Time to flash is now - but how?

[Sharon]

@irvinewade

the reflash did brick the device - it may not reboot - but, as said, it should always be possible to unbrick i.e. have another go at reflashing, because each reflash is a completely clean reset, independent of whatever events may have occurred before

Sort of.
ISSUE:
I checked the phone and everything is as it was i.e. Usual desktop view. I left the power supply plugged in to it and overnight.
This morning, there were no lights and when I tried to start it, a orange-ish red light came on. The light stayed for 30 seconds, went out and won’t boot, no lights. Removed battery, tried again. Nothing.
I did the battery pull out and in, tried again, no luck. I tried several different ways including turning cable USB-C over, no luck.
I’ve held the start button in for 30 seconds - zilch.
Checked power cables, changed them, anyway, and still same.

SUMMARY:
It does not charge.
Does not load.
After the light on for 30 and goes out, noting work still.
It worked fine even after making to the last part of the flash that hung. The phone still worked as normal.

In going through my emails looking for previous helping emails from Pure, I noticed a forward to me where a friend asked how much it might cost to send it in for the flash, and re-solder the female USB-C. I’m supposed to send in info that is one big hoop and haven’t the time so far. Maybe that’s what’s needed, a answer as to cost get it working right.

QUESTION:
Is there another way to get the phone to charge up so I can at least be used to get the info off the phone and/or boot it up to get back to the flashing?

Can you recommend a good Exorcist.

~s
P.S. Edited to change “USB-A” to USB-C

[Photon]

@Sharon

This morning, there were no lights and when I tried to start it, a orange-ish red light came on. The light stayed for 30 seconds, went out and won’t boot, no lights. Removed battery, tried again. Nothing.
I did the battery pull out and in, tried again, no luck. I tried several different ways including turning cable USB-C over, no luck.
I’ve held the start button in for 30 seconds - zilch.
Checked power cables, changed them, anyway, and still same.

My advice is:

1. Pull battery.
2. Put battery back in.
3. Hit power button.
4. If you don’t get the orange light, drink heavily… and call support.
5. If you do get an orange light, wait at least 15 seconds.
6. If the screen lights up and says “Librem 5”, wait for login and do the Snoopy Dance.
7. If the screen doesn’t light up, hold power down for 10 seconds, release, and go back to Step 3.

Be patient. Every time I reboot, it’s a crap shoot for how many times I have to repeat that loop. But, you know what? I’m confident Purism will fix that problem… Still, such a weight is lifted off my shoulders by not having to use SpyDroid or SpiOS, I will happily reboot like this with a HUGE SMILE on my face until it is fixed. I LOVE MY L5!

[Sharon]

Hi @Photon

@Photon

My advice is:

Yes, I have done all that and more, like using different wall outlet, holding upo to sky like Fabookers do when they can’t connect

Now, nothing happens. I can make a orange/red light appear for 30 seconds (your and my method), but that’s all it does. All I did was plug in the adapter and let it sit over night as usual.

@Photon

I’m confident Purism will fix that problem…

Mmmm, I doubt it.

@Photon

Still, such a weight is lifted off my shoulders by not having to use SpyDroid or SpiOS

{Sidebar}
I wish I could say the same. I never had either phone. No needs for a cell, and enjoyed my privacy and wasn’t attached at the hip to any cell phone like most people. I have several desk/laptops and all private. No ads, no stalkers. Most business require a person use a cell. Our local transit is doing away with cash and join the tap-it group.

Desktops seem to be going the way of of the Dodo bird. Not many new laptops that can accept OS versions like Pure, Pop, Ubuntu and so on. Yeah, I know about Pop. Too bad.
{/Sidebar}

I’ll wait a bit to see if any others respond. I have a feeling that repairs will be costly. Maybe there is a simple solution like Press the volume down while holding the start button and facing north sing ‘Hey Jude’ .
So so disappointed in this - this device. Help has been exceptionally great.
~s

[Photon]

Ouch! It does sound like you have lost screen or video signal.

[shopping4purism]

For what it’s worth: Did you try to boot without the battery while being connected to a power supply?
This way we can exclude a defect battery causing your boot problems.

[Sharon]

@shopping4purism

For what it’s worth: Did you try to boot without the battery while being connected to a power supply?

