ViX 029 and 147 drivers

[ant500]

sorry i should of posted my post somewhere else but not sure how to remove it

 

[SpaceRat]

Sunray drivers on most non-Sunray boxes just end up with blank screen (but no bricking) as a lot of people have tried (some accidently). That's at least what I understand from posts on this forum.

Been There, Done That, Got the T-Shirt already

But according to this post Sunray images ran on that guy's Solo² SE and I hope they also work after installing the exactly same bootloader.

 

[ketmp]

Been There, Done That, Got the T-Shirt already

So you bricked your box in past?

But according to this post Sunray images ran on that guy's Solo² SE and I hope they also work after installing the exactly same bootloader.

Two people have directly informed me that the sunray patched images work on their Solo2 SE but also a lot have said it resulted in blank screen. I'm not sure if there are different flash versions or even bootloader versions.

It may be that later SE's are capable of running sunray images but this could be because some SE's can allegedly run original images (if you believe the sellers ) so if they run original they are likely to run sunray images (obviously later ones slightly safer - just in case)

 

[SpaceRat]

I confirmed md5 checksum of karl68's vix 078 driver and it doesn't match any original drivers released either just before or after the august release despite the original datestamp stating beginning of September.

VU didn't release any new drivers during this time so I believe Karl68's drivers in vix 078 are slightly patched drivers from the 029 version as the filesize is slightly smaller.

Could you please send those 078 drivers to me using Dropbox, mega.co.nz or anything like that (as I still can not download here)?

About your observations:
You need to perform a simple binary compare, then you will found out the truth

Simply using good old (t)rusty "FC" you will notice this:

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Note the huge gap between the first four differences and the fifth?

So actually, the Lonrisun drivers (In this case: V4) are really original Vu+ drivers (In this case the ones from vuplus-dvb-modules-vusolo2-3.13.5-20140715.tar.gz) but they aren't just patched not to brick the box ("nop"ing the brick/clone detection, thus the small difference of about 8 Bytes between original and Sunray drivers and the identical sizes).

Instead they use some piggy-packed code attached to the driver and the minor diff at the beginning is just a patched jump target address, that's why Lonrisun patched drivers V3 and V4 are larger than the original ones.

The same applies to the V3 Lonrisun drivers when compared to the Vu+ drivers from vuplus-dvb-modules-vusolo2-3.3.8-4.4.3-20140424.tar.gz
and
another generation back to V2 Lonrisun and Vu+ vuplus-dvb-modules-vusolo2-3.3.8-4.4.3-20131212.tar.gz drivers ...

So it seems Lonrisun replaces or overloads some of the functions inside the original driver by declaring their own replacement at an earlier stage (at the end of the file).
That's probably also why you can still find the bomb code inside the Lonrisun drivers:
It's still there but simply doesn't get executed.

That's what I can tell.

What we would need now was someone who can properly handle IDApro or something like that (and definitely better than me) and analyze the piggy-packed Lonrisun code:
If you can relocate it (To match the new addresses when piggy-packing a different original driver with different size), you can attach the same or functionally identical code to any Vu+ driver.

Or:
Someone would need to find out how to downgrade the X-Chip inside the Lonrisun Clone's to V1.
That would get rid of all the protection against unpatched original drivers but it would most probably allow the use of Sunray drivers, as they are just the original drivers with the bomb removed rather than overloaded.

 

[SpaceRat]

So you bricked your box in past?

Nope. I just noticed E2 doesn't come up when using Sunray drivers.

The box becomes pretty unresponsive to telnet/ssh and E2 crashes shortly after start but the Linux system runs normally.

Two people have directly informed me that the sunray patched images work on their Solo2 SE but also a lot have said it resulted in blank screen. I'm not sure if there are different flash versions or even bootloader versions.

That's why I need to find out and why I'm so keen on that specific download ...

The black screen results from E2 crashing (10 times, then it gives up) due to a lacking frame buffer device, if I remember correctly.
It seems the X chip - at least in V4 - prevents certain hardware access unless it comes from a "Lonrisun certified" driver.

To me it seems a bit like Lonrisun has just turned the table: They clone protect their Lonrisun boxes so that drivers from clones made by Vu+ can not access the H/W anymore

 

[ketmp]

It seems the X chip - at least in V4 - prevents certain hardware access unless it comes from a "Lonrisun certified" driver

It's a shame no one from Lonrison is prepared to release newer drivers that are "certified." Lonrison only need to release drivers, Lonrison clone users could do the rest and create clone safe images.

 

[SpaceRat]

Well, what do you expect?
Lonrisun has even stopped making Vu+ Solo² clones (Which is a shame, as they were of better quality than the Sunray ones where the display doesn't even have the correct color).
Dunno if they keep making the Solo² SE or if they just sell out their back-stock ...

So I don't have huge expectations about further support from Lonrisun.

On the other hand, if someone with some good knowledge takes a look at how V2, V3 and V4 drivers were made, he should be able to create newer drivers even without Lonrisun's assistance.

