Unable to unbrick ModalAI Voxl m500

ashwin-umdlife

Hello there,

One of our ModalAI drones is bricked and we are unable adb shell into the device. Following the instruction to unbrick given here, I am unable to find device upon sudo fastboot devices.

Here are the instructions we followed to unbrick the device:

Power off the VOXL
Detach VOXL USB cable (to ensure USB is not supplying any power VOXL)
Attach the USB Expander and Debug Add-On board
Ensure the FASTBOOT labeled switch is set to on
Ensure the EMERG BOOT labeled switch is set to off
NOTE: if your board is missing the EMERG BOOT switch, this is OK as its default un-populated state is OFF
Power on the VOXL
Reattach VOXL USB cable
After VOXL boots up (about 5 seconds), set the FASTBOOT back to off

Here is a video of the attempt https://youtu.be/BDEEefeVZ20

Please let us know if we have missed any steps. Thank you.

Ashwin Sushil

modaltb

Hi @ashwin-umdlife ,

Sorry this post is shown as 'deleted' for some reason, testing a response.

modaltb

Hi @ashwin-umdlife ,

I un-deleted this post, I'm not sure if you meant to delete but was asked from our contact email to look at this post.

OK, I think we have some timing issues possibly happening here.

Let's work through this and see if we need to update our documentation.... there's a couple scenarios to work through so it's a little tricky.

The idea here is that we want to mimic "holding down the volume-down key while powering on a phone and letting go right after you power on" and then run the command.

So, let's try this:

have m500 powered off
have fastboot switch turned ON
have USB cable connected to m500, not the host (because VOXL can get a little power from USB, but not enough to boot)
have your terminal open and ready with sudo fastboot devices command waiting

Now:

plug USB power in
power on m500
turn fastboot switch off and quickly run the command (hit ENTER on the terminal that has the command waiting)

Repeat this several times if possible. If we ever detect a device in fastboot mode then we can next attempt to update the system image.

ashwin-umdlife

@modaltb I deleted this post because I figure out the usb should be connected to the voxl board and not the expansion board. Thank you making this clear. I see that there is a video made by your team explaining the unbricking procedure. It will be great if you could add it in the office modalai unbricking documentation.

Roman Rempel

@modaltb
Hey!
i also try to unbrick my VOXL
adb - does not work
but the fastboot sees the device
Tell me how to properly flash system image using fastboot

Chad Sweet

Can you please see try this post? https://forum.modalai.com/topic/525/voxl-adb-or-wi-fi-no-longer-communicating

ashwin-umdlife

@Chad-Sweet I think we are all commenting on the wrong post here. The issue of this post was solved by connecting to the appropriate usb cable.

However, @Roman-Rempel I guess you are having similar problem as in this post https://forum.modalai.com/topic/520/voxl-stuck-in-waiting-after-unbricking/3 ?