Fiio M3k

[GSV3MiaC]

Yes I saw that ... if this is 'quite a bit better' I guess the previous version was truly horrific!

I guess I will just have to screw up my courage, dust off my PC, and see whether I can actually follow that far enough to boot RB. First I need a new TF card or two.

[amachronic]

Yes I saw that ... if this is 'quite a bit better' I guess the previous version was truly horrific!

I guess I will just have to screw up my courage, dust off my PC, and see whether I can actually follow that far enough to boot RB. First I need a new TF card or two.

It used to be terrible!

It's now just a one-liner on the command line, more or less. I know the command line is a discouragement to some people, and I wanted to add support into the Rockbox utility but it seems this method of installation is at odds with how it normally works, so I kind of gave up. And making it work without manually running Zadig first is another major annoyance.

Speaking of the new instructions it looks like I totally forgot to announce them properly here...    I was meaning to do that.

Anyway, good luck! If you have any issues feel free to contact me, I'm happy to help.

[amachronic]

I'm happy to announce we have a working version of jztool for Mac! You can now easily install Rockbox on the M3K from your Mac. Many thanks to dconrad for doing the testing. Instructions and download links can be found at the installation thread.

[darkstarcumberland]

Very cool! I will give it a try when I get some moments to fiddle with it. Right now everything is working "fine enough" and I have some hours of new music to listen to on the device before I start playing with the firmware again ;-)  Cheers

[bahus]

Anyone else annoyed by the tiny font is welcome to try.

Is it possible to extract XVortex .rockbox folder from his images? He seems to made a bunch of changes to standard theme and bigger font is one of them. Would be cool to have it on native port too.

[amachronic]

IIRC XVortex is using the Xhibition theme ported to 240x320. You could contact XVortex and ask if he'd release the theme.

The theme can also be grabbed from the M3K.fw package, but you need a Linux box to extract it. M3K.fw is just a zip file. Inside are more zip files named update001.zip, etc. Unzip all of them, and you will see files like system.ubi_001. Use cat system.ubi_* > system.ubi to combine these into a single file. I uploaded a script to the Shanling Q1's wiki page called ubi_extract.sh which you can run to convert the UBI image to a tarball. You need mtd-utils and the nandsim, ubi, and ubifs kernel modules installed in order to run that script.

Alternatively you could install the XVortex firmware and use a script to copy the .rockbox folder from the internal NAND to the SD card. I don't know offhand where it's located though.

[janssea2]

For the moment I use Rockbox from XVortex. Can I overwrite this with jztool?

[bahus]

For the moment I use Rockbox from XVortex. Can I overwrite this with jztool?

It worked for me. I installed it right over XVortex build. Only I had to install libusbk instead of suggested winusb zadig driver. Not sure if it's somehow related or just a some glitch on my system.

[vitt13]

Is it possible to extract XVortex .rockbox folder from his images? He seems to made a bunch of changes to standard theme and bigger font is one of them.

zip archive of extracted /ubifs-root/usr/rockbox content form XVortex's firmware
https://www.mediafire.com/file/c7yl5ruftwiwckf/rockbox.zip/file size 16.19MB
Probably you can grab 'fonts', 'themes' and 'wps' folders with included files from the archive.
I use 'ubireader_extract_files' tool from https://github.com/jrspruitt/ubi_reader

[vitt13]

Windows users can use the 'kitchen' https://www.mediafire.com/file/gyau3tsje1kwcz7/Firmware_Kitchen_fiio_m3k_m5.zip/file 6.86MB
What this 'kitchen' does:

- extract parts (partitions) from original firmware file format M3K.fw to use the parts with 'USB Cloner Tool' or to modify/customise the parts
- extract/create UBIFS images i.e. 'system.ubi' and 'data.ubi'

How to:
To extract parts from OTA firmware (M3K.fw) you need to place the M3K.fw file to 'in' folder and run the batch file unpack_M3K_to_parts.bat.
The 'out' folder is output directory for extracted parts i.e. x-loader-pad-with-sleep-lib.bin, xImage, system.ubi, and data.ubi (if presents).

To extract the content of UBIFS image 'system.ubi' or 'data.ubi' you need to presence of the file 'system.ubi' or 'data.ubi' in the directory 'out'
Then run the batch file unpack_system.ubi.bat or unpack_data.ubi.bat
You will get the new folder 'unpacked_system' or 'unpacked_data' with extracted UBI image's content and service file 'perms.txt'.

Attention: this 'kitchen' cannot build back M3K.fw file from the parts.
Use mkotapackage https://github.com/VitToCode/linux-recovery-ota/releases/tag/1.0 to build back the M3K.fw

[bahus]

Thank you vitt13! Bunch of useful tools indeed.

[amachronic]

Use mkotapackage https://github.com/VitToCode/linux-recovery-ota/releases/tag/1.0 to build back the M3K.fw

Did you get a hold of the signing keys? ie. will a patched image be flashed by the stock recovery?

[vitt13]

Did you get a hold of the signing keys? ie. will a patched image be flashed by the stock recovery?

Yes. I used to post it https://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,52917.msg247653.html#msg247653
M3K.fw is signed with testkey.pk8/testkey.x509.pem signing keys luckily found on this repo https://github.com/YuanhuanLiang/X1000/tree/master/external/recovery/resource/security
Using these keys I got exactly the same files updateNNN.zip, i.e. binary the same. Only last stage, packing M3K.fw from those archives was different, but original M3K.fw file looks like simple uncompressed and unsigned zip archive.

[amachronic]

Wish I had actually paid attention the forum thread back then... I was told the key was unknown.

This would greatly simplify installation for end users, just dump a patched FW file on the SD card and use the stock recovery. All I'd need to do is get dual boot working in the Rockbox SPL, so the OF recovery is accessible once Rockbox is installed.

[Julian67]

Wish I had actually paid attention the forum thread back then... I was told the key was unknown.

This would greatly simplify installation for end users, just dump a patched FW file on the SD card and use the stock recovery. All I'd need to do is get dual boot working in the Rockbox SPL, so the OF recovery is accessible once Rockbox is installed.

Dual boot would be great.  I just bought my M3K, receiving it yesterday.  The original firmware is actually nicely usable.  Gapless works perfectly with albums of flacs, a real deal breaker for me.  But only Rockbox has the perfection of Auto-Change Directory with the option of using random *and* constraining the auto-change.  This is a triumph of civilisation :-)  So I installed Rockbox and it is really impressive on this device.  I've been using iRiver H140 with SSD for years and the M3K seems to be the first time I feel I've found something as good, perhaps better in most ways, which can also handle files of different bit-depth and sample rate with ease.  And the M3K doesn't hiss with low impedance IEMs so that is a big improvement.  The one feature that I'd like to use in the original firmware is the ability to work as a USB DAC.  It would occasionally be very useful.  The experience of installing Rockbox onto this target has been very good.  While Fiio's UI is decent enough, I've been reminded that Rockbox's UI and options are so absolutely focused on the user, so mature and refined (the UI not us users!), that it really serves as an advertisement for what is possible when people collaborate.

Many thanks amachronic for moving this device from a maybe/if only curiosity to a genuine daily driver.

And if anyone is not aware, the M3K is now discontinued.  Here in UK you can no longer find it new on amazon or advancedmp3players or any of the usual Fiio retailers.  But there are retailers on aliexpress who still have stock.  These players are vanishing from retail though.  My first aliexpress purchase was refunded as the vendor actually ran out of product, but the next one had the device at my door in 8 days, so I'm happy.  But if you want one, now is the time.