Yes. I tried your way first

1. Leave power plugged in - remove battery and there is flashing orange, maybe red, blinking light.
   Will not boot. Blinking light still blinks.

2. Since it’s off anyway, - removed power @ device, replaced battery.
   Booted to green light and enter encrypt password stage and went blank
   Blink stopped, screen went blank and light stays on but changed to orange.

3. From same position as #2 above, removed battery, light blinks orange. Won’t boot.
   Replaced battery, orange light stays on.

Perhaps it is a very dead battery and just needs some time-out in the corner to pout or power-up. I’ll give it a hour and report back.

Thanks very much for the tip - it did something and booted - not enough juice maybe.
~s

UPDATE:
Continuing from Step 3 above:

4. Light went out but unsure how long it stayed on. Max time on might be 30 minutes.
   No lights and device is not hot, not even warm as it usually is during charge.
   Won’t boot. (Power plugged in, battery was in too.)

5. Removed battery, Light blinked orange.
   Booted light flashed between green and red to encrypt, then through blocked to desktop.
   Battery reads 0%.
   Light blinks orange or red - hard to tell.
   mobile and Wi-Fi work.

6. Replacing battery
   Whew! It didn’t blow up. Desktop is visible.
   Battery level now 88% Wow. that was a fast charge from o% to 88% in under 2 minutes. Not getting hopes up yet.

7. Going to remove power adapter:
   Removed. - No more blinking light.
   Desktop in tact… All is as it was.

8. Going to power down and boot again.
   Powered Off OK.
   Booted and made it to desktop.
   Plugging in power adapter:
   Desktop active re/orange light solid now.
   Amazing, from 0% charge, to 88% in under 5 minutes and after plugging in power adapter, charge now reads 99%.

Now headed back to @amarok Post #16 w/ @irvinewade edits above and start over flashing the L5.
I still think it needs a exorcism.

My theory is, that at times, just moving the L5 slightly will turn screen black and moving it a bit screen returns. Ergo, possible it lost connection during flash process that released the internal Kraken.
I’ve renamed my L5 from Problem Child to Pandora’s Cell

~s

[Sharon]

@amarok

1- Open the terminal, copy and paste the following to the command line, then press Enter to execute:

Perhaps a prep-guide containing things like.
Ensure phone is reasonably charged.
Ensure device has the following things on it:
Like uuu etcetera.

• Tools you’ll need such as a tool to open the back case to remove/seat the battery. (best how-to I could find)
  For nail-biters, a solid piece of plastic such as a guitar pick.

• A cable with USB-A on one end and USB-C on the other.
  .
  Just a idea is all.

[shopping4purism]

For point 6 (charge level jumping to 88% in a very short time) is, as far as I know, caused by gauge callibration being needed See here Graph of the battery charge level - #10 by Quarnero

[irvinewade]

@Sharon

start over flashing the L5

The information that I requested is from the host computer. So you don’t even need a working Librem 5 to check that.

[Sharon]

@irvinewade

If you get output, please post that output and please then post output from the command:
uuu --version

pure1@pure-pc:~$ sudo apt install uuu
[sudo] password for pure1:
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
uuu is already the newest version (1.2.91+0git6b465-0pureos+librem5.2).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
pure1@pure-pc:~$

@irvinewade

and please then post output from the command:
uuu --version

pure1@pure-pc:~$ uuu --which
uuu (Universal Update Utility) for nxp imx chips – lib1.2.91

Unknown option: --which
pure1@pure-pc:~$

NOTE:
I was only able to get it working again yesterday.

Is uuu OK to try flash again?

~s

[shopping4purism]

@Sharon

uuu --which
Unknown option: --which

I think you need to write literally this command: “uuu --version” and do not enter the text " --which"

The command “uuu --version” will return the requested version number and that is what @irvinewade want’s to know.

Hope this helps.

[irvinewade]

But before that even I wanted the output from which uuu

@Sharon

lib1.2.91

Looks older than what I have but, as you observe, there isn’t anything later for you to install.

@shopping4purism

I think you need to write literally this command

As it happens, it doesn’t matter - because both switches are invalid. It’s just that uuu outputs its version before complaining about the invalid switch. You can use: uuu --anyoldrubbish as long as the switch is indeed invalid.

