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Reflashing A Dead N900
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In my last Weekly Rewind I alluded to a dramatic episode I suffered with the Nokia N900 at the weekend. I wanted to tell that story in full and I figured it deserved it’s own post. I’ll also try to offer a little advice about flashing Maemo devices from a Linux desktop, based on my relatively limited but successful experience. There are already very good guides for this around though, so I don’t want to just duplicate them.
N900 - Keyboard Open
I was lucky enough to be sent an N900 for testing and review purposes by Nokia before Christmas, a lot of you reading this will know that already. Lately some software updates to Maemo 5 (the N900 operating system) have been rolled out, and of course I wanted the latest greatest versions. I received one update about a week ago over the air, which means there was no need to do anything more complex than press “yes” on the phone and let it do it’s thing. It all worked beautifully and I was very impressed. However, when I was prompted about another available update later in the week the process was anything but smooth. Little did I know it but my problems were just beginning. I tried to apply the second update on the phone in the same way but was told I needed to connect the “Nokia Software Updater” tool via a PC. It seems this happens if you have certain testing repositories enabled on your Maemo device like I did, it can cause package conflicts. I’m not averse to using the official software to perform an update if needed, but what I am averse to is the fact that this software is only available for Windows. I’m a full time Linux user as most of you will know and considering the the N900 is a Linux device you’d think they’d have a Linux updater too.
Nevertheless I managed to procure a machine running Windows XP and install the update software. I connected the phone and ran the process as instructed. At first all seemed well, it downloaded the new firmware image and rebooted the phone into what I believe is known as R&D mode. After a while though I noticed the progress bar had stopped moving and I became worried. I left it for over an hour and still no movement. Obviously I wasn’t about to pull the plug out and permanently kill the phone, not without a gun to me head anyway. I waited and waited, then I waited some more. It must have been 2 hours in the end but finally a message came up on the PC screen telling me the update had failed. I closed the program down and looked at the phone, it still seemed to be locked in R&D mode. An attempt to reboot it manually did nothing and I was starting to believe I’d royally screwed the thing for good. I removed and replaced the battery to see if this would reset the device. It didn’t, by this time I was pulling out the little hair I have left.
Figure 1
It seemed as though the Nokia update software had wiped the phone and then promptly crashed before copying over the new firmware. I was wondering how I could explain all this to the company when when sending the device back when I hopped on Identi.ca to talk to people about it. The wise and good friends I have there seemed to know a lot more about this and suggested I try to reflash the device and perhaps revive it. There’s a Linux tool for that I was relieved to discover. I was keen to try it ASAP but the Maemo dev website was actually down for server migration over the whole weekend. This was Saturday night and I was facing a long Sunday without knowing if I still had a phone or not, good timing on my part. I transferred the SIM to my old handset so I could still make calls and twiddled my thumbs. Actually I did do something useful as I read on this guide how to set the phone into R&D mode ready for flashing. It involves some pressing of keys and secret hand shakes which I’ll describe in more detail in a second. With this done I was able to see the device on my laptop by running an “lsusb” command in a terminal. To my huge relief it identified itself as “Nokia e61 (Firmware Update Mode)” and I was starting to believe I could pull this one out of the fire. Hopefully it would be receptive to reflashing.
The following day my good friend Andy (@oscillik) from LivLUG kindly offered to upload the latest N900 image and Flasher 3.5 tool (yes it’s really called Flasher, I had a giggle as well). Here’s the process I went through to flash the device.
- Firstly I installed the Flasher-3.5.deb file Andy sent me on my Linux Mint desktop. You can download it here, now the server is running again.
- Next I opened a bash terminal and tried running a “Flasher-3.5″ command to see if it had worked. I also checked in the Synaptic Package Manager (see figure 1)
- In the terminal I ran “sudo flasher-3.5 -F imagefile.bin -f -R”. You need to replace imagefile.bin with the proper location and name of your image file obviously.
- The terminal prints out “Suitable USB device not found, waiting”.
- Next you need to unplug your phone from the computer if it’s connected and open up the internal keyboard. Hold down the U key on there while reconnecting the USB cable to the device. The phone should now enter R&D mode and the computer will see it.
- The Flasher will now start doing it’s thing and copying the firmware to the N900. (see figure 2)
- Wait a few minutes and the phone will eventually reboot into the newly installed firmware.
