Flashing Amlogic-based controllers using a USB flash drive

Warning

This method works only on Armbian 20.11 and HAOS 6.x. firmware. After updating to Armbian 22.02 / HAOS 8.x it is not possible to update the firmware using this method.

Hint

You can find the current firmware image for your device here: JetHome firmware portal.

Note

This method requires firmware with the type sdcard.

You can flash the controller using a USB flash disk with a partition formatted in W95 FAT32 LBA (NTFS partitions are not readable in u-boot).

Preparing

On the flash drive you need to put the file jethome_burn.ini and the firmware file (further in the example - firmware.img).

Contents of the file jethome_burn.ini:

Note

The file jethome_burn.ini must end with a line break.

[common]
reboot = 0
erase_bootloader = 1
erase_flash = 1

[burn_ex]
package = firmware.img

Section [common]

erase_bootloader:

1 - Erase bootloader. 0 - Do not erase bootloader.

erase_flash:

0 - Do not erase flash.

1 - Normal erase (normal erase as in normal USB Burning Tool flashing).

2 - Force Erase (no information).

3 - Erase all (erase the contents of the NAND/eMMC and bootloader that are in the protected area).

4 - Force erase all (complete erase, including protected NAND/eMMC/SPI areas, formatting and repartitioning of partitions).

reboot

1 - Reboot at the end of the procedures. 0 - Do not restart.

Note

If you set the parameter reboot to 1, then the controller will flash, reboot and immediately flash in circles. You can do without specifying the reboot property, because by default reboot is considered equal to 0.

Section [burn_ex]

package - Firmware file name (You can change it to whatever you want).

Hint

You can edit parameter values in this file, but you should understand what you are doing and remember that you do it at your own risk.

That is, if you need, for example, to completely repartition NAND when flashing, you should edit the appropriate line in the file aml_sdc_burn.ini: erase_flash = 4.

Flashing process

  1. Insert the flash drive into the controller and apply power.

  2. After loading u-boot, if the flash drive has been successfully detected, the flashing process will start automatically.

Note

Since the controller will not reboot itself after reflashing to determine when the software update process is over, you can monitor the software update process via the UART Console (see documentation for your device).

  1. After the flashing process finishes, disconnect the flash drive and reboot the controller.

Supported USB flash drives

Checked operation with the following USB flash drives:

  • SanDisk Cruzer Fit USB 2.0 16GB (idVendor=0781, idProduct=5571) formatted by the manufacturer.