E02 bricked - how to rescue

Greetings all.

Although there is a wealth of information available in these pages I am stuck and need some help.

I have a Pogoplug E02 which I purchased cheaply off Ebay knowing it was bricked as the seller stated.

When received I confirmed it would not boot and opened it up and connected a serial cable to try to get uboot access. Nothing ever comes up in the terminal screen.

Next I connected a crossover ethernet cable and checked to see if I could get a connection to ping without success.

The behavior of the Pogoplug when hooked up to an otherwise non-networked PC is to make an ethernet connection, green light on ethernet port comes on and remains on, and seemingly stops there. The light on the front never flashes at all at any point.

When hooked up to my home network the ethernet port light shows activity by flashing both the green and yellow light but the link never stabilizes. But again the front led never flashes at all at any point.

Is there a way, other than JTAG which I don't have, to unbrick this Pogoplug?

Any guidance would be much appreciated.

Thank you, Tim

Double check your JTAG/serial connection.....wiggle it and make sure you truly have electrical connectivity. The reason I say something, I recently discovered the wires in the Soundblaster/CD cable that I was using for JTAG had split inside the insulation right on top of the connector. The cables are probably 20 years old now so it's no suprise but the only way I knew was when I accidentally jiggled them a little bit and I then got terminal activity.

I have verified serial connection by using the adapter and cable to connect to a Pogoplug Pro without issues.

OMG I just did a search for your situation, you are in for some fun............ http://archlinuxarm.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=4990

I don't have necessary parts to JTAG.

Am hoping someone will know a way of correcting without needing JTAG hardware.

Thanks.

@thawkins,

> When received I confirmed it would not boot and
> opened it up and connected a serial cable to try
> to get uboot access. Nothing ever comes up in the
> terminal screen.

> When hooked up to my home network the ethernet
> port light shows activity by flashing both the
> green and yellow light but the link never
> stabilizes. But again the front led never flashes
> at all at any point.
>

The LED never flashes could mean either:

- u-boot in NAND mtd0 was erased, or badly flashed.
- u-boot in NAND mtd0 was OK, but it was a wrong version, in which the LED flashing was not turned on.

The activity light on ethernet port is encouraging. Have you tried to boot using any USB rootfs? It might be worthwhile to at least try to boot from a new rootfs on USB using the Debian-3.16.0-kirkwood-tld-2 (Updated 02 Sept 2014) from this thread:
http://forum.doozan.com/read.php?2,12096

Sometime it helps. If the LED light behaves differently when there is a good rootfs on USB, then there is hope. If not, then I think you will need JTAG, considering that you've already verified that the serial port was not usable (mostlikely fried by the original owner playing with it).

-bodhi
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I have tried booting up with USB stick with rootfs but never seen any difference in the led light's behavior.

Assuming option one from above - u-boot in NAND mtd0 was erased, or badly flashed is there any possibility of using TFTP via the crossover cable to correct such an error?

In an effort to suss out what IP address might be in use at present I used the Pogoplug Pro, the serial cable, and the crossover cable and stopped the bootup and used printenv showed that the Pro had an IP address of 169.254.188.14 already assigned at that early stage. No DHCP server running locally to assign that address, just the Pro and a non-networked PC. If the E02 also has a default address assigned to it could there be a way to use that way in?

Thank you.

Thawkins,

If the mtd0 was badly flashed or erased, then with the Pogo E02 there is no other way other than Jtag. If the serial console was working then you would have a way to verify that for sure.

-bodhi
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That is what I was afraid of. So the routine that causes the Pogoplug to automatically do upgrades is normally a part of the contents of mtd0 correct?

What is the recommended JTAG hardware. (Read simple and cheap.)

I put the rootfs on a thumbdrive with an activity light and then tried both cold boots and warm resets moving the drive from port to port and the light never even flickered once.

What would cause such a situation as this, a power outage during uboot flash or something similar?

Thank you.

thawkins,

> That is what I was afraid of. So the routine that
> causes the Pogoplug to automatically do upgrades
> is normally a part of the contents of mtd0
> correct?
>

I'm not sure I understood the question entirely. But I'm guessing, if you're referring to the original Pogo OS that does FW updates, if that so then no it's not on mtd0. mtd0 only contains u-boot image and u-boot envs.

> What is the recommended JTAG hardware. (Read
> simple and cheap.)
>

Don't know any cheap JTAG. The original Bus Pirate is not expensive, but it costs more than replacing the Pog E02 itself.

> I put the rootfs on a thumbdrive with an activity
> light and then tried both cold boots and warm
> resets moving the drive from port to port and the
> light never even flickered once.
>

This is a typical symptom when mtd0 can't not be used by the Marvell boot ROM to load u-boot.

