Brand New Sunray Solo2 - Advice needed regarding flashing images etc
- Thread starter goot
- Start date
Excellent news! I did manage to get my box to boot with a new Vix image with old drivers, but it was extremely unstable and wouldn't always boot 100% - Be interesting to know how the drivers were patched vs the original drivers. I wasn't sure how to analyse the files, I tried opening them with a HEX editor, looking for something that referenced date/time updates but found nothing obvious. That was a couple of weeks ago, work and life has since got in the way!
Life is back in the Sunray Solo2. I've now got my own box along with another friend. The fact that I haven't yet sent it to an early grave makes me glad I went for this over the Lorison (sp?) boxes.
The only downside so far is the remote appears to be getting un-usable. Luckily friend has a couple of ideas up his sleeve to resolve this. Otherwise, fantastic box
- Joined
- Sep 16, 2014
- Messages
- 2,601
- Reaction score
- 1,674
I had read that new vix with old kernel/drivers was a little unstable. I've found new vix with new kernel & (patched) drivers been stable. I don't know for sure where it came from although sunray support admin team believes it may have been a sunray engineer or someone I read.
I gave up on that and bought a brand new one and now can control TV as well.The only downside so far is the remote appears to be getting un-usable. Luckily friend has a couple of ideas up his sleeve to resolve this. Otherwise, fantastic box
Last edited:
I've been happily flashing the newer Vix images and replacing the drivers with 100% success so far. Haven't had much time to test other than boot up for an hour or so. I'm back on Vix 024 as I've not a number of settings that aren't fully working, so I'll make a fresh settings backup once I have some free time
What I'm now keen on is attempting to do Online Updates (OH NO, RUN A MILE!!!) and after everyone's thoughts. Ferrari team managed to lock the driver state which would allow online updates prior to the new kernel. So it must be possible. I'm keen to attempt this on the new image IF we think we can recover.
Am I correct in assuming that should we accidently flash un-patched the Sunray Solo2 will just refuse to fully boot IF network and sat feeds are connected? Disconnected the box will boot fine? So my thinking....
Apply the driver lock (or whatever it's called - I'm sure someone documented it?) then do a Online Update. The box should skip the driver update (used to error when monitoring via Telnet on the Duo). Box should boot up on reboot with the patched drivers still in place. If it replaced the drivers for some unknown reason, do we think the Sunray Solo2 would just boot up OK with Ethernet and sat feeds disconnected? Test would be connect them back up and reboot.
This is based on the current kernel. What we are basically doing replacing the drivers in an original image is no different to the image from an online update as far as I can tell. Just make sure ethernet and sat feeds are disconnected prior to reboot. So unless VU+ engineers attack our model of box we are as "safe" as we can be.
Sunray Solo2 owners, your thoughts please!
What I'm now keen on is attempting to do Online Updates (OH NO, RUN A MILE!!!) and after everyone's thoughts. Ferrari team managed to lock the driver state which would allow online updates prior to the new kernel. So it must be possible. I'm keen to attempt this on the new image IF we think we can recover.
Am I correct in assuming that should we accidently flash un-patched the Sunray Solo2 will just refuse to fully boot IF network and sat feeds are connected? Disconnected the box will boot fine? So my thinking....
Apply the driver lock (or whatever it's called - I'm sure someone documented it?) then do a Online Update. The box should skip the driver update (used to error when monitoring via Telnet on the Duo). Box should boot up on reboot with the patched drivers still in place. If it replaced the drivers for some unknown reason, do we think the Sunray Solo2 would just boot up OK with Ethernet and sat feeds disconnected? Test would be connect them back up and reboot.
This is based on the current kernel. What we are basically doing replacing the drivers in an original image is no different to the image from an online update as far as I can tell. Just make sure ethernet and sat feeds are disconnected prior to reboot. So unless VU+ engineers attack our model of box we are as "safe" as we can be.
Sunray Solo2 owners, your thoughts please!
- Joined
- Sep 16, 2014
- Messages
- 2,601
- Reaction score
- 1,674
Somewhere after vix 24 there was a requirement not to restore settings backup due to, I assume, an OE-A core change. I don't have any problems doing fresh/virgin installs on most recent builds using latest patched driver.
With regards to trying to prevent, as much as possible, a driver change whilst doing an online update then you need to replace with patched drivers (dated 21/10/14, which are currently the latest) as you have been doing and then telnet in and use SED command to change the drivers version number to a higher version as well as usual chattr +i command to write-protect the drivers.