Figure 2
It’s not that hard to do but it does involve a few steps. To my huge, HUGE relief this actually worked and my dead N900 came back to life. Like a phoenix from the flames. I’ve never been so happy to hear that annoying Nokia tune in my life. My phone desktop came up pretty much as it had before but with some app icons missing and sporting the original blue N900 theme. I’d made some backups of the data on the phone and also used the internal backup application to store contacts, settings and other things. I restored the backup and it rebooted the phone once again. All of my music, videos and other data were still intact on the device. That was about 12gb of data that I didn’t really want to have to transfer over again. It seems the N900 has some fairly sensible partitioning going on internally. When you wipe the device firmware it only clears the OS partition and leaves the rest alone. That’s very cool. I still couldn’t restore all my applications from the backup though because the repository server was down, the same server it seems. The backup just stores the names of your installed packages and reinstalls them from the repos, like any good Debian system should I suppose.
As of today the repository server is back up and I restored all my applications in one go. The phone is exactly as it was before I broke it and I now have the latest firmware too. It was an emotional journey but I made it in the end. Thanks to the help of friends online, for which I thank them. I’m not sure what happened with the Nokia Software Updater (NSU) and I’m told this is not uncommon for NSU to break by people who’ve used Nokia devices a lot more. If that’s true then Nokia really need to sort this software out, I was convinced I’d bricked my phone and any novice user would be totally lost. I’m hoping the updates will be “over the air” in future, with a solid wifi connection there’s no reason for them not to be. I suppose it shows us one thing, that the N900 while being a lovely device still has some way to go on the software front. If it’s going to be used by Joe Bloggs in the street then the updating processed needs to be… well… updated. Excuse the awful pun.
I hope perhaps this information is useful to others who’ve suffered failed updates and broken phones too. I’ll be steering well clear of the NSU in future and as a bonus it means I don’t need to deal with Windows either. Result!
Dan
Tags: firmware, n900, nokia
30 Responses to “Reflashing A Dead N900”
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woo i got a mention in one of your blogs! :p
glad i could be of some use, and glad that all turned out well in the end.
NSU has had it’s issues in the past, and it is something Nokia need to sort out (there still isn’t a Windows 7 version for crying out loud). but i do agree that there should be a Linux version of the updater, although i do believe that this handset is targeted towards a particular niche market of tinkerers who would probably prefer the flasher way of doing things. if my expeience is anything to go by, the Over The Air updates (at least the major ones) need some work, as i had an issue with tinymail (the N900 mail client) not sending emails at all via Nokia Messaging. reflashing using flasher fixed that, but i don’t really wanna have to do that everytime a major update comes out
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@oscillik – Of course you got a mention, you bailed me out there dude. I think as you say this device is aimed at purely at hackers, but I’d like to think it could go beyond that market in future. They need to be ambitious.
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glad to see there was a happy ending to your ordeal
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@bigbrovar – Thanks, so was I
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Martin
Ha! A Linux device that needs a W$ machine to run properly, c’mon!!!
The mediocre people working at these greedy short-sightning corporations really stinks… and they even get paid.
Day to day, I love more and more Dilbert xD
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@Martin – It is annoying that the Windows software was requested for a device update but it’s not uncommon. A lot of Android devices seem to work the same way. I flashed the device in the end from the Linux utility which I mentioned. I’m hoping we’ll see more over the air firmware updates from device manufacturers in future though.
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[...] Reflashing A Dead N900 [...]
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Dan, you wasted a perfectly good opportunity to take the device apart! As a side note, have you decided what to do with the box the n900 was shipped in? hint hint
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@jezra – Well as far as I know Nokia want both the N900 and the box back in a couple of months. So I’m not doing anything with it for the moment. If they change their mind I’ll think of something to do with it for sure
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Jezra test! Jezra test!!
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I also had issues during the upgrade. It complained I did not have enough and suggested to use NSU (Nokia Software Updater). Stubborn as I am… I just made sme space… moved the apt cache to the home and started an apt-get dist-upgrade. Halfway the update it had issues with space… and eventually the apt update broke. I just restarted the phone… it kept rebooting in a loop for about 5 times. that was about 1 minute of frustrations and a horrible feeling. to my surprise it just came up… it had cleared up more space and I could continue the upgrade. Phone is now up-to-date and working perfectly. That is what I call robust!
