Issue flashing Sonoff ZBDongle-E

Hardware
1

Hi. A while ago i have flashed two of those dongles with routing firmware (using WebSerial Flasher) and i dont remember having any problems with flashing.
Now i have bought another three dongles (from two different suppliers) and they all hang in the middle of “Connecting…” stage. I have tried three different computers (two macs and linux) and all three new dongles - none of them can flash.
Screenshot from 2023-12-13 09-30-19
Screenshot from 2023-12-13 09-30-31

I have also tried opening them and manually pressing BOOT when powering the dongle up, unfortunately the effect is exactly same.
What am i doing wrong? is it possible that all three dongles are dead?

1 Like
2

While I don’t have any answers, I wanted to add that I’m in the same boat. First stick I bought a couple months ago worked fine. One I just got hangs at the same point. I have a third arriving tomorrow, but seeing this does not inspire confidence. Hopefully someone will chime in with some good news. If you do figure it out, please post back.

2 Likes
3

so i have kinda succeeded by using the command line tool.

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Kinda because the interview does not complete but maybe i have used a wrong firmware? Anyhow the command tool seems to work and doesnt require disassembly or soldering.
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4

I posted this in a different thread, maybe it will help here.

I was not having any luck trying to flash my E dongle as a router until I realized the firmware file I downloaded was not actually the correct file.

Make sure you go all the way to this page: https://github.com/itead/Sonoff_Zigbee_Dongle_Firmware/blob/386820120e2d1e5a18c0c45235adbc5bc94cd00b/Dongle-E/Router/Z3RouterUSBDonlge_EZNet6.10.3_V1.0.0.gbl

Then download the “raw” file from one of the buttons on the upper right. The file size should be about 280K.

1 Like
5

all right, after a (failed) attempt to remove the dongle from Z2M and another attempt to pair it, it has passed the interview and looks to be working fine.
So the method above should work.
Still whats wrong with the web flasher?

1 Like
6

If, like me, you were trying to install darkxst’s MultiPan (Thread + Zigbee) firmware, I had to do this manually. Here is how I did it…

You will need a terminal program that supports Xmodem file upload. Here we will use ExtraPutty

  1. Download the firmware .gbl file you want to flash (If lyou’re looking for MultiPan firmware, start here. Get the most recent ZBDongle rcp-uart build with 460800 baud rate)

  2. Remove your ZBDongle from the case by removing the 2 screws on the front (Side with USB connector) then plug the dongle in (suggest using a hub or extension cable as you will need to be able to access the dongle)

  3. Launch ExtraPutty and select Serial under Connection Type.

  4. Click ‘Serial’ under the Connection menu on the left

  5. Select the COM port of your ZBDongle, set Speed to 115200 (8,n,1) and Flow control None (DTR/RTS disabled) then click Open

  6. Hold the boot button (left button if you’re looking at the antenna connector) then click the reset button.

    ZbDongle-E
    ZbDongle-E907×791 73.4 KB

  7. You should see ‘Gecko Bootloader’ menu. Press option 1 to upload gbl. (should now say ‘begin upload’)

  8. Click File Transfers (Top menu) → Xmodem → Send File and select your gbl firmware file.

  9. Once the transfer completes wait a few seconds then you are done and it is safe to disconnect and reassemble the dongle.

7

OK, so the solution above worked for two of my dongles, but for the third one im getting:

dinth@dinth-mint:~/Downloads$ universal-silabs-flasher --device /dev/ttyACM0 probe
2023-12-15 09:47:04 dinth-mint universal_silabs_flasher.flasher[81596] INFO Probing ApplicationType.GECKO_BOOTLOADER at 115200 baud
2023-12-15 09:47:06 dinth-mint universal_silabs_flasher.flasher[81596] INFO Probing ApplicationType.CPC at 460800 baud
2023-12-15 09:47:11 dinth-mint universal_silabs_flasher.flasher[81596] INFO Probing ApplicationType.CPC at 115200 baud
2023-12-15 09:47:15 dinth-mint universal_silabs_flasher.flasher[81596] INFO Probing ApplicationType.CPC at 230400 baud
2023-12-15 09:47:19 dinth-mint universal_silabs_flasher.flasher[81596] INFO Probing ApplicationType.EZSP at 115200 baud
2023-12-15 09:47:24 dinth-mint universal_silabs_flasher.flasher[81596] INFO Probing ApplicationType.SPINEL at 460800 baud
Error: Failed to probe running application type

So universal-silabs-flasher doesnt work.
But i have tried the XMODEM way as well, the firmware was flashed successfully, but then the dongle doesnt switch in pairing mode and im still getting
“Error: Failed to probe running application type” error with universal-silabs-flasher after that. Any ideas?

8

I managed to flash my adapter successfully by using the firmware mentioned by @starlilyth! I flashed it via unverisal-silabs-flasher. Upon first try I got permissions errors, but those were resolved by elevating the command. After elevation it worked instantly!

Perhaps the manufacturer changed something since the last website flasher update. Regardless, I am extremely happy to have found this thread! Its very frustrating situation when everyone elses ‘just works’ but yours doesnt!

1 Like
9

I had an issue doing this and it turned out it was a permission problem. My user did not have permission to write to the device.

I ran:

    USB_PATH=$(find /dev/serial/by-id -name "*Sonoff_Zigbee_3.0_USB_Dongle_Plus_V2*")
    sudo chown "$USER" "$USB_PATH"

to make my user the owner (I think it probably would have been better to add myself to the dialout group, but this worked) and then I tested that I could write with:

test -w "$USB_PATH" && echo success || echo failure

The browser firmware flasher worked after this.

10

I kept getting failed transfers of the firmware file until I DESELECTED Xon/Xoff protocol, so that NONE of the Flow Control options was ticked. Then the transfer worked and the system FINALLY updated to the latest firmware. Yay. The firmware file was ncp-uart-hw-v7.4.5.0-zbdonglee-115200.gbl