So long as there are no driver updates included in any online update then you, in theory, shouldn't have a problem doing an online update.
The problem comes when there has been a Solo2 driver update released by Vu and included in whatever image you are using when doing an online update. Only at this point can it be tested that both SED and chattr commands are sufficient to prevent drivers being updated.
Obviously this is for those that are prepared to test this out and I wouldn't recommend it obviously.
I will say that I think that if there is ever a Kernel change then that means the write protection of drivers mentioned above will not work at all simply because I'm sure the actual location of the drivers change when there is a kernel update. The use of the SED command may be okay but will not know until such a time.
Obviously this is only for online updates. If a full reflash is done then no protection will apply at all.
Yes, I've found (so far anyhow) that my solo2 (v2) box refuses to fully bootup on an unaltered original image if I have ethernet and sat feeds connected which I assume is somekind of built-in protection.
I would like to add here that doing an online update and providing a full restart of box is done then date/time should go back to default values until such a time as a date/time sync can be done via internet and/or sat feeds from a channel. If a normal go into standby and out again is done, then it's possible the box may remember the date/time and therefore result in possible bricked box. However, i'm not certain whether the boxes can remember the date/time by simply going into standby and coming out but at a guess I would say yes because there hasn't been any power loss.
All this goes without saying that this is all at your own risk and it's advised not to attempt online updates.
With regards to trying to prevent, as much as possible, a driver change whilst doing an online update then you need to replace with patched drivers (dated 21/10/14, which are currently the latest) as you have been doing and then telnet in and use SED command to change the drivers version number to a higher version as well as usual chattr +i command to write-protect the drivers.
So long as there are no driver updates included in any online update then you, in theory, shouldn't have a problem doing an online update.
The problem comes when there has been a Solo2 driver update released by Vu and included in whatever image you are using when doing an online update. Only at this point can it be tested that both SED and chattr commands are sufficient to prevent drivers being updated.
Obviously this is for those that are prepared to test this out and I wouldn't recommend it obviously.
I will say that I think that if there is ever a Kernel change then that means the write protection of drivers mentioned above will not work at all simply because I'm sure the actual location of the drivers change when there is a kernel update. The use of the SED command may be okay but will not know until such a time.
Obviously this is only for online updates. If a full reflash is done then no protection will apply at all.
Yes, I've found (so far anyhow) that my solo2 (v2) box refuses to fully bootup on an unaltered original image if I have ethernet and sat feeds connected which I assume is somekind of built-in protection.
I would like to add here that doing an online update and providing a full restart of box is done then date/time should go back to default values until such a time as a date/time sync can be done via internet and/or sat feeds from a channel. If a normal go into standby and out again is done, then it's possible the box may remember the date/time and therefore result in possible bricked box. However, i'm not certain whether the boxes can remember the date/time by simply going into standby and coming out but at a guess I would say yes because there hasn't been any power loss.
All this goes without saying that this is all at your own risk and it's advised not to attempt online updates.
Remember kids, this thread is a group of like minded people prepared to take risks and experience a number of brown trouser moments. Listen to Uncle Ketmp. If you can't afford to buy a new box don't attempt to do online updates.....
Unless you are me
Anyway I've been playing around with this over the weekend. It's too much hassle and messing around (even for me!). Original images are currently "safe" in disconnected mode until patched. I'm sticking with the Ketmp - make a settings backup, patch the original images and restore settings. However, it is recommended not to take a settings backup from less than Vix 026 as I've experienced issues from a build 024 backup with simple settings and limited plugins.- Joined
- Sep 16, 2014
- Messages
- 2,601
- Reaction score
- 1,674
I had one earlier today actually
! Did my research to ensure that VU haven't (to the best of my knowledge) released a driver update later than 21/10/14 and checked changelog of Vix. Couldn't find anything to be concerned about so took a chance and did an online update from 89 to 90.After the update the box stopped at Boot 99 even with everything disconnected (ethernet/sat feeds) and that's when I really thought that's it, I've bricked it. I then rebooted again but this time it booted fine and my heart rate returned to semi normal.
I therefore personally think it's not worth risking an online update unless prepared to take risks as past few months I've noticed that VU have released driver updates every month or so (to a certain degree) so there maybe an update due soon if cycle continues.
Anyone wanting latest Sunray images should see download section for images that have already been done by the Sunray support team (or my Vix releases).
The Kernel change happened on build 25 and later there was an OE-A core change. Both of these meant that a settings backup wasn't recommended.
However the latter images would be okay as there hasn't been an OE-A core change yet.