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@Gerard – I never thought to do a dist-upgrade and I should have really, being a Debian fan. Glad it worked for you, good job
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becki
i have the n900 and a similar thing happened to me except i was just updating my phone thru nsu only havin the phone 3 days just wanted a play and get used to the phone (well aint i learned my leason) neway after the bar stayed stuck in the same place for about half hour it finally popped saying update failed my phone had gone blank and wouldnt switch on (only reason i got phone was coz of linux thought it would be more compatable with my linux laptop) it would go far as saying nokia on the white but dark screen, vibrate and the light would be orange tryed charging it tryed everything then came across yr feed. my hub trying to flash it on windows vista but i think i might try my laptop if u could help would be really grteful
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@becki – That’s exactly what happened to my phone. It showed Nokia on the dimmed out screen and did the same vibrating thing. You should be fine. It’s just stuck in R&D mode waiting to be flashed with a new firmware. You should be able to do that from any system, it doesn’t need to be a Linux PC, you can do it on Windows. You need Flasher-3.5 and a new image, this is not the NSU or Nokia PC Suite software, it’s different. Follow the guide on the Maemo wiki. Remember to do as it says, starting the flasher and not connecting the phone until you’ve powered it on with the “u” key held down on the N900 keyboard to enable the update mode. It should then be detected by Flasher and copy the software over. I’m pretty confident it’s fixable from the sound of what you’ve said. It’s a scary thing to happen to a new phone and Nokia really need to sort out their NSU application. This is not acceptable. If you decide to use a Linux machine my steps will also work. If you need any more help let me know.
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becki
it is really scary my problem at mo is the fact my battery is dead the phone wont charge it in the r&d mode and i dont know anyone with n900 i cant help but laugh at the matter
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becki
i just been reading through your comments i really dont want to have flash my phone all the time (well i should say get my hub too) im refuse to use the nsu again as this has really got on nerves nokia really need to this phone out, it is a brilliant piece of machinary and could be even better if nokia just sorted out the glitches
but neway thanks for the post if it werent for you the phone would be being replaced as that was what vodafone was going to do
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@becki – I agree flashing is not a proper end user solution. Nokia need to fix NSU urgently. For what it’s worth all the other updates I’ve had on the N900 have been over the air. No plugging into a PC or anything, just click update on the phone. I’m told they’re aiming to do this with all future updates. I hope this is true. If it is you won’t need to flash you phone over and over. Fingers crossed.
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becki
yes fingers crossed lol ay its a new phone im sure theyll iron out the creases or they will loose credability do u know of newere i can get a stand alone battery charger for cheap
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@becki – I don’t sorry. I know it’s obvious but eBay or Amazon is probably your best bet. Amazon seem to have a few N900 accessories for sale already, even though the device is still very new.
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becki
no tryed and looked never mind im sure i will sort it quite resorcfull me
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becki
rite ok i flashed my phone all working fine except one thing my phone register any sim that is inserted do you know what i could do to sort this
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@becki – Not seen that before. Perhaps it’s because this was a Vodaphone handset and not an unlocked one. Maybe you need to get a code from them or something. Sorry I can’t help. If anyone else has one from Vodaphone maybe they can help. Good luck!
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becki
thanks hun its ok someone from nokia is helping anyway im not too botheres at mo anyway everything else still works just not my sim so i cant use it as a phone but i still have my old phone so i can pull it out of storage for a while thanks anyway
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[...] wrote about my trials with the N900 in great detail and published that on Tuesday. It seems the information has helped a couple of people and I’m very glad too hear that. I [...]
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@becki – Hope you get it fixed, good luck
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becki26
hi i sorted my sim problem turns out i hadnt actually updated my phone from 1.2009.44-203.4 to the 2.2009.51-1.203.2
how stupid do i feel anyway i have another problem im hoping you can help me fix my media player (well the video player part) when i try to play videos in there (not the ones i have recorded but the ones i have downloaded from ovi) it tells me media format not supported and also something to do with codec i have also tried pairing my phone with nokia video suite and the video suite just does not like my phone is there an upgrade if so were can i get it -
@becki – Not much of a video expert I’m afraid. Sounds like you might need to check you have the right codecs installed on the N900. That’s the only advice I can offer. Check the application manager and look through the video section for anything useful that’s not installed.
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[...] N900 was updating to a new firmware using Nokia’s NSU software. I wrote about this at length on the blog, so I won’t go over all that again. For me the update process needs to be significantly [...]
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Evan
Nice guide, N900 is working again after it was bricked. thnx!!
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@Evan – Really glad too hear that. Nice work
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