[shopping4purism]

OK and thank you for filling in my knowledge gap about UUU’s cmd line switches. I could not find the --version switch but assumed you had knowledge of some hidden options.

[Sharon]

I tried to read it but it TMI. I started to see things trying to understand it all.
At least, I hope it wasn’t Trump.

I have it back working now - so it seems.: this is what I think happened.
I just hit the power button to ‘sleep’ the phone and leave it sit on a heat sink. When I sat down last time, I may have moved the power supply cable a bit.
Over night, the power may have drained right out. When I tapped the power button to wake it, that is when I tried all kinds of things, probably too soon and was prepared to provide it with it’s last rights and hold services for it.
Now it is back to normal sitting on the heat sink with a slow-blinking blue light.
Have bottle of wine, some chocolate and legal something else - ready to go
~s
edited typo

[Sharon]

@amarok

I’ll just revert my post to the original steps, and mention the new method (awaiting clarification)

Has it been clarified yet? Am I OK to proceed with Flashing.

[amarok]

Yep. Knock yourself out.

Definition 3 - US -:
used to tell someone to go ahead and do something

“Do you mind if I use this exercise machine first?” “Knock yourself out.”

Also used in this Muppets song: Muppets - Ben Vereen - Jump Shout Knock Yourself Out Theme Song - TelevisionTunes.com

[Sharon]

@amarok

 Insert the USB-C cable into the Librem 5: (red light blinks, no green light)

    Reinsert the battery: (red light is constantly on, the script will continue)

    Release volume-up

New, probably not last errors still

Searching…
uuu (Universal Update Utility) for nxp imx chips – lib1.2.91

Wait for Known USB Device Appear…
Error: Unknown Command:FB: reboot

2024-03-21 12:58:04,107 INFO Cleaning up.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “./scripts/librem5-flash-image”, line 538, in
sys.exit(main())
File “./scripts/librem5-flash-image”, line 521, in main
flash_image(uuu_target, args.debug)
File “./scripts/librem5-flash-image”, line 351, in flash_image
subprocess.check_call([‘uuu’, uuu_target])
File “/usr/lib/python3.7/subprocess.py”, line 347, in check_call
raise CalledProcessError(retcode, cmd)
subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command ‘[‘uuu’, ‘./tmp_librem5-flash-image_u0hff3br/flash_librem5r4.lst’]’ returned non-zero exit status 255.
pure1@pure-pc:~/librem5-flash-image$

I hope I live long enough to see this to the end
~s

[amarok]

Unfortunately, I don’t know how to troubleshoot the error.

[amarok]

Not sure if this is relevant, but installing uuu today myself (as a test) indicates version lib1.4.193.

I’m on Linux Mint 21.3, which is based on Ubuntu 22.04. PureOS and Debian may have different versions… and it might not matter anyway.

I didn’t actually follow through to see if flashing would be successful. I wonder if your loose USB-C port might be the culprit.

[Sharon]

@amarok

Unfortunately, I don’t know how to troubleshoot the error.

Really? I think I know. The script says
ERROR: Unknown Command:FB: reboot.

To me it means there is a commend to “reboot” and that command is not recognized by the script. So, IMO, the script needs some very serious intervention.

@amarok

I didn’t actually follow through to see if flashing would be successful. I wonder if your loose USB-C port might be the culprit.

That “loose” cable is not confirmed. It’s only that at times, moving the phone, the screen has blinked off a few times, and froze before. I swapped out to another cable that hasn’t produce the same so far.
The part of of the Post 16 (Step x Step to flashing) that says

@amarok

5- Once the scripts download has finished, follow the on-screen prompt to attach the Librem 5

and then Step 5 sub part that says:

@amarok

Hold volume-up

    Insert the USB-C cable into the Librem 5: (red light blinks, no green light)

    Reinsert the battery: (red light is constantly on, the script will contin

is where being a octopus would be handy, but it’s the only time the phone was moved and there was no screen blinking, script didn’t stop until the error. Actually, the script continued right after the error with:

2024-03-21 12:508:04,107 INFO Cleaning up…

@irvinewade
Summary:
Had nothing to do with the error. The error is caused by scrip readings command that wasn’t/isn’t there. So, there appears a need to fix that too. This is really over the top of annoying. But I can get 2048 score!

…