo appear on startup?
    • If you put the SD card back in does it boot?

    I'm wondering if this is the "disturbed dry solder joints cause UART noise that u-boot interprets as keyboard input" problem I've seen on my own Hub; and has been reported here in the forum with at least one other user. The (fake) keyboard input interrupts boot and drops you into the u-boot local console. If a UART cable is connected and working (which can be a challenge due to the same dry joints) it's fairly obvious when this happens. If no working UART connected the box didn't reach the point where kernel/initramfs (which loads the LE boot splash) was booted so nothing appears on screen .. hence users claim the device is bricked etc.

    For the record: I've seen some Amlogic devices with boot states that were challenging to recover from but I've never encountered a device that was truly bricked. And since we (me) have working u-boot for the box, recovery is possible.

    The first step is really to get normal UART output to see what happened. Again, if the UART socket joints are dry that might require cable wiggling, patience, and many attempts.

    chewitt

    IIRC that the UART on my Hub still works during uboot loading, and it only starts producing random output when the kernel is loaded.

    But I'll check in the afternoon because I'm not sure I remember correctly. :/

    thegooddoctor

    Maybe the standard 3-pin ("stereo") 3.5 mm Jack will also be good, because the inner ring on the sleeve side is not connected anywhere:

    Edit: Confirmed, so it works with the 3-pin Jack, and there produces UART output with the LE v11.0.3 box image.

    A simple 3.5 mm to 2.5 mm Jack adapter was used with Play's factory RS232 cable:

    However, something is wrong with the Hub image, because it refuses to boot for me either.

    Quote from dtech

    Questions:

    • Does the Hub logo appear on startup?
    • If you put the SD card back in does it boot?

    No Hub/Wetek logo; does not boot with SD card (unresponsive black screen)

    Thanks everyone for the great info!!!
    I have ordered a DB9 serial connector and will wire it according to the specification and see what the output states.

    Since UART does not work on LE11, should I stay with LE10?

    Yes, the three pin output works with UART (plugged into pins 2,3,5 on the serial port; GND to GND; TX to RX, and RX to TX; 115200 8n1 off off).

    Here is the output. At the end I still had a viable prompt.

    well this is interesting ... after reading the 'help' output, I typed 'boot' and got this

    it looks like it booted off of the internal storage sd card; libreelec 11.0.1

    i'll try to flash the nand

    Edited once, last by thegooddoctor (August 5, 2023 at 6:41 PM).

    ok --- it boots to the nand, and there are some errors.

    why does it have that interrupt and stops the boot process?

    how do I (in u-boot) use the usbboot command to boot from a usb device so I can attempt to flash the nand again?

    ran 'reset' in u-boot; here is the output

    Edited once, last by thegooddoctor: Merged a post created by thegooddoctor into this post. (August 5, 2023 at 6:29 AM).

    looks like the same issue I had some time ago, see:

    Thread

    Wetek Hub LE11 AMLGX, uboot stops half way...

    Dear LE team,

    So happy to get LE11 support for our good/old Wetek Hub, I installed AMLGX wetek Hub box image to flash.

    Following the wiki page, I booted the 'box' image from SD card, then used emmctool to write the 'wetek-hub board' image to eMMC.
    (I had to first 'zero' the eMMC because emmctool did not like the labels on it).

    But now on boot, I can see from the serial port that the boot process stops halfway (console log below).

    if I type 'boot' on the uboot prompt, it will continue and complete…
    gonp
    March 11, 2023 at 9:36 AM

    There seem to be some noise/random characters on the Hub serial input line that stops the initial booting process.

    You should be able to boot from nand too, just remove the sdcard. Once you reach the uboot prompt you can manually complete booting (type 'boot' on prompt).

    After that initial boot completes ok, you should be able to use the remote to 'sleep' and 'wakeup' normally, and all should work fine.

    The only way I managed to prevent the blocking of the initial booting process was to disable the RX serial line, by forcing it 'high' to 3.3V with a soldered wire.

    I'm not sure if the kernel in the WeTek Hub LE11 image is working. I tried booting from an SD card with it and it didn't work either.

    However, the box image boots flawlessly from the SD card.

    chewitt Is it possible that the Hub image is not compatible with the WeTek factory u-boot?

    The last kernel patchset I personally tested was merged for 11.0.1 so I can't speak for what issues may have been introduced with bumps others have done to newer kernels for 11.0.3 .. but historically the only issue I've seen on a Hub that caused boot issues is the UART noise problem I've flagged above (which the logs shared seem to point to). I'm not sure why newer u-boot is super-sensitive on the serial line or if anything can be done in u-boot device-tree to workaround that (my u-boot knowledge isn't awesome). I did previously experiment with a tweaked u-boot that basically disables the UART keyboard and (as expected) this sidesteps the problem. That proved the theory; but as the u-boot sources we build from are used with all AMLGX boards it's not possible to patch only the Hub at bulk-compile time.

    The following may be useful:

    factory_update_param.aml
    Shared with Dropbox
    www.dropbox.com
    recovery.img
    Shared with Dropbox
    www.dropbox.com

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/7wi5vhrgqsle6ug/dtb.img?dl=0 <= ^ these three can be copied to a FAT formatted SD to use with vendor u-boot recovery mode to restore the original factory image.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/v46jogn3rk4i…hub.tar.gz?dl=0 <= this is a dd backup of the factory image on emmc.

    Quote from gonp

    looks like the same issue I had some time ago, see:

    Thread

    Wetek Hub LE11 AMLGX, uboot stops half way...

    Dear LE team,

    So happy to get LE11 support for our good/old Wetek Hub, I installed AMLGX wetek Hub box image to flash.

    Following the wiki page, I booted the 'box' image from SD card, then used emmctool to write the 'wetek-hub board' image to eMMC.
    (I had to first 'zero' the eMMC because emmctool did not like the labels on it).

    But now on boot, I can see from the serial port that the boot process stops halfway (console log below).

    if I type 'boot' on the uboot prompt, it will continue and complete…
    gonp
    March 11, 2023 at 9:36 AM

    There seem to be some noise/random characters on the Hub serial input line that stops the initial booting process.

    You should be able to boot from nand too, just remove the sdcard. Once you reach the uboot prompt you can manually complete booting (type 'boot' on prompt).

    After that initial boot completes ok, you should be able to use the remote to 'sleep' and 'wakeup' normally, and all should work fine.

    The only way I managed to prevent the blocking of the initial booting process was to disable the RX serial line, by forcing it 'high' to 3.3V with a soldered wire.

    Yes, this looks to be the identical problem as per matching logs.

    I did already try the 'boot' command and saw that it indeed continued the boot process.

    How do I set the RX serial line to high with 3.3V (where did you find 3.3V on the board?)

    thanks for the files, however the hub only boots to internal nand in this state

    Edited 2 times, last by thegooddoctor: Merged a post created by thegooddoctor into this post. (August 5, 2023 at 7:22 PM).

    Quote from chewitt

    The following may be useful:

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/ybsfx6xjttu2…_param.aml?dl=0

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/kf5aakutmclgfho/recovery.img?dl=0

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/7wi5vhrgqsle6ug/dtb.img?dl=0 <= ^ these three can be copied to a FAT formatted SD to use with vendor u-boot recovery mode to restore the original factory image.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/v46jogn3rk4i…hub.tar.gz?dl=0 <= this is a dd backup of the factory image on emmc.

    how does one do this "u-boot recovery mode"?
    I have access to the prompt but I can't seem to find any instructions.