The process isn't different to that of cracking some program, the same steps are performed. Sunray decided to just patch out the copy protection and Lonrisun attached some code to fake dongle/CD detection or something like that.

We just need someone who not only can handle IDApro but also understands the mips architecture.

 

[ketmp]

...Sunray decided to just patch out the copy protection and Lonrisun attached some code to fake dongle/CD detection or something like that.

Could you clarify what you mean?

 

[SpaceRat]

Could you clarify what you mean?

See this post for details about what I have found out about the drivers so far.

 

[ketmp]

@SpaceRat,

Sent you PM of Lonrison clone safe drivers.

I only checked them against original using MD5. The Lonrison drivers are smaller than original as well.

 

[SpaceRat]

Sent you PM of Lonrison clone safe drivers.

Tnx.

I only checked them against original using MD5. The Lonrison drivers are smaller than original as well.

Actually they are larger if you compare them against the proper version

 

[ketmp]

...That would get rid of all the protection against unpatched original drivers but it would most probably allow the use of Sunray drivers, as they are just the original drivers with the bomb removed rather than overloaded.

The Sunray drivers dated 21/10/14 are smaller than original drivers of same date (I assume to remove the clone code) but the drivers released after are the exact same size but with either a 6 or 8 byte difference between sunray and original. Now I assumed clone date had been changed to one of many years, years in future.

Someone who can crack the dvb driver could simply change the clone date of currently (20140401 -an example) to something like 20300101 so the clone code is still there but because the current system date hasn't reached the 01/01/2030 then it hasn't bricked the box as per it's code.

So using layman's terms, the clone code would be something like if %CurrentDate% > 20140401 then EraseFlash. Well if the clone date was changed to 20300101 then the clone code wouldn't execute EraseFlash procedure until in the year 2030.

This is just my thinking of sunray drivers but I could be completely wrong.

 

[ketmp]

Actually they are larger if you compare them against the proper version

My mistake they are smaller.

 

[ketmp]

I know the Lonrison drivers are not clone safe as such because I know it can cause brick in Sunray box so either that's Sunray security chip not liking Lonrison driver and Sunray itself causing brick (which I doubt) or code is still there in Lonrison patched driver just that driver has had something patched so v4 flash will run it without worrying.

 

[IAmATeaf]

I personally don't think that lonrison have modified any drivers, if they had then I'm sure that more recent patched driver would gave been released as it would be in their interest to do so. BH from what I've seen always seem to have drivers that are slightly different and I think it's these drivers that lonrison have been using which is why they don't seem to match any of the official vu released drivers.

 

[ketmp]

I personally don't think that lonrison have modified any drivers, if they had then I'm sure that more recent patched driver would gave been released as it would be in their interest to do so. BH from what I've seen always seem to have drivers that are slightly different and I think it's these drivers that lonrison have been using which is why they don't seem to match any of the official vu released drivers.

I wasn't aware that BH used slightly different drivers. If I get time this weekend I will check md5 for the dvb driver in BH 2.1.4 against original dvb driver dated 21/10/14.

I think it is in Lonrisons interest to not release new drivers thereby forcing people to possibly get new boxes some of which are claimed to accept original images. This obviously means more sales of solo2's. This can, of course, backfire if people get Sunray boxes instead due to their support.

One thing is clear, and that the images from vu-hd website are old now and the drivers in it are are also old. If they are just BH version of drivers then why haven't vu-hd released new images with drivers dated 21/10/14 which are drivers in current BH image, or even better vu-hd release drivers as are included in BH xbmc beta (ie xbmc drivers).

I believe that if everyone complained to their sellers that they will now just get sunray boxes due to current continued support, the sellers would have no choice but to pass this info to Lonrison who I believe would then be forced to also support existing customers with newer images rather than concentrate on purely new boxes.

 

[IAmATeaf]

I thought I read somewhere that they'd stop producing solo2 boxes, those being sold were just old stock? If that is the case then that would explain why they've stopped producing updates.

 

[ketmp]

I thought I read somewhere that they'd stop producing solo2 boxes, those being sold were just old stock? If that is the case then that would explain why they've stopped producing updates.

They're still doing solo2 se which are same just no display so cheaper. These claim original images can be used and I know two people have directly told me their SE can accept sunray patched images but also some can't!!!!

I know people with solo2 SE have used v4 flash update without a problem so that does imply the SE version is pretty much same hardware except can allegedly accept original images.

 

[IAmATeaf]

Hmm some food for thought there. I'm going to message the person I got my box from but I'm not expecting any helpful replies.

 

[ketmp]

Hmm some food for thought there. I'm going to message the person I got my box from but I'm not expecting any helpful replies.

Good luck. I had pretended to be interested in a non sunray solo2 clone and asked about images and was told to visit vu-hd website. I mentioned these images are really old and will there be anymore updates and got no response (which was what I was expecting).