Vero 4K stuck on "Please Stand By" after reinstall attempt - no HDMI, no network

Hi all,

I have an older Vero 4K that was running an old version (Kodi 18 / Leia). I downloaded the latest OSMC ISO and used the official qt_host_installer tool to flash it onto a USB stick. The installer reported success with no errors.

What I’ve tried so far:

  1. Rebooting normally with the USB stick plugged in → the Vero just booted back into the old existing system on internal storage, ignoring the USB stick entirely.

  2. Rebooting with only the USB stick plugged in (no reset button) → this time it tried to mount a partition, failed, and dropped into a recovery/initramfs shell (looked like a “root filesystem not found” type error).

  3. Rebooting with the reset button held (via the pinhole inside the jack, near Ethernet) while the USB stick was plugged in → the device just stays stuck on the “Please Stand By” screen indefinitely. Tried this with both USB ports, no difference.

  4. Tried the “rename kernel.img to recovery.img” trick on the USB stick (kept the original kernel.img alongside a renamed copy) — same result, stuck on “Please Stand By” with the reset button method.

Current state / other observations:

  • No unusual power events, surges, or abrupt shutdowns before this started.

  • The front LED is solid blue the entire time it’s stuck on “Please Stand By.”

  • Tested on two different screens: a TV and a computer screen; same result both times, so it doesn’t seem to be an HDMI/resolution negotiation issue.

  • Ethernet cable is connected, but my router (GL.iNet) does not show any new client on the network, so the device doesn’t seem to be reachable via SSH either.

Given the LED is blue (which I understand generally indicates the device made it past the initial bootloader stage) but there’s no video update, no network presence, and no successful boot from USB even via the reset-button/recovery.img method, I’m wondering if this points to a failing/corrupted eMMC rather than something I can fix via a standard reinstall.

Is there anything else worth trying before going down the Amlogic USB Burning Tool route? Also happy to provide more details (device age is around 2017-2018) if that helps narrow it down.

Thanks in advance for any pointers.

Try burning the image to an SD card instead of USB.

1 Like

thank you, that worked immediately

Stupid Claude never told me it was a bad idea to use a USB stick…

In theory, USB should work but I find SD more reliable.