Mastodawn

codo May 9

@janvlug I (soft?) bricked mine the other day when I took it out of the drawer, after a few years, and let it update itself via the PureOS package manager. #librem5 #pureos

Sebastian Krzyszkowiak May 9

@codo @janvlug It's not really brickable unless you physically damage it or lock it down with e-fuses.

codo May 9

@dos @janvlug What's the easiest/recommended way to unbrick it? It's in a reboot loop at the moment. The screen alternates between black and showing the boot Librem logo.

Sebastian Krzyszkowiak May 9

@codo @janvlug If you don't care about what's currently on the phone, you can just reflash it: https://docs.puri.sm/Hardware/Librem_5/Maintenance/Reflashing.html

If you do, there are ways to mount its filesystem over USB and investigate too.

Reflashing PureOS - Purism user documentation

codo

@dos @janvlug Flashing according to those docs does not work at all. The `librem5-flash-image` does not wait until the battery is inserted and proceeds to print 'Failure 1' and still continues to run `SDPV: jump` and `SDP: boot -f u-boot-librem5.imx` 3 times. This is on an up-to date Debian and latest version of the git repo. I've even tried different cables and with and without dock in between.

@dos @janvlug Supposedly, only the red light should flash, but immediately, the red light flashes when the script is started and the usb-cable is inserted.

@codo @janvlug Just hold Vol+ button while turning the phone on, it won't do anything but should then show up in lsusb and then run the flashing script.

@dos @janvlug I've already done that a million time. Or should it be done with the battery in? And should the usb cable go in before or after? and start the script before or after? I've done already many permutations of these options.

@codo @janvlug Keep the battery in, keep it plugged in. Holding the power button for about 5 seconds will turn it off, holding Vol+ while turning it on will put it into flashing mode. Verify it's seen in lsusb as NXP SE Blank M850, then launch the script.

@dos @janvlug It does not want to turn off at all when the battery is in. It makes some hardware sound (short vibrate), turns on the green led for three seconds, then green led off for one second and repeat with short vibrate and green led, ad infinitum.

@codo @janvlug Not even when holding Vol+?

@dos @janvlug After leaving it alone for a while it somehow went into a state where the lsusb entry is 'NXP Semiconductors i.MX 8M Dual/8M QuadLite/8M Quad Serial Downloader'

@codo @janvlug OK, that's the one (the other string shows up in dmesg, I mixed them up). You should be able to flash it, though if the red LED is shining continuously you may want to give it a few minutes to charge up a bit first, as from the previous messages it seemed like it might have been browning out on power.

@dos @janvlug Knowing the state the `lsusb` should show is valuable. From there on, flashing did indeed work. But it probably would not work from a VM because the USB redirect stops then the device identification changes during the script run.

This has cost me hours today.

Jan Vlug May 11

@codo
Thanks for perseverance and and writing down your difficulties. Did you use the original USB power supply that came with the Librem 5? I think I have seen the ad infinitum cyclus you described as well a few times when the Librem 5 was very low on battery. But I think that the original USB power supply should provide enough power for the flashing process.

@dos