Hey, I think we might be at different stages though - I can flash no problem but with A11 at least, I get stuck at the boot logo no matter what I do after flashing and resetting to factory defaults/ clearing or reformatting cache - or even not doing that. All ends up not booting.
PMOS and A8.1 work fine though!
Ah, re-read so you flashed OK but it didnāt boot until you tried a different cable.
Hmmm, I thought my flashing method was solid as the other images work ok. Maybe something not quite copying correctly or getting corrupted - maybe a long-shot.
Does anyone know if thereās a way to completely format the eMMC on these? Worth a shot to see if something isnāt getting removed and causing an issue - maybe another long-shot.
Hey guys, need some help. After three days of running on A11, my ThinkSmart stopped booting up. Right after power reboot, and upon OS boot-up, the screen just shuts off. I tried flashing one of the firmwares from XDA, but after that, when I connect my device by pressing both volume buttons, it throws out the following errors:
mymac@MYs-iMac edl % ./edl qfil bin/rawprogram.xml bin/patch0.xml flash/ --loader=bin/prog_emmc_firehose_8953_ddr.mbn
Qualcomm Sahara / Firehose Client V3.62 (c) B.Kerler 2018-2023.
main - Using loader bin/prog_emmc_firehose_8953_ddr.mbn ...
main - Waiting for the device
main - Device detected :)
sahara - Protocol version: 2, Version supported: 1
main - Mode detected: sahara
Device is in memory dump mode, dumping memory
sahara
sahara - [LIB]: Error: Invalid mode switch
mymac@MYs-iMac edl % ./edl qfil bin/rawprogram.xml bin/patch0.xml flash/ --loader=bin/prog_emmc_firehose_8953_ddr.mbn
Qualcomm Sahara / Firehose Client V3.62 (c) B.Kerler 2018-2023.
main - Using loader bin/prog_emmc_firehose_8953_ddr.mbn ...
main - Waiting for the device
main - Device detected :)
main - Mode detected: sahara
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/Users/mymac/edl/./edl", line 393, in <module>
base.run()
File "/Users/mymac/edl/./edl", line 295, in run
version = conninfo["data"].version
AttributeError: type object 'req' has no attribute 'version'
What do you think could be the issue? Just FYI, all the manipulations were done using EDL on MAC OS.
Thanks!
You should try a deep flash cable,
https://xdaforums.com/t/unbrick-flash-stock-rom-1-1-7-global-qdloader-9008-fix-edl-mode-fix.4552965/
Out of curiosity, has anyone managed to get the camera to work as a motion detector to run an automation to wake up the Lenovo when someone approaches it?
No need, itās got a proximity sensor. Search on thread on how to use it
Has anyone been able to get the screen to sleep and wake properly (without physical intervention) on 8.1? Iām using Fully Kiosk Browser and can turn the screen off but cannot turn it back on again without touching the screen. I read similar problems throughout this entire thread but did not see any solution.
EDIT - I figured out I can control the screen using Fully Kiosk integration using the Screen Brightness function (all the way from 0 (off) to 255 (max)). However, one trade off in doing this is that it disables the built in āadaptive brightnessā adjustment.
Thanks
Hi mattchap,
Just found something out, not 100% confirmed at this point, but all signs look positive. Iāve got two of these in production; one with only Fully Kiosk, and one with Fully Kiosk an and Android App (Tempo, to play music). The one with Fully Kiosk has been turning the screen on/off like a champ (please see my earlier posts about scheduling a daily reboot with pushing Fully Kiosk to the foreground via HA), but the one with Tempo would, just seemingly out of the blue, decide it wasnāt going to turn off the screen after the timeout. Some googling and thereās an old github ticket taking about issues with MQTT and Fully Kiosk. Well, turned out that the one that only have Fully Kiosk didnāt have MQTT turned on, but the one with Tempo installed did. Turned off MQTT in Fully Kiosk, rebooted, and now all seems good; can switch to Tempo from Fully Kiosk, select some music to play, and after the timer kicks in on the HA automation, the Fully Kiosk app gets pushed back into the foreground, and the screen goes off, and wakes with the camera motion detection. Hope this helps.
Jeff
I posted about this a little while ago. I do the same by adjusting the brightness. I didnāt want to use the adaptive brightness and have the screens always on when someone is in the room so I control the screen via mmWave presence sensors along with auto lighting.
I also found some odd behaviour with the fully kiosk locking up after several days so I also do a nightly restart browser and a URL reload. Works well but doesnāt cure the underlying issues. Thereās also a restart browser on HA restart that Iāve put in place due to the camera feed not always refreshing after a restart.
8.1 is definitely still the most reliable and easiest to get working out of the other available ROMs but there are still odd bits here and there - no audio through the browser is the biggest one Iām still living with at the moment.
One question for you - have you seen a situation where your fully kiosk / touchscreen goes into some kind of sleep mode? After some time, not sure how long but maybe 30 mins to an hour, when I tap the screen, it takes 3-5 seconds to respond and then all is good.
