[SOLVED] Blank screen while trying to install CoreELEC 8.95.7

Help & Support Installation & Booting
1

Hello All,

Issue: Blank screen while trying to install CoreELEC 8.95.7 thus cannot complete the installation. Essentially AMLOGIC S905X logo displays on the screen and then Blank Screen. The Blue light in this TV Box remains lit.

My TV box is connected via HDMI cable to my TV (not 4K). I have tried on an external monitor with a different HDMI cable. Same result.

dtb used - gxl_p212_1g.dtb, gxl_p212_1g_g9sx.dtb

I have burned the sd card with rufus and used the following adb command to initiate the booting from sd card:

C:\opt\adb>adb.exe devices
List of devices attached
192.168.1.246:5555      device
C:\opt\adb>adb reboot update

Note that I am running CoreELEC in 2 other boxes thus familiar with the installation process.

My device: https://www.docooler.com/p-v1880eu-16g.html
Desc: Docooler M9S-PRO Smart Android TV Box Android 6.0 Amlogic S905X Quad Core UHD 4K 2G / 16G Mini PC WiFi H.265 VP9 DLNA Miracast HD Media Player EU Plug

What is NOT working:

  • Cannot install CoreELEC (same issue with LibreELEC)
    (dtb used: - gxl_p212_1g.dtb, gxl_p212_1g_g9sx.dtb)

What is working:

  • It runs Stock rom “build_hx_s905x_Nougat_256x4_528m_20171030_1134_ZNT_2017110107”
  • It runs armbian debian stretch from SD card. (image: Armbian_5.68_Aml-s9xxx_Debian_stretch_default_4.19.13_desktop_20190110.img)
    dtb used - meson-gxl-s905x-p212.dtb

I know this box has 1GB of ram and NOT 2GB as advertised.

Hardware and dmesg info is here:
https://pastebin.com/FYXzuEE8

Image of the chips on the PCB board is here:

[Album] Imgur

I have adb root shell connectivity and armbian ssh root access. Let me know if I can provide more information.

Kind regards
Hannah

2

Hello All,

Can I provide any more relevant info to get further assistance in this regard please?
I wish if I could get some more guidance.

Kind regards
Hannah

3

I’ve searched a bit and found many complains about this device not working with any JeOS.
Only one guy at freaktab managed to install LE on it (the procedure should be the same for CE).
Unfortunately he didn’t go into any detail.
Maybe you could ask him, what he did to let it boot LE.

4

Thanks for your effort.Appreciate the link.

So I now have tried these 3 different versions of LibreElec by kszaq with respective dtb trees for each of these 3 versions (gxl_p212_1g.dtb), however exactly the same result, that is to say, this box started with sd card then shows s905x logo and then the screen becomes blank.

https://kszaq.libreelec.tv/s905/

libreelec_7.0.3.012
libreelec_8.0.2e
libreelec_8.2.3.1

Thanks and regards
Hannah

5

Ask the guy at FeakTab, what he did to make it boot from SD card.
Nobody else here seems to use this device.

6

Thanks…
I did ask in that forum yesterday

7

Success at last and I suppose persistence pays.
I have successfully installed this image:

Image name: CoreELEC-S905.arm-8.95.7-Odroid_C2.img.gz (The standard image works as well File name: CoreELEC-S905.arm-8.95.7-S905. See my post below)
Link: https://github.com/CoreELEC/CoreELEC/releases/download/8.95.7/CoreELEC-S905.arm-8.95.7-Odroid_C2.img.gz

and use this dtb file from device_trees folder:
filename: gxl_p212_1g_slowemmc.dtb

These other 4 files return Blank Screen.

gxl_p212_1g.dtb
gxl_p212_1g_g9sx.dtb
gxl_p212_1g_lepotato.dtb
gxl_p212_1g_nand.dtb

$ ssh 192.168.1.247 -l root
root@192.168.1.247's password:
##############################################
#                  CoreELEC                  #
#            https://coreelec.org            #
##############################################

CoreELEC (official): 8.95.7 (S905.arm)
docooler1:~ #
8

That’s strange, because nearly the only difference of this image compared to the S905 image is the uboot, which is only useful for the Odroid C2. Maybe the slowemmc dtb was the secret in this setup.
Anyway, glad you solved your problem and can start enjoying your new device.

9

I agree with relkai. Could you please retest it with a clean S905 (not Odroid) image?
If the solution is the correct DTB, we’ll add it to the list of DTBs.

10

I now have tested with the clean image (not Odroid)
File name: CoreELEC-S905.arm-8.95.7-S905
dtb filename - gxl_p212_1g_slowemmc.dtb

This device boots to coreelec.

11

There is a gxl_p212_2g_slowemmc.dtb ?
If your box has 2GB of RAM you should be using a 2g DTB.

12

This box has a fake ram and print on the box is wrong The actual RAM is

less /proc/meminfo
MemTotal:         857480 kB
13

I understand. Thanks.
I updated the DTB list thread with your box’s info.

1 Like