Sep 11 2016 0

Rikomagic troubles

After roughly 3 weeks having the Rikomagic MK06 running it started to act ‘weird’ for lack of a better term. The device was experiencing a number of issues;

Network connection was not working, UTP or Wi-Fi, both could get an IP address but nothing seemed to be working
Also all of a sudden the Nova Launcher I had selected as default launcher wasn’t working anymore, but at least the original launcher (RKM_launcher V2) still worked.
and the device was responding very slowly to user actions

I was hoping a reboot would resolve these issues, well at least the networking and overall slowness issues. To my horror the Rikomagic would not startup any more.

Powering up the device only displayed the Rikomagic logo but didn’t display the boot progress indicator. To be sure I tried disconnecting the power altogether for a couple of seconds and tried again.

Boot stuck at Rikomagic logo

Same behavior…

Resetting the Rikomagic MK06

Using a pin to press the reset button I could at least get into the Android system recovery to perform a factory reset (‘wipe data/factory reset’) and clear caches (‘wipe cache partition’).

Android system recovery

Nothing worked, I kept getting the same error message. Time for more drastic measures, re-flashing the firmware.

E:Cannot load volume /misc

Reinstalling the firmware

It took me quite some time to locate the firmware for the Rikomagic. Using a Google search did really help me much, but finally I located the firmware at Rikomagic’s website (one of the many so it appears).

On the page http://www.rikomagic.com/en/download/do_2.html a file named MK06 FW_160715 (.zip) can be found. This was not the firmware that was installed on mine, but is an updated firmware containing several changes and fixes;

Fixed list:

1.Optimized the Launcher and it can be saved after switching when reboot.

2.Fixed the issue that APK icon will disappear in the shortcut bar after updating.

3.Fixed Skype issue.

4.Fixed Capital Input of the virtual keyboard can not be locked issue.

5.Fixed Yomvi playback issue.

6.Optimized the Android system.

You can’t just put the download file onto a microSD and install if from there. You will need another tool to flash the firmware onto the Rikomagic MK06 via the OSB OTG port. You can find the tool and instructions within the same download section at page 1, the download is named ‘Amlogic Models Software Installation Instruction and Tool’.

You will need a Windows machine to use this tool. Also be sure to connect the MK06 to the windows machine using an USB hub (powered?) other wise the tool does not recognize the MK06. Took me about an hour to figure out this little detail.

From there on it is just a matter of following the (awkwardly phrased) English instructions described in the document named ‘MK12.MK05.MK06 Software installation intructions-151219.doc’ (including the typo).