Recover T95x after copying dtb with wrong parameters

Help & Support Recovery
1

Hello all,

I am new to your forum. Yesterday I did an update on my T95x 2gb Box with internal coreelec install from coreelec 9.0.0 to 9.0.3.
Everything was fine but I had to copy the correct dtb file.
I followed the instructions I found in your forum:

  1. dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/dtb bs=256k count=1
  2. dd if=/usr/share/bootloader/device_trees/gxl_p212_2g.dtb of=/dev/dtb bs=256k

But I forgot the “bs=256k” on the second command. After rebooting nothing happens anymore. I can’t even boot from the SD card using the toothpick method. Is there any possibility to recover my T95X box? Or is it completely bricked due to a broken bootloader? Never had any problems with it before.

Thank you!
sw_

3

Make a fresh install to an sd card with correct dtb, boot it and dd the dtb to the emmc.

4

I tried it yesterday evening, but the box does not boot from SD card anymore. There is not even a blue light when I plug the power. But it still gets recognized by my TV. But I don’t get any boot up screen. It all stays black

5

Looks like a hardware fault, either power adapter/cable, or something with the box is wrong…

6

it all started right after running
dd if=/usr/share/bootloader/device_trees/gxl_p212_2g.dtb of=/dev/dtb bs=256k
Without bs=256k

Since I’ve rebooted after that command nothing works anymore

7

To be more precise, if the LED is hardwired then it’s definitely a hardware error.
If the LED is turned on by bootloader, then since you lost yours, the only think that I can think of to bring it back to life is to flash the original Android ROM to your box via a PC. Then you can install CE on an uSD card, and proceed to installtointernal if you still feel like it.

For original Android ROM, needed tools and procedure go to some Tanix T95X forum…

1 Like
8

It seems to be a hardware fault. The box won’t boot into recovery nor from an SD card.
But what still confuses me: the box had been working properly before I changed the .dtb file via ssh. And there hadn’t been any issues before. There was nothing that would have indicated a hardware problem like freezing or something.
But thank you guys anyway! :slight_smile:

9

If the bootloader partition was somehow damaged, the only practical way to recover the box is by using an Amlogic recovery SD card + shorting out the eMMC pins. You can find videos on youtube on how to recover Amlogic devices this way.
You also need the stock Android firmware for this procedure. And you need to know which two pins need to be shorted in order for it to succeed.
It’s complicated, but not impossible. But I’m not 100% sure it’s worth the trouble, unless you know exactly what you’re doing.