Rockbox on HiFi Walker H2

[psyscott]

Yes, except when I select Rockbox it says "cannot boot Rockbox". If I select "HIBY PLAYER, it boots "Eros". I do see ".rockbox" on the card.

[dconrad]

Ok, good. Now I need you to do the following:

1. Format the SD card with the player
2. Download the correct rockbox build for a Hosted Aigo Eros Q/K
3. Extract it onto the card.

Here is a video showing exactly how to do it, start to end. Please do exactly as this video does. Don't take any shortcuts or do anything a different way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLKC42w8jYw

At the end, this is what your SD card should look like:
https://imgur.com/a/JrNQD77

[psyscott]

I hope I'm not duplicating my post  I've tried to post this 3 times (reducing the size of photo each time. Now it's 33 KB),  but I'll try again, like I have your instructions which I have tried 3 times:
1. On my M4 MAC MINI
2. On my INTEL MAC MINI
3. On my INTEL MACBOOK
Each time, I repeated the first 2 steps, exactly. Each time, I had the same results. The H2 would not show that it was connected via USB. Instead, its display would eventually change into a lightened mirror image.
I will try once more to attach this photo, although this has failed to post before, without warning.

Ok, good. Now I need you to do the following:

1. Format the SD card with the player
2. Download the correct rockbox build for a Hosted Aigo Eros Q/K
3. Extract it onto the card.

Here is a video showing exactly how to do it, start to end. Please do exactly as this video does. Don't take any shortcuts or do anything a different way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLKC42w8jYw

At the end, this is what your SD card should look like:
https://imgur.com/a/JrNQD77

[dconrad]

Ok, that's strange but I think we can work around it for the time being. Let's try a slightly different approach. Do you have a microSD card reader you can use instead of connecting the device via USB? Now that the card is formatted, all we need to do is put the installation on the card.

So put the SD card in your reader and then do steps 2 and 3.

Also, I'm not sure if you mentioned, what is the original firmware version on your player? And does it have USB C or micro USB?

Edit to add: if you get the .rockbox on there correctly (matches my picture) and it still does not work, I have some theories about something more fundamental which may be going awry. But I want to go one step at a time.

[psyscott]

I  reinstalled the card into my H2 and tried to boot into Rockbox, Sadly, it still "cannot boot Rockbox"   :'(

The original firmware version on my player is 1.8 and it has micro USB port.

Ok, that's strange but I think we can work around it for the time being. Let's try a slightly different approach. Do you have a microSD card reader you can use instead of connecting the device via USB? Now that the card is formatted, all we need to do is put the installation on the card.

So put the SD card in your reader and then do steps 2 and 3.

Also, I'm not sure if you mentioned, what is the original firmware version on your player? And does it have USB C or micro USB?

Edit to add: if you get the .rockbox on there correctly (matches my picture) and it still does not work, I have some theories about something more fundamental which may be going awry. But I want to go one step at a time.

[dconrad]

The original firmware version on my player is 1.8 and it has micro USB port.

Ok, I think we can rule out user error at this point. I am suspicious of this combination of v1.8 and micro USB port. MicroUSB was only on hw1 and hw1.5 units, and hifiwalker v1.8 is on hw3 units. There are a number of changes between those two which may be causing your issues.

I have three questions that I would like to know the answers to:

• When you boot up the device, does the logo say "HifiWalker", or "Eros"? Hifiwalker v1.8 and Eros v1.8, are totally different so I want to make sure.
  
• (For that matter, it does say "Hifi Walker" on the front, right? Just double checking....)
  
• As I understand, when you boot the device into the original firmware the screen colors are correct, but if you lock the screen and then wake it back up, the colors are inverted?
  
• If you put a music file (any old mp3 or whatever) onto the card, can you play it back in the original firmware?
  

[psyscott]

First I should correct an error I made describing my player. It DOES have a USB-C port. Sorry about that.User error , duh. (Got confused with 2 other players I've been working on, an X3 player and Sandiscs)

When I first boot, the player always displays "HIFI WALKER" with the hiker image. The screen then shifts to the boot options, "HIBY PLAYER" and "ROCKBOX", If I select the latter, I see "Cannot boot Rockbox". If I select HYBY it boots into EROS.

