Bricked Vero 4K?

[janpolsen]

Hi

Today I set up my second and third Vero 4K without any problem.
After having done that I went back to my first Vero 4K and updated it (running Debian 8), but it resulted in the “sad face boot loop”.
No matter what I threw at it, I counldn’t get it to boot up.

So I ended up doing a:

wget http://download.osmc.tv/installers/diskimages/OSMC_TGT_vero3_20180319.img.gz -O- | gunzip -c | sudo dd of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1M conv=fdatasync

… which only resulted in a permanent red light right whenever I power it up.

Did I accidently completly brick it or is there anything I can do to fix that?

I do not have a MicroSD at the moment, but will I be able to save the box if I get one?

Thanks in advance

Best regards,
Jan

[fzinken]

@janpolsen

Did I accidently completly brick it or is there anything I can do to fix that?

Well I would not say accidentally but quite on deliberately
The Image is not designed to be written directly to the emmc but to a SD Card or USB Stick.

@janpolsen

I do not have a MicroSD at the moment, but will I be able to save the box if I get one?

Should be possible.

[fzinken]

@janpolsen

in the “sad face boot loop”.

No matter what I threw at it, I counldn’t get it to boot up.

And just for the record, “sad face boot loop” basically means that the OS has successfully loaded just the Mediacenter has issues to start. Such issues can easily be fixed when you ask for help here.

[ac16161]

@janpolsen

I do not have a MicroSD at the moment, but will I be able to save the box if I get one?

When I re-image my Vero 4K I use a USB stick.

[sam_nazarko]

@janpolsen

I do not have a MicroSD at the moment, but will I be able to save the box if I get one?

You can also try reinitialising an installation with a USB stick.

However, if you’ve overwritten mmcblk0, then you will likely have also overwritten the low level bootloader.

Sam

[grahamh]

Reinstalling OSMC - Vero 4K - OSMC

You will at least need the ‘toothpick’ method.

[janpolsen]

I found the above command line in another thread and didn’t think, that it would totally brick the box

No matter what I do, that I don’t see any change in the device, when I power it up - with or without a toothpick and with or without a MicroSD-card prep’ed with a recovery image (installed on Windows and renamed kernal.img to recovery.img). The light turns red the instant it gets power and then nothing else.

Is there anything else I can do, besides ordering a new one?

Best regards,
Jan

[fzinken]

@janpolsen

I found the above command line in another thread and didn’t think, that it would totally brick the box

Can you point out where you found this so that we can remove it to avoid others top brick their device.

@janpolsen

Is there anything else I can do, besides ordering a new one?

Contact sales@osmc.tv with your order details to check what can be done.

[fzinken]

@fzinken

Can you point out where you found this so that we can remove it to avoid others top brick their device.

I did a quick check and mainly found this commands in either Raspberry Pi or Vero2 posts. If you found it in a Vero4k thread please let us know.

[janpolsen]

@fzinken

I did a quick check and mainly found this commands in either Raspberry Pi or Vero2 posts. If you found it in a Vero4k thread please let us know.

It’s in the general “Help an support” category, though it is refering to a Rasberry Pi image (Reinstall osmc without removing sdcard).

I am definitely not an expert in this area, but I do know how to change the name of the image and didn’t think the method would be that different from device to device.

What’s done is done and I can’t change that. I just want to know if there are anything I can do to save it, before ordering a new device.

Best regards,
Jan

[fzinken]

@janpolsen

It’s in the general “Help an support” category, though it is refering to a Rasberry Pi image (Reinstall osmc without removing sdcard ).

Thanks I change category on that thread to avoid misunderstandings

@janpolsen

didn’t think the method would be that different from device to device.

Well on the Pi and the Vero1/2 that command just writes onto the SD card. On the Vero4k it writes on the internal emmc which uses a different data structure.

@janpolsen

What’s done is done and I can’t change that. I just want to know if there are anything I can do to save it, before ordering a new device.

As mentioned write to sales@osmc.tv for further followup.

[janpolsen]

@fzinken

As mentioned write to sales@osmc.tv for further followup.

Thank you very much and I will do that

Best regards,
Jan

[sam_nazarko]

Your device is rather bricked. We have to open it and short the eMMC pins to perform a low level format.

We will replace your unit with a new one instead, and I’ll refurbish this one for personal use.

Please reinstall from a micro SD card or USB stick in the future

Sam

[Acadia]

I’ve also bricked my old 4k. I’ve opened it up but can’t find the correct eMMC nand pins to short. Can you give instructions/photo? Not too bothered if I can’t get it back up and running as I only use it for testing (I also have a Vero 4k+) but seems a shame to bin it…

[sam_nazarko]

How did you brick it?

[Acadia]

Installing LibreELEC. Trying to get back to OSMC gives me “Install failed. Please contact support. Hardware faulty.” error.

[sam_nazarko]

It is hard to advise because I don’t think there’s any official build of LE for Vero.
So depending on the build you have used it may have changed the UBoot environment or eMMC data.

[Acadia]

Sorry, I actually meant CoreELEC.

CoreELEC-S905.arm-8.95.6-S905

[sam_nazarko]

I have sent you some instructions via PM.
If this doesn’t fix things, you will need to return the box for repair.

I don’t recommend installing other distributions on to the internal storage.

Sam

[sam_nazarko]

This was resolved for the customer.