> What would cause such a situation as this, a power
> outage during uboot flash or something similar?
>

It's either:

- mtd0 had bad block(s), and u-boot image flashing was not successful, as the result.
- mtd0 was flashed with a binary that was not an u-boot image.
- mtd0 was flashed with an incorrect version of u-boot (such as for some SoC that is different from the Marvell SoC for Dockstar, Pogo E02, GoFlex Net/Home)
- power outage during flashing.

-bodhi
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Can confirm Bodhi, Buspirate works well with OpenOCD but it costs about 30€. Also you need the wiring.
I did invest to learn more about all this stuff and repaired 3 Pogos til now.

joerg_999

Hi joerg_999,

I bricked couple e02s because of bad mtd0 flashing. I couldn't find any documentation about jtag connection pinout. What do we need to JTAG? I know it will cost more than devices but I like to learn.

pogo_e02_jtag

Documentation is found:

http://archlinuxarm.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=1120

Sorry for late reply (was on Holiday..)

################################################################################
## JTAG connector - Pogo E02 pinout ##
################################################################################

J1:
(1) GND ---> next to power plug
(2) TDI
(3) SRST (NC)
(4) TDO
(5) CLK
(6) TMS
(7) RES
(8) 3.3V (NC) ---> next to serial port

CON3:
(1) GND
(2) RXD
(3) TXD
(4) 3.3V (NC)

### Here is the good wiring for Buspirate - PogoE02 ###
color BP - JTAG Pogo E02 (Wire colors from Buspirate cable)
------------------------------------------------------------------
(Brown) GND - GND (1)
(Grey) MOSI - TDI (2)
(Black) MISO - TDO (4)
(Violett) CLK - CLK (5)
(White) CS - TMS (6)
(Blue) AUX - RES (7)

################################################################################
I used Buspirate with Firmware:
# Bus Pirate v3.5
# Firmware v6.1 r1676 Bootloader v4.4
# DEVID:0x0447 REVID:0x3046 (24FJ64GA002 B8)
# http://dangerousprototypes.com
and OpenOCD Ver 0.9.0 on a VMware Ubuntu machine

Note: I`ve a second solution now without Bus-Pirate - take a Raspberry PI (If you dont have, borrow one...)
see here: HOW2 repair a POGO E02 with a Raspberry PI
Good luck!
joerg_999



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/2015 09:45AM by joerg_999.

Hi guys, i was trying yo flash debian on my pogo e02 but i ended with a brick. I can't access through ssh anymore because it doesn't seems to have internet access even if eth led is blinking. Pogo green/orange led instead seems dead. @joerg_999 I read you repaired two pogo with a raspberry pi: I have got one but i'm not such as skilled :( I was wondering if you could do this for me if i send you my bricked one? This is my email gavvi86@gmail.com . Thanks in advance

ueghio,

>I can't access
> through ssh anymore because it doesn't seems to
> have internet access even if eth led is blinking.
> Pogo green/orange led instead seems dead.

No, it is not dead if it's blinking anything red or green. You need a serial console connected and should be able to unbrick it in a simpe way without JTAG.

What is the exact boot behavior when you power up? what LED is blinking in what sequence? and do you have a USB Debian rootfs attached during power up?

-bodhi
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Hi bodhi thanks for your reply :) Maybe i've been misunderstood..only ethernet led is blinking intermittently, pogo front led instead doesn't. I tried to boot with the arch USB stick of my working second pogoplug e02 bit it doesn't boot. I can't neither see any associated IP address with my router. Any suggest?

ueghio Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi bodhi thanks for your reply :) Maybe i've been
> misunderstood..only ethernet led is blinking
> intermittently, pogo front led instead doesn't. I
> tried to boot with the arch USB stick of my
> working second pogoplug e02 bit it doesn't boot. I
> can't neither see any associated IP address with
> my router. Any suggest?

Ah. According to what you said in the other thread, the front LED is not lighted up in any color, right? And you've flashed this Pogo E02 with the Pogo V4 u-boot? If that's true, then yes, it is bricked. The only way to recover is JTAG.

The Pogo V4 u-boot does not work in any other plugs such as Pogo E02, Sheevaplug, or Dockstar. So you will need to follow Joerg's instruction to connect JTAG with the rPi, or get a real Bus Pirate to connect JTAG.

-bodhi
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Ok thanks. Which one is the easiest way in your opinion? I found this jtag cable, could it be ok for debugging pogoplug with my raspberry pi? Or can you give me a link of a compatible jtag cable please? Thank you for your very appreciated help



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/2015 07:01AM by ueghio.

ueghio,

I think your best bet is to go with joerg solution, which I saw you already did in that thread, for one time use. For long term use, a Bus Pirate is a little more convenient.

-bodhi
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Thank you bodhi for your precious time. I will definitely try joerg solution! Here in Italy it's time to go sleeping now. I'll write on the "rpi jtag thread" as soon as i try to unbrick my pogoplug. Goodnight