Manual installation Rockbox on Sony NWZ-E463

[tobiasj]

Hi Rockbox-Fans
I have already successfully installed rockbox on the same device some times ago.
However now it does not work anymore.
The steps I do for installation:
First mount the player as storage device with: jmtpfs ~/sonywalkman/
I download from dev_builds the rockbox firmware.
Then I unzip it to the root directory of the player:
unzip rockbox-sonynwze460.zip -d ~/sonywalkman/Storage\ Media/
Put the firmware as described to the same folder.
Unmount and unplug device.
Plug it again.
and then use the scscitool:
./scsitool_64-nwz-v27 ~/sonywalkman/ do_fw_upgrade
however here I get the message:
Cannot open device

Do you have any idea why this happens and how I could fix it?
Thanks in advance
Tobias

[Milardo]

Hi Rockbox-Fans
I have already successfully installed rockbox on the same device some times ago.
However now it does not work anymore.
The steps I do for installation:
First mount the player as storage device with: jmtpfs ~/sonywalkman/
I download from dev_builds the rockbox firmware.
Then I unzip it to the root directory of the player:
unzip rockbox-sonynwze460.zip -d ~/sonywalkman/Storage\ Media/
Put the firmware as described to the same folder.
Unmount and unplug device.
Plug it again.
and then use the scscitool:
./scsitool_64-nwz-v27 ~/sonywalkman/ do_fw_upgrade
however here I get the message:
Cannot open device

Do you have any idea why this happens and how I could fix it?
Thanks in advance
Tobias

Hi, I think your missing the drive letter. Are you using linux to enter the cmdlines? Might have to enter the entire directory. The below is for windows os.

From https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/SonyNWLinuxPort.html :

"Type the following command, replacing X by the version number of scsitool and H by your drive letter:

     scsitool-nwz-vX.exe H: do_fw_upgrade  "
     
This for linux:

"Linux

Follow the Windows instruction but replace the drive letter (H:) by the path to the mass storage device (/dev/sdX), and run the tool as root or using sudo. You do not need the .bat file obviously, use whatever terminal emulator your linux distribution provides"

[tobiasj]

Hi Milardo,
sorry for not mentioning, I did it in two ways, once with relative path ~/sonywalkman and with absolute path /home/mypc-name/sonywalkman
However it did not work out in both cases.
I haven't executed it as root.
I will do this soon, maybe this helps.
Thanks!

[philden]

I would try with the 'real' filesystem location in /dev (or similar), rather than your mount point.

[tobiasj]

HI philden and Milardo,
executing with sudo did not change anything.
@philden: the device is not mounted in location /dev...
but on :
/run/user/1000/gvfs/mtp:host=Sony_WALKMAN_10FEA695760168/Storage Media
using gvfs mount.
Using this default mount point does not allow to copy files to the root directory of the mp3 player.
Therefore I use jmtpfs which allows me to easily mount mtp devices, as the Sony-mp3 player is.

Best Regards
Tobias

[Milardo]

HI philden and Milardo,
executing with sudo did not change anything.
@philden: the device is not mounted in location /dev...
but on :
/run/user/1000/gvfs/mtp:host=Sony_WALKMAN_10FEA695760168/Storage Media
using gvfs mount.
Using this default mount point does not allow to copy files to the root directory of the mp3 player.
Therefore I use jmtpfs which allows me to easily mount mtp devices, as the Sony-mp3 player is.

Best Regards
Tobias

Hi Tobias,

I've used Linux on occasion, but not that much.

I have a sony nwz-e353 which has rockbox on it.

Which linux distro are you using?

Why is your player not mounted in /dev ?

I can't think of any reason what could be the issue, but if you want I can try to reinstall bootloader/firmware on my nwz-e353 in similar linux distro, to see if there is a solution to your issue.

[tobiasj]

Hi Milandro,
I tried to install Rockbox with Ubuntu 18, and Ubuntu 22. Same issue on both of those distros.
My player is not mounted under /dev because sony uses mtp-protocol.
By default this mounts the player under /run/user/1000/gvfs/
How to mount it as default under /dev I don't know.

Thanks for your effort!
Tobias

[Milardo]

Hi Milandro,
I tried to install Rockbox with Ubuntu 18, and Ubuntu 22. Same issue on both of those distros.
My player is not mounted under /dev because sony uses mtp-protocol.
By default this mounts the player under /run/user/1000/gvfs/
How to mount it as default under /dev I don't know.

Thanks for your effort!
Tobias

Hi Tobias,

I was able to do the firmware upgrade in xubuntu 24.

Here are some screenshots of what happened when I plugged in my nwz-e353.

I am not sure if you get the same thing when you plug in your player.

I did not mount the second walkman volume the first one "/dev/sda1" was the one i mounted.

At that point you can put the rockbox build and bootloader/firmware file there.

If I tried to mount the second walkman volume it gets to something similar to /run/user/1000/gvfs/mtp:host=Sony_WALKMAN_10FBB525239788

But both have /dev directory.

Can you check what you have in the file manager when you first plug in your player?

Let me know, and if you need me to install ubuntu 18 or 22 to try that I can as well.

[tobiasj]

Hi Milandro,
I get only one volume when I plug the mp3-player, but never the /dev/...
Attached a screenshot.
I am not sure if testing this on slightly different OS versions will have any change on the mounting...

Best Regards
Tobias

[Milardo]

Hi Milandro,
I get only one volume when I plug the mp3-player, but never the /dev/...
Attached a screenshot.
I am not sure if testing this on slightly different OS versions will have any change on the mounting...

Best Regards
Tobias

Hi Tobias,

I installed ubuntu 22 and I too only got one volume- mtp

After some research, i found this:

In terminal type and enter:

sudo chmod a-x /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-mtp

Then connect your player and mount it should be something like media/username/WALKMAN

You can drag and drop the bootloader file after renaming it NW_WM_FW.UPG into your player root directory.

Make sure you also have the unzipped .rockbox directory in there as well.

Then type and enter to find /dev location of your player:

lsblk

then update firmware like below make sure to type your correct /dev location mine was sda1:

Navigate to the directory where scsitool is.

Also make sure the scsitool is made executable before entering the below:

sudo ./scsitool_64-nwz-v27 /dev/sda1 do_fw_upgrade

check your player to see if it upgrades with rockbox bootloader.

Then once that is done and you have disconnected your player you can type and enter this to restore MTP in ubuntu

sudo chmod a+x /usr/lib/gvfs/gvfsd-mtp

I have attached some screenshots for reference.

Source: https://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=145717

Let me know if it works for you.

[tobiasj]

Hi Milandro,
thanks a lot!!!!!!!
I worked out. Exactly like you said. I wouldn't have come up to this kind of hack by myself.
However I am wondering why this does not work when manually mounting the device with jmtpfs. Maybe jmtpfs handles this device still as a mtp-fs and rockbox or more exactly scsitools cannot handle mtp-devices but needs a plain storage device.
Thanks again for your efforts!
Best Regards
Tobias