Now that I've corrected which player I have, this might make more sense to you

[dconrad]

Wait, just so that I am clear, after you select Hiby Player, it displays the EROS logo? On my hifi walker units, after selecting Hiby Player, it displays the Hifi Walker logo.

Which, specifically, update file did you install onto the player?

And, what of my second two questions - about the screen mirroring behavior and the ability to read/play a file in the original firmware?

[dconrad]

So, I had a think about it, and I suspect that what has happened is your player is a HifiWalker v1.8 (hw3) unit, but it has ended up with Eros Q v1.8 (hw1) firmware on it.

The rest of this post is entirely conjecture based on the above assumption. So here goes:

I suspect that some results of this due to the way that the firmware sets up the processor's output pins are the following:

• No SD card access (powered off, probably)
• Re-initializing the display after unlocking the device is wrong (inverted colors and mirrored display)
• Loss of USB connectivity?

Usually, the way that the Hosted port relies on the original firmware to run the hardware for it is a benefit, but in this case the original firmware is misconfiguring things.

So, I think that the correct course of action here is to get HifiWalker v1.8 (hw3) firmware back on your device. But... if the firmware turns off the SD card, of course that's not going to work real well.

Also, normally the fact that the update files do not install the bootloader is an issue for us, but in this case it works out for us.

Based on that, I have a long-shot way to do this - I'm not actually sure if it works exactly the way that I think it does, but it's quick enough to try so might as well. Normally, if you do a firmware update, you go Bootloader --> Firmware --> Updater. If the firmware screws up the hardware configuration, then the updater isn't going to be able to find the SD card. But if you hold Volume Up while booting the device, I think it goes directly from Bootloader --> Updater.

That's all a long-winded way to say that I would like to try the following:

• Put https://download.rockbox.org/bootloader/hifiwalker/H2-v18-patched.upt on the SD card and name it "update.upt"
• With the card in the device, power it on while holding Volume Up (keep holding Volume Up until you get to the updater screen)
• Hopefully the updater can actually find the file and do the update!

If that does not work, the only other way I can think to do it is to use jztool to directly write the flash, which is quite a bit more involved (and fiddly).

[psyscott]

The resulting screen says:
update V 1.1

Insert TF pls

Not what you hoped -- Odd Does it not detect card?

Thanks for trying a lot!

What next? Any hope?

I'm willing to keep trying suggestions

[dconrad]

The resulting screen says:
update V 1.1

Insert TF pls

Not what you hoped -- Odd Does it not detect card?

Thanks for trying a lot!

What next? Any hope?

I'm willing to keep trying suggestions

Well, it was worth a shot. I think we'll have to use jztool to fix this then. But first, can you please answer these questions:

• As I understand, when you boot the device into the original firmware the screen colors are correct, but if you lock the screen and then wake it back up, the colors are inverted?
• If you put a music file (any old mp3 or whatever) onto the card, can you play it back in the original firmware?

[dconrad]

Ok, I think we can fairly easily use jztool, and the native bootloader to get into the recovery updater correctly. I was originally thinking that we would actually need to overwrite the internal memory from the native bootloader, but I don't think that is the case, since our own bootloader can initialize the hardware (correctly) and pass directly to the recovery without first going through the main firmware. Or, at least I'm pretty sure.

Lucky for us, the update files do not write the recovery image, so that should be original to your player still. So we just need to get to the recovery mode with the hardware initialized correctly.

Are you familiar with terminal commands? If not, I can walk you through it in more detail. But if so here is the process I would like to try:

• Ensure the correct ( HifiWalker H2 v1.8 ) update.upt file is on the card (I assume it's still there from the last thing we tried)
• Download jztool (mac build): https://download.rockbox.org/tools/macos_intel/jztool
• Ensure it's executable with "chmod +x jztool". You may also need to jump through the various hoops to let macos actually run it, since it's not signed.
• Download the hw3 erosqnative bootloader: https://download.rockbox.org/bootloader/aigo/native/20241206-adbd0125fd/hw3/bootloader.erosq
• With the player off, hold Menu while plugging in USB. The screen should stay off, but the blue light should come on.
• Load the bootloader onto the device (this is temporary, it is not writing anything to the device's memory) with "./jztool erosq load bootloader.erosq"
• Sanity check time: The screen should be white text on black background, and the text should be normal. If not, stop here and we'll reassess.
• Select "Aigo Recovery". It should hopefully now actually be able to find the file and do the update!