Tab Mini C boot loop. Help please.

[Renate]

Originally Posted by Pentam

What do you mean with "empty" vbmeta?

fastboot flash vbmeta vbmeta.img --disable-verity --disable-verification

[Pentam]

Originally Posted by Renate

fastboot flash vbmeta vbmeta.img --disable-verity --disable-verification

Ok, tried that. That somehow made it worse. Now it always reboots into bootloader and I cannot get into recovery anymore.

[Renate]

Originally Posted by Pentam

That somehow made it worse.

Sorry

Do you mean it boots to EDL or fastboot (from abl, not fastbootd)?

[Pentam]

Originally Posted by Renate

Sorry

No worries... ;-)

Do you mean it boots to EDL or fastboot (from abl, not fastbootd)?

Now it is fastboot.

[Renate]

Try flashing the boot image.

fastboot flash boot boot.img
fastboot reboot

If you can get that to halfway normal boot try with the still encrypted update:

adb push update.upx sdcard
adb shell am start -a onyx.settings.action.firmware

[Pentam]

Originally Posted by Renate

Try flashing the boot image.

fastboot flash boot boot.img
fastboot reboot

If you can get that to halfway normal boot try with the still encrypted update:

adb push update.upx sdcard
adb shell am start -a onyx.settings.action.firmware

flashing the boot image brought me back to being able to get into recovery. However, it still goes in boot loop and I cannot get far enough to get ADB working. In recovery it is still "unautherized".

Is there a way to flash the whole update via fastboot?

[Renate]

Originally Posted by Pentam

Is there a way to flash the whole update via fastboot?

With either EDL or fastboot you can flash partitions, but...
This is not an A/B device (i.e there is no boot_a and boot_b)?
This does not use a "super" partition?

OTOH, system and system_ext marks it as some newer style system.

[Pentam]

Originally Posted by Renate

With either EDL or fastboot you can flash partitions, but...
This is not an A/B device (i.e there is no boot_a and boot_b)?

I can see boot_a and boot_b and switch between active slots A and B.
The flashing of boot.img in the previous post wrote to boot_b.

This does not use a "super" partition?

I can see a "super" partition on the device.

[Renate]

Originally Posted by Pentam

I can see a "super" partition on the device.

The super partition is a bit of a stinker.
Normally you write that in recovery or in fastbootd (inside recovery).
I haven't delved into that much.

Have you been switching partitions A/B?
That might fix you, but it also might make things worse.
You really need to get a somewhat functioning normal system so that you can do an update from there.

[dcarvil]

Originally Posted by Renate

The super partition is a bit of a stinker.
Normally you write that in recovery or in fastbootd (inside recovery).
I haven't delved into that much.

Have you been switching partitions A/B?
That might fix you, but it also might make things worse.
You really need to get a somewhat functioning normal system so that you can do an update from there.

I don't have much experience with Boox, so this is probably a stupid question. Would it be possible to "adb sideload" a de-booxed update.zip? What is the purpose of the boox encryption anyway?

Thanks.

[Pentam]

Originally Posted by Renate

Have you been switching partitions A/B?

So far I have not actively switched slots. I flashed flashing boota.img from a backup which automatically went to boot_a and boot.img from the update.upx automatically went to boot_b. For vbmeta I did not switch and it was applied to slot b.

Any suggestion what I could try? Can't be much worse than unusable (as it is now)... ;-)

[bigwigs]

Originally Posted by Pentam

So far I have not actively switched slots. I flashed flashing boota.img from a backup which automatically went to boot_a and boot.img from the update.upx automatically went to boot_b. For vbmeta I did not switch and it was applied to slot b.

Any suggestion what I could try? Can't be much worse than unusable (as it is now)... ;-)

changing the active partition helped me from boot loop in my Note Air 2 Plus.

Whenever i use a particular partition, it always boot loops but other is fine.

You can use steps from the video mentioned in post to use hardware option to get into recovery mode - https://help.boox.com/hc/en-us/commu...-screen-Frozen
It works for Note Air 2 Plus.

[Pentam]

Originally Posted by bigwigs

changing the active partition helped me from boot loop in my Note Air 2 Plus.

Whenever i use a particular partition, it always boot loops but other is fine.

You can use steps from the video mentioned in post to use hardware option to get into recovery mode - https://help.boox.com/hc/en-us/commu...-screen-Frozen
It works for Note Air 2 Plus.

Unfortunately, that does not help in my case.
Slot A activated leads to constant onyx logo, blue LED and on the PC EDL-device repeatedly reconnects
Slot B activated leads to bootloop: onyx logo --> flashing screen --> onyx logo

[jljtgr]

Originally Posted by dcarvil

I don't have much experience with Boox, so this is probably a stupid question. Would it be possible to "adb sideload" a de-booxed update.zip? What is the purpose of the boox encryption anyway?

Thanks.

You mentioned being able to get into recovery, but that your computer was unauthorized. You certainly could do it if you were authorized, I've never tried when using an unpaired computer. I have an unfortunate amount of experience having to sideload update.zip to fix my bootloops.

[dcarvil]

Originally Posted by jljtgr

I have an unfortunate amount of experience having to sideload update.zip to fix my bootloops.

Does that mean it is possible to adb sideload a debooxed update.zip? I have been wondering if that is possible, but have not found an answer.

Thanks.