The system controller update went fine, but then I tried to install the keyboard firmware:
curl -sfL mnt.re/update-pocket-keyboard | sudo bash -
After that, the keyboard didn’t respond at all anymore, not even the OLED menu would react in any way and resetting the keyboard didn’t work. A full power cycle also didn’t help.
Now my device is entirely unusable and I really need it in the coming days.
Is there anything I can do @minute?
I also tried disconnecting and reconnecting the batteries, just in case. Also no effect.
Is there maybe a way to boot the machine without the internal keyboard so I can try the firmware flashing again while using an external keyboard?
Hi, sorry for this! AFAIK it doesn’t have to do with the fw updates per se, but there can be some wonkiness with the USB connection to the keyboard that I don’t fully understand yet. Anri had the problem on the weekend that the keyboard would disconnect every once in a while and I proposed to update the FW and the same thing happened that you experienced now: the USB connection got bad in the middle of the FW upload. I’ve also experienced this in the development of Next (still ongoing) where the connection was so bad one day that I wrote a bash loop to just try the upload until it works (sometimes took 10 times). After upgrading the kernel to 6.15 and pressing hard on the small internal USB cable plug of the keyboard, the issues went away. I can’t for sure say yet if it was the cable/connection or the kernel or something else, we’ll look into this more in the next weeks.
Anyway, to recover (and we did this successfully yesterday) you need to overcome the design error that the motherboard has no power on button. To do this you can flash the system controller FW built with the FACTORY_MODE flag turned on. I’ve prebuilt this and just putting this link here for your convenience and will turn it into something official later: http://dump.mntmn.com/sysctl.uf2 (yes, no https there, sorry).
The procedure:
picotool load sysctl.uf2 in a terminal consoleNothing happens when I connect the internal USB-C port to my PC.
On my PC, also no new device is listed in lsusb.
Sorry, I forgot one step in the instructions. You have to set the 2 jumpers behind the internal USB-C port to the other position (facing away from the USB-C port). And when you’re done with everything, put them back. Does it work then?
At what point of the procedure do I have to set those two jumpers?
I’m just very cautious at this point because it’s already a very stressful experience and I really don’t want anything to get even worse. So, precise instructions would help.
I’ve added the steps to the list above now. You can do it at any point before connecting the computer to the motherboard with the USB-C cable. These jumpers just directly connect the 2 USB data lines (D+ and D-) to the port. Usually they connect the RP2040 to the main SoC, so you can flash internally. In this case, we want to flash externally, thus we change this connection.
The system has booted, but now I get a 404 error when trying to download the firmware update script.
Seems like you moved the file in the repo but didn’t update the shortcut URL: merge with imx8mp pocket install and clean up more (c489c337) · Commits · Reform / MNT Reform Factory · GitLab
Is this the correct update script for the keyboard?
https://source.mnt.re/reform/reform-factory/-/raw/main/common-rk3588/update-keyboard-firmware.sh
Yes, but I also put back copies of the scripts in the original place now and those include the hardcoded new FW build number. So the original one-liner should work again now.
$ curl -sfL mnt.re/update-pocket-keyboard | sudo bash -
[sudo] password for esther:
Model: MNT Pocket Reform with RCORE RK3588 Module
MNT Pocket Reform host detected, assuming you want to flash the system that
is running this tool.
Downloading firmware to /tmp/pocket-keyboard-tmp.YvUmF1I6/pocket-hid.uf2...
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
100 112k 100 112k 0 0 51070 0 0:00:02 0:00:02 --:--:-- 51085
Firmware downloaded to /tmp/pocket-keyboard-tmp.YvUmF1I6/pocket-hid.uf2.
Error: MNT Pocket Reform Input device not found or more than one found.
OK, can you show the output of lsusb please?
$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0451:8142 Texas Instruments, Inc. TUSB8041 4-Port Hub
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 0e8d:7612 MediaTek Inc. MT7612U 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wireless Adapter
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 002: ID 1209:6d07 Generic Pocket Reform System Controller 1.0
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 008 Device 002: ID 0451:8140 Texas Instruments, Inc. TUSB8041 4-Port Hub
Thanks! The internal keyboard doesn’t show up here. This is probably because the firmware was half-flashed and doesn’t work/run now. To force it to bootloader ROM mode, you can (I just tried this with my device):
sudo dmesg -w in a terminal to live watch for kernel messages/USB dis/connects.Sorry, forgot to mention that I unplugged and removed the little OLED screen here to have better access to the resistor and buttons.
BTW, also check that the cables to the keyboard are firmly plugged in.
Pressing both buttons while bridging R5 did the trick. After that, the update script ran all the way.
I have now successfully rebooted and power-cycled the machine so things seem to be back to normal.
Thanks for the detailed (although scary) instructions.
Ah, I’m very glad and relieved that you got it working again. Sorry that this can get so complicated. These learnings can help inform some design improvements for second revision keyboards and motherboards.
