ODROID N2+ (HA Blue) unable to flash HA

Hi All,
I wonder if someone can help. I bought a home assistant blue and finally after stairing at it for a few weeks I decided to upgrade from my Pi4 to the ODROID N2+. The whole upgrade took 15 min end to end and all was fine. Sadly the romance lasted 5 days when all of a sudden I was not able to access HA from outside. The only way I could access it was internally using a hosts file entry pointing the public name to the internal IP. I spent hours troubleshooting - the router, the network cable, the port on the switch - nothing. I thought the problem was from outside in but it turned out the problem was that the Blue was not able to get to the internet. DuckDNS was not starting. In the end I reinstated by old Pi4 and it was a simple plug and play as almost nothing had changed in the 5 days since the upgrade. I then decided to reflash HA on the ODROID and looking at the instructions it was simple. Well … so I thought. The problem is that I am unable to get the ODROID to be visible as a mass storage in Windows, have not tried any other OSs but… I get plenty of errors when I start the device in SPI mode like Petitbook failed to load, exiting to command… I went over to the ODROID forums but the people there talk stuff way over my head. It’s about cars and stuff that makes little sense. I even upgraded Petitboot to the latest version but I am unable to put the eMMC into mass storage mode so I can flash the HA OS in Windows. So now I have a £150 blue box that is doing nothing. I hope someone can help! Or do I have a bricked ODROID? I am dreading the purchase now. Should have stuck with the good old Pi model

I remember this being s super easy process. It was like changing to spi mode via the switch. Booting once it was booting into the installed OS which was eMCC. Booting 2nd time (with Monitor and keyboard attached) I got this text Menu. I chose the (last?) option in this Menu which was named in the description. Connected the usb cable to my Windows Laptop. Started Etcher. Burned the image. It took a while i remember and there was one warning about the size of the disk but it went super smooth.

Hey Ralf,

Thank you for your reply! I finally figured it out. The instructions provided here https://www.home-assistant.io/hassio/flashing_n2_otg/ are incorrect. The USB cable has to be connected to your PC before you switch to SPI and start the ODROID so when running the ums command the device is connected to the USB. Although I still think I have a dodgy device as Etcher has been hanging for 5 min now displaying a white box and it has starting… at the top. Looks like I still have an expensive blue box… :frowning:

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OK, figured out the Etcher hanging issue. On Windows with UAC enabled you have to run it as admin. I have now raised an issue to update the instructions on the HA website.

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Thanks for finding out and posting the solution - I had just bought one in Australia and decided to reflash and start from scratch, but could not see the ums on a MacBook Pro. I used a NUC running Windows and was able to successfully reflash. The MacBook does not see the attached USB storage regardless of being plugged in when power is toggled.

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I can confirm the exact same behaviour. Frustrating to say the least. Now on the hunt for a window machine…

Got my hands on a windows machine. Same issue - not recognised as an external storage device. Disaster.

The reason I want/need to reflash in the first place is because I don’t have and IP address from the device. Ethernet lockout.

I can only assume it’s defect somehow.

Just to terminate this topic. Had a meeting with an expert in the HA field (professional installations) and they write exclusively with the eMMC reader module, simply because it’s a reliable way to flash the memory. All other methods (including the one on the official HA page (“Common Tasks”) they stay clear of.

He reflashed the eMMC for me and we’re now back in business. Gave me a reader module too for my struggles. :wink:

The problem with the guide on the HA Web site is that if you follow it to the letter, it won’t work. The sequence is incorrect. From memory, don’t have it in from of me, it asks you to power on and then connect to USB. Whereas the correct way is connect to USB and then power on. Then you see the device and can flash it. I tried to update to docs but I have no idea what I’m doing in github so my update eventually got cancelled or something. Otherwise flashing it that way, rather than using a emmc reader, has been working fine. I do however experience occasionally an annoying problem where after a reboot, usually after an update, the device either won’t go down or when it goes down it won’t come up. The only way to fix it is disconnecting the power and then connecting again. Not sure if it is odroid related but I have blocked access to version.home-assistant.io in DNS and have subscribed to all add ons and integrations that I use. This is mainly for supervisor as there is no other way, unless you start messing about with the containers, to stop auto update. So when I get a notification that a new version is available, I read, wait a week or two and then unblock DNS and upgrade after a full backup. I’ve had some hairy experiences with this supervisor auto update while away from home and it’s not good.