OTA updates consistently fail

BraX3
10

I just got confirmation from the iodé lead dev that if the bootloader is unlocked then OTA updates or adb sideload will fail to apply the update (as you see) due to corruption with slot b (so it can’t do the a/b slot handoff). We understand this to a “bug” in the Mediatek firmware that has not (yet) been addressed by them.

I am not that enthused by SP Flash, but it is essential. It is clunky, but is fairly straight forward:

  • Download SP Flash and decompress / extract: https://spflashtools.com/

  • Download “full” SP Flash compatible image and decompress (by default the folder created is brax3-user)

  • For Windows, right-click SPFlashToolV6.ext and choose “Run as Administrator”

  • For Linux, open terminal in the SP Flash directory, and ensure “execute bit” is set for the program: sudo chmod +x SPFlashToolV6. Then launch with sudo: sudo ./SPFlashToolV6.

  • You should see this window (Win or Linux look the same):

Smart Phone Flash Tool V6(Runtime Trace Mode)_002
Smart Phone Flash Tool V6(Runtime Trace Mode)_0021120×728 118 KB

  • On Download-XML, Click “Choose” and navigate to the brax3-user/download_agent/flash.xml file
    • In Linux, since running as root you will have to navigate to your user’s home directory and then to the location of the extracted brax3-user/download_agent folder.
  • Select Firmware Upgrade from the drop down WARNING: if you select Format All + Download you will wipe your IMEI and it is a pain to get back and you will need Windows!
  • Make sure phone is powered off and disconnected
  • Press Download, it will start looking for your phone. Plug in (again start with it powered off), and SP Flash will do its magic from there
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