Is this the perfect standalone tablet for HA?

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935

I keep getting “DeviceClass - [LIB]: Couldn’t get device configuration.” over and over. I have attempted rebooting the device multiple times well holding down the VOL+ VOL- buttons. I got the brief Lenovo logo flash then a dark screen.

  • Linux Mint
  • Qualcomm Sahara / Firehose Attack Client / Diag Tools
  • android SDK tools installed
  • bin extras and flash were extracted to the root of the edl directory
  • Stock firmware version CD-18781Y.210507.111

What did I mess up?

For troubleshooting I tried a factory reset. Same error.

EDIT SOLVED: I ran the following two commands.
pip install pyusb
sudo apt install python3-docopt

Then I was able to successfully follow the guide from step 2 onward.

936

Ok thanks. Sounds interesting. Let us know how far you get with that :grin:

937

I think you have the paths messed up, try something like this;

./edl qfil \
    /home/<your-user>/edl/bin/rawprogram.xml   \
    /home/<your-user>/edl/bin/patch0.xml \
    /home/<your-user>/edl/flash/ \
    --loader=/home/<your-user>/edl/bin/prog_emmc_firehose_8953_ddr.mbn
938

Try this then tell me how the back light and sleep behave after you enable stay awake in developer options?

adb shell 
su
dumpsys battery reset
# value between 0 and 255, with 0 being off
echo 255 > /sys/class/leds/lcd-backlight/brightness
939

I edited my post to show what worked for me. I don’t know what happened but I had to install 2 packages.

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940

Long story short. Bad flash. Is this a brick now? Similar results on Linux.

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941

Has anyone found a solution for putting the display to sleep reliably?
I am trying to get the display to sleep after some period of inactivity and come back on when it is touched. Would like to avoid using external sensors.

With Fully Kiosk’s screensaver I can get this to work once but it does not go back to sleep

942

Ok I finally got my unit in and trying to get this to work on windows, running into probably very basic issues as I saw some others were too

Got the EDL zip file, the Flash file, and from the EDL git I got Python, git, USB Disk Controller. If I navigate to where USB Disk Controller is installed, I run a Cmd Prompt and got

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I unzipped the flash and copied all the contents to the \edl\ folder of the edl program. So under the EDL folder I have bin, flash, and extras (path is c:\downloads\user\edl-3.52.1\ for the main app and then \edl\ for the 3 folders I mentioned)

When I go to command prompt, to the main directory (where edl.py) lives, I run the command but it says it doesnt have a command called edl. What (probably dumb) thing am I missing here? Thanks!!

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943

The github steps say to “look for device with pid 0x9008”, which from my screenshot I dont see so that is maybe one issue. The other is that I cant even launch the edl command from within the directory via command prompt. Thanks

EDIT - I unplugged the display from USB and can confirm its #2 in my screenshot with HUA0BU8G in the id

944

I do it via Fully Kiosk by a multi part method.

So the screen turn on/off command in the FK integration only turns the device screen OFF. To turn it on, you have to change the screen brightness which turns it on again.

I have two scripts for each device. One turns the brightness down to 0 which puts the screen at minimum brightness but not off. Then it waits a couple of seconds and then turns the screen OFF properly.

The ON script then turns the brightness up to full which turns the screen on again.

The reason for the brightness change is that the setting has to actually change. I guess you could decrease it by one point but I liked the dim and off.

Now, all this is triggered by a mmWave sensor in each room as I want the screens ON whenever someone is in the room (and unfortunately my dogs too!). I didn’t want to have to walk over to the device to turn it on to view it. Everyone has different preferences though. So not sure about doing this entirely on the device but what I’ve mentioned might help???

945

I would guess Windows isn’t finding EDL as it’s either not in the directory you are in or in the path environment variable. Try adding the location to your path.

946

Also, I gave up on flashing via Windows as it’s sooooo tricky to get the USB ports working. I have a very current, top end PC with latest super fast USB and QFIL didn’t like them at all - tried several different cables. Port found but fails flashing with Sahara errors that have been discussed many times here and on other forums.

I then moved to an older PC and it worked first time. However, going back to flashing again and it failed time after time and nothing I did got it working.

So I built Debian on a Pi4 and after the initial pain of installing everything (I installed Debian lite which was missing loads of components), it works fabulously well and is reliable. So I keep this around for experimenting and flashing. I gave up on Windows.

947

Mine sleeps and wakes up reliably with just ha companion app installed

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948

Thanks pgale. I have a RPi but currently hosting my pihole so I would need to plan to have it down to do this.

Another dumb question, in Windows, should I be using Powershell or Command Prompt? I also (from another post here for troubleshooting windows) installed gitbash which has its own command prompt. I am more of a Windows guy so unsure which I should be doing.

Below is my folder structure, I added bin, extra, and flash to the main EDL folder. This also has edl.py in it, and the path I am using to run the commands from. I tried from Command Prompt (elevated) and also gitbash cmd prompt, both say it doesnt exist. Separately I did the steps to update usblib using Zadig which worked fine

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949

I didn’t use the command line at all (I don’t think) - I used the windows QFIL utility to do the flashing so can’t help with your questions unfortunately :frowning:

CMD line as administrator should get you the same results as PowerShell though unless you are using PowerShell commands (which I don’t think you are). Not sure about gitbash although I did use that at one point.

950

Maybe I missed this in this thread but what is the QFIL utility all about? Do you have any info on it? I know you said it didnt always work so great. Zadig and usbdk controller seemed to see my unit so I am hopeful once i can get past this basic step it will work. I am now going to basics and reinstalled all the various tools mentioned on this thread and going to do a reboot (and pray) lol

951

I probably confused things - there’s a write up installing (a different) ROM on the XDA forum:

https://xdaforums.com/t/guide-root-unlocking-and-improving-your-lenovo-thinksmart-view-cd-18781y.4584033/

The installation method at the top of this topic is command line driven and probably easier followed on Linux.

952

Aww thank you I didnt even think to check this site. So I am making progress. Went thru the steps with the qfil utility. Ended up putting the bin folder files and flash files in the same directory as it seemed to error looking for system file. Anyways it ran for a bit but errors still on

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953

Yes, that’s the dreaded Sahara error. I believe there can be a few reasons for this - USB cable, USB ports etc. That’s the reason I ditched Windows in the end. As mentioned earlier, I had the latest and greatest USB ports and they just wouldn’t work.

Also, windows driver signing can get in the way. I think that’s discussed in the XDA forum thread (possibly) and secure boot. I don’t think anyone really knows exactly what’s going on, at least nothing that I’ve read here or on XDA that is definitive unfortunately.

954

I did a bit of a write-up about my experiences and dashboards on the Lenovo so far:

Might be of some use to someone…

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