I have encountered an issue with uploading .bin files to Pokitto under Linux (Mint) when trying to follow the beginner tutorial that says you should connect Pokitto in the USB mode, then delete the firmware.bin file and drag&drop the new .bin file in its place. When doing this, I got my Pokitto into “white screen of death” (doing nothing after reset, just show a completely white screen).
Apparently this issue also happens on Mac because of the OS creating hidden files. This wasn’t my issue though as I made sure there were no hidden files. Fortunately I found this comment:
It says that the issue involves the file system and that the workaround is to replace the file, rather than delete the old one and copy in the new one. You can try this as the first workaround. (Another workaround mentioned was installing Windows in a virtual machine and uploading from there.)
However this didn’t work for me. So I went on and read the linked PDF which provided a script that directly writes to /dev to rewrite the firmware. However the script didn’t work for me right out of the box. After a few changes to it I finally made it work and revived my Pokitto.
So, after all this I feel I should share the script that saved me, for any other potential Linux users who are faced with the issue. Here it is:
Summary
#!/bin/bash
#****************************************************************************
#* $Id:: LinuxNXPISP 4528 2012-09-11 23:32:22Z nxp41504
#* Project: Linux NXP ISP example
#*
#* Description:
#* This is a bash script tested in Ubuntu 10.04 that scans for NXP
#* LPC1XXX devices in USB ISP mode and updates their firmware. It
#* depends on lsusb, udev, udevadmin, and mount.
#*
#****************************************************************************
#* Software that is described herein is for illustrative purposes only
#* which provides customers with programming information regarding the
#* products. This software is supplied "AS IS" without any warranties.
#* NXP Semiconductors assumes no responsibility or liability for the
#* use of the software, conveys no license or title under any patent,
#* copyright, or mask work right to the product. NXP Semiconductors
#* reserves the right to make changes in the software without
#* notification. NXP Semiconductors also make no representation or
#* warranty that such application will be suitable for the specified
#* use without further testing or modification.
#***************************************************************************/
if [ $# != 1 ]; then
echo "This program will program new firmware into an NXP LPC1xxx device"
echo "in USB In-System Programming (ISP) mode. Start it with a path to"
echo "the new firmware."
echo ""
echo "$0 <path to new firmware>"
exit -1
fi
if [ ! -f "$1" ]; then
echo "Cannot open firmware file $1"
exit -1
fi
echo "Searching for NXP LPC1xxx MCU in USB ISP mode..."
# lsusb -d will return output like this:
# Bus 007 Device 002: ID 04cc:0003 Philips Semiconductors
lsusb -d "1fc9:0017" |
# Bus 007 Device 002: ID 04cc:0003 Philips Semiconductors
while IFS=" " read lab1 bus lab2 device lab3 id mfg
do
device="${device:0:3}" # remove trailing ':' from device number
echo "Found USB bus number: $bus device number: $device"
# make udev path for USB device
path="/dev/bus/usb/$bus/$device"
echo "Linux UDEV device path should be: $path"
echo "Now reading USB device info."
# read USB model ID for that device using udevadm
model=$(udevadm info -q property -n $path | grep ID_MODEL=)
model="${model:9}"
echo "Device Model ID is $model"
if [ $model != "LPC1XXX_IFLASH" ]; then
echo "Model does not match: Not \"LPC1XXX_IFLASH\""
else
echo "Correct model ID found."
echo "Searching for disk devices with matching device path..."
# convert our udev path into a much longer kernel device filename
devpath=$(udevadm info -q path -n $path)
# iterate through all of the disk devices, assuming they start with
# sd and have one letter in them.
for disk in /dev/sd[a-z]; do
echo "Checking disk $disk..."
# run udevadm again to get the kernel device filename for
# the disk device we are checking.
diskdevpath=$(udevadm info -q path -n $disk)
# test to see if the disk device's kernel file matches the
# USB device's kernel file
if [ $devpath = ${diskdevpath:0:${#devpath}} ]; then
echo "Match found: Disk device is $disk"
# We found the disk for our USB device. Now test to
# see if we can find it in the mount command output.
# /dev/sdc on /media/CRP DISABLD type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks,uid=1000,gid=1000,shortname=mixed,dmask=0077,utf8=1,flush)
volpath=$(mount | grep "^$disk " | cut -d' ' -f3- | cut -d'(' -f1)
# volpath should be: /media/CRP DISABLD type vfat
if [ "$volpath" = "" ]; then
echo "Found device but it appears to be unmounted."
echo "Please mount the partition and try the update again."
else
# Get the volume path from the mount command output
# make volpath look like: /media/CRP DISABLD
volpath="${volpath:0:${#volpath} - 11}"
# create file path for firmware.bin on ISP device
volpath="${volpath}/firmware.bin"
echo LPC ISP disk path: $volpath
# get the firmware sizes as a sanity check
fwsize=$(stat -c %s "$volpath")
newfwsize=$(stat -c %s "$1")
echo LPC ISP flash size / new firmware size: $fwsize $newfwsize
# The new firmware should be the same size as the flash on the chip
if false; then
echo "New firmware does not match LPC device flash size."
else
# Get volume label from mount command. This is used to check
# for code protect. This is a non-standard extension to mount
# and will cause a compatibility problem with some variants
# of linux/unix (Mac OS-X for example).
vollabel=$(mount -l | grep "^$disk " | cut -d'[' -f2- | cut -d']' -f1)
# desired result: CRP DISABLD
echo "Volume label $vollabel"
if [ "$vollabel" != "CRP DISABLD" ]; then
echo "Cannot flash device- it is code protected!"
# Left as an exercise to the reader- at this point the
# old firmware.bin file could be deleted and the user
# could be asked to remove and reinsert the device to
# reset code protect so it could be updated.
else
# dd is used to update firmware.bin in place. The cp
# command will truncate firmware.bin which will cause
# the linux vfat filesystem to reallocate the blocks
# in a different order, scrambling the firmware update
# flash writes.
dd bs=1024 conv=nocreat,notrunc if="$1" of="$volpath"
echo "Firmware update complete!"
# unmount device when done to ensure that all of the
# data is written to the NXP LPC ISP device
umount "$disk"
echo "Device unmounted."
fi
fi
fi
fi
done
fi
done
The usage is this:
- Download the script and save it as a
LinuxNXPISP.shfile. The location doesn’t matter. (Don’t forget to make it executable withchmod +x ./LinuxNXPISP.sh.) - Connect the Pokitto in the USB flash drive mode (connect via USB cable, reset, hold the bottom button on the back and press the upper button on the back).
- Run the script from terminal, giving it as the only argument the .bin file to be uploaded to Pokitto. E.g.:
./LinuxNXPISP.sh ~/Downloads/start.bin. - If all goes well, the script should say the upload was successful and should disconnect Pokitto. Then everything should work.
EDIT:
You can actually use only dd command instead of the script.