Hi everyone,
My Onkyo DP-X1 is currently soft-bricked. I wanted to post here to explain what happened, to warn others with this device, and maybe get some help myself. First off I want to thank XVortex for his work on the TWRP recovery for this device, I know the amount of work and effort it takes for someone to provide something like this for free to the community, and this post is not meant to detract from his work in any way. Regardless, this may be an issue that others could face if the hypothesis below is valid (please read on and decide for yourself), so this post is meant as a warning / cry for help.
A short summary of how I got here:
0) Preparation: find XVortex TWRP image, find stock recovery image, find original stock android image
http://www.head-fi.org/t/780642/onk...amp-mqa-dsd-256-android-5/11220#post_12846468
-> OK, nothing can go wrong!
1) Attempt to fastboot TWRP on Onkyo DP-X1: TWRP boots up correctly, but only sees my external SD-card. I am unable to flash anything.
2) Attempt to flash TWRP as recovery to DP-X1; maybe a native recovery will have more luck accessing my internal storage? No dice, same exact behaviour. Note that at this point I'm getting worried, so I check my device to see if the system still boots: it does. This means that the hardware is OK and we haven't broken anything system-related so far, even though TWRP seems to think we don't have internal storage at all.
3) Hmm, we have fastboot access - why wouldn't I be able to flash my system using fastboot? Flash initiates, but... FAILED (remote: Unknown chunk type)
4) OK, now my DP-X1 no longer boots into the main OS, I guess we broke system now...
5) No problem, we still have the stock recovery and stock OS, let's just revert everything -> fastboot flash recovery, boot recovery
6) Hmmmm..... the stock recovery doesn't recognize my internal storage either! I can no longer fix my system partition through the recovery...
7) Let's try to reflash the stock image using fastboot - if it only flashed partially then maybe reverting that part to stock will solve it. FAILED (remote: Unknown chunk type)
8) Let's reflash TWRP and try to figure out what is wrong with our internal storage
9) dmesg in TWRP indicates:
<6>[ 1.967271] mmc0: no vmmc regulator found
<6>[ 1.969640] mmc0: SDHCI controller on msm_sdcc.1 [msm_sdcc.1] using ADMA
<3>[ 2.071603] mmc0: unrecognised EXT_CSD revision 8
<3>[ 2.071619] mmc0: error -22 whilst initialising MMC card
No mmc0 device, no /dev/block/platform, no possibility to recover anything.
Google "unrecognised EXT_CSD revision 8 error -22" and you will find several threads that discuss hardware revisions, patches to the kernel, and even hardware issues.
Now, some reflection:
- I should have never flashed TWRP after seeing it doesn't have access to my internal storage
- I shouldn't have attempted to flash system through fastboot with no working recovery nor any proof that I can still recover system using the original recovery
So, obligatory warning for everyone else with a DP-X1 that is trying to root or get a custom rom going: DO NOT FLASH TWRP IF YOUR INTERNAL STORAGE IS NOT RECOGNIZED. DO NOT FLASH SYSTEM THROUGH FASTBOOT.
OK, I screwed up, now how to fix it?
Hypothesis: my device is a recent revision of the DP-X1 (december 2016). Maybe there is a newer eMMC used in this revision, and maybe I had a newer stock recovery than what we found in this thread? Maybe the current TWRP release is not compatible with this eMMC revision, and neither is the current stock recovery dump in this thread?
In that case:
a) Has anyone else with this device and a recent revision - or the DP-X1A - had similar issues as me with TWRP?
b) Can we confirm this is a software issue, or did I somehow cause this problem by fastboot flashing system? (In which case, I have no explanation why TWRP failed to recognize my internal storage initially, while the device still booted and worked fine)
c) Does anyone have a newer version of the *stock* recovery than the one posted by ?
d) Let's build a newer TWRP, maybe we can somehow fix this issue with some kernel settings or a newer module?
e) Can we get an original system image (or any image) that works when fastboot flashing it to system?
For (a) and (c) I'm hoping to get some help from the community here. I don't expect anyone to try (b) or (e) as that may leave them in the same situation as me, unless they have access to more resources (i.e. JTAG and/or access to internal hardware)
I've already started on option (d), but have not managed to get a working build of the original image - my TWRP boots up to the initial screen (where you have to confirm you want to allow writes to storage), but then the screen goes black. No adb access, no logcat output, no way to debug other than repeatedly rebuilding with different configurations and hoping one will work. I've found some indications that there may be serial output going to the 3.5mm jack, so I ordered a UART-3.5mm cable with the (small) hope I can debug my custom TWRP like this.
Please read about my issues with building TWRP here:
https://github.com/xvortex/TWRP_Rai_Zin_32/issues/1 . I'm hoping XVortex will see this message (either here or on GitHub) and may be able to offer some advice or help.
I have a lot of experience with Linux, some experience with Android (mostly HTC, Moto & Sony phones, each with their own bootloaders and peculiarities), but almost no experience with this particular device or it's bootloader.
If you've read this far, thank you for your time. If you have any helpful suggestions, please let me know here or in the GitHub thread and I will gladly try them. If you want to discuss this live, we can meet up on IRC or Slack or Skype or whatever.
If none of this leads to anything, the only option I see is to return my device to Onkyo for a repair. I have no idea on their policy, or what it would cost me to ship/repair the device, so I'm exhausting other options first.
Thanks for reading.