Not sure if itās something in my dashboard so I guess I need to try with a simple dash for a few hours.
Wanted to give a quick update along with a word of warning to anyone using ARM based (M1) Mac architecture when doing the EDL Flash. With the way python is written not even module will auto-sense what chipset you need and depending on what you are extracting to build it may fail. Tell me how I knowā¦
Easiest way to flash for me was to dust off an old Pi and get the environment set there. If you donāt have that then call a friend, do what you have to do and avoid the hours of troubleshooting. Thanks everyone on this thread for helping out nonetheless!
If you want to go down the modern Mac route and have more Python skills than me (likely), I got stopped at Keystone/Capstone install and build. After knowing the whole process of flashing I realized that requirements.txt would not install all the needed components needed to start EDL so that may need re-scripting to grab the elements needed to create the right environment.
If you do figure it out post a how-to! As for me I now have 3 Thinksmarts running 8.1 and now have to update some Lovelace pagesā¦
Thanks - not experienced the āsleep modeā like this yet but itās early days so Iāll report back if it does.
A couple of use cases Iām looking into:
Display a photo slideshow as a screensaver which is sourced from my Google Photos account. I installed Google Photos but on opening received a warning about whether I really wanted to connect to Google. Is it unadvisable to do this when using a āhackedā OS?
Play music using the Spotify app which I was able to download. Ideally I want to be able to initiate the music in HA, which then switches over to the Spotify app, and then returns to HA when itās closed.
Control HA using voice commands. The ThinkSmart has a mic so itās possible I guess.
Any input on these use cases is appreciated!
Someone is using A11 ROM for HA voice assist. I never got A11 to load on my test device. I did get it working on another device but I need that working so couldnāt test further. A11 is also a bit flakey from what Iāve read (Iāve read a lot!) Dinki here is doing it I believe.
Hi mattchap,
Regarding the google account, my rule has always been to try not to trust devices that can be compromised. In the case of the thinkviews, I would be more concerned about the o/s being old and unpatched rather than hacked. Maybe a second google account with just photos. For music, Iām using Tempo, and I have streaming radio as well as local media. Not controlled by HA though (I do have an button that triggers an automation on the Dashboard on the Lenovo that is the āHomeā screen for Fully Kiosk that opens the Tempo app and then returns to the Fully Kiosk Home screen after 90 seconds). For controlling HA via voice command, take a look at Rhasspy: New Rhasspy Mobile App - Beta - Development - Rhasspy Voice Assistant or an older version: Rhasspy mobile app - Development - Rhasspy Voice Assistant . Iāve had both versions of the app running on the Thinksmart, but currently donāt have them because Iāve been on my quest to get the darn screen to turn on and off consistently via motion trigger & time out (really, really hoping Iāve got this figured out now).
Iām sure in my reading, people moved to A11 as there was something in 8.1 that wasnāt working so well? Maybe I got confused. There are a lot of posts all over the place!
There was initially the screen off/on issue. The big reason for A11 is having multiple apps use the microphone, especially in the background. Essential for wake-word enabling.
Still happily using 8.1 on most of my thinksmarts 
The GSI roms do alleviate some audio issues.
They also create a number of other problems that may or may not affect a given use case.
I guess itās a matter of what functionality you need
I am actually having a lot of audio issues with the HA rom unfortunately. Not with HA directlyā¦ but Iām experimenting with stuff in-browsers and some other apps, and so far, only TuneIn Radio seems to be working as expected. Conferencing on Jitsi is for now my main goal here, but thereās no audio at all using their Android application - no mic, no output. Quite useless then.
Iām a bit lost in the available options here. Sorry about the confusion, itās just that following the discussion both here and in the XDA links is a bit messy, and I got the tablet only two days ago. What GSI rom are you using? Whereās the Android 11 one? Does A11 actually tend to break the hardware for some reason?
Just an update on the change to MQTT, wasnāt the fix. Still randomly deciding that it wonāt honor the timeout screen turn off, but whatās weird is that is seems to work fine for a period of time before failing.
I wonder if thereās some type of scheduling (e.g. run every 12 hours) for some app from the lenovo base image. I also have this flooding the logcat:
Access denied finding property āpersist.camera.ltm.filteroffā
Access denied finding property āpersist.camera.dumpmetadataā
Access denied finding property āpersist.camera.ltm.noipā
Access denied finding property āpersist.camera.ltm.swā
Access denied finding property āpersist.camera.isp.regdumpā
Access denied finding property āpersist.camera.isp.offregdumpā
Access denied finding property āpersist.camera.dumpmetadataā
Access denied finding property ācamera.cpp.dumppreviewpayloadā
Access denied finding property āpersist.camera.eztune.enableā
Access denied finding property āpersist.camera.dumpmetadataā
Not sure what this is all about, but is coming from:
libc mm-qcamera-daemon
Jeff