[crazyturk]

I asked Zidoo technical service and their answer was that CoreELEC will not work.

[izprtxqkft]

I asked Zidoo technical service and their answer was that CoreELEC will not work.

i wonder what aspect they considered when simply saying it will not work
it's an amlogic S928X-K same as everyone else has been loading ce on so it would be down to driver support

i dont use bluetooth or infrared for the remote, only CEC, so that should be doable
and i dont use the usb ports but those should also be generic enough
network adapter comes to mind next, should be generic enough to be able to be controlled by android

not being able to get to an adb shell is annoying me, i might try an OTG cable since usb debugging is enabled

[pkaa]

@clarkss12 - as recommended by u, I got my TOX3. Loaded CoreELEC-Amlogic-ne.aarch64-21.1.1-Omega-Generic.img.gz. 
Correlec gets installed. I went ahead and also enabled passthrough for all Audio codecs as well since my device chain is TOX3 -> Yamaha TSR 7810 -> Samsung 90D. 

Except for 2 videos, every other mkv crashes the box ! The content is mostly HEVC 4k with TrueHD Audio but I even tried a H264 HD+AC3 combo - even that crashes !!

I checked the coreelec thread and somebody had reported success in Jan 2024 with https://discourse.coreelec.org/t/truston...ence/49156 with 
Amlogic-ne.arm-20.2-Nexus-Generic.img.gz - I tried that as well .. but no luck.
 
I am using the DTB related to generic, 4GB and 1Gbit .. 

Obviously, I am not doing something right. Pl. suggest ..

[pkaa]

JFYI .. to add to my previous post .. the content is played back from a USB drive.

[izprtxqkft]

I asked Zidoo technical service and their answer was that CoreELEC will not work.

follow up
i went ahead and tried, i think it comes down to having the right device tree

i am able to issue 'reboot update' and it will get to android recovery without the usb installed
with the usb installed it just freezes and never does anything, which would indicate to me it is trying to boot from usb but what it's trying to boot just isn't right

for the record i dropped in 2 random s928x dtbs for different devices

so, yea, this thing is just a waste of money - not usable with it's own software and not able to change it's software to something usable

[Sholander]

i am able to issue 'reboot update' and it will get to android recovery without the usb installed
with the usb installed it just freezes and never does anything, which would indicate to me it is trying to boot from usb but what it's trying to boot just isn't right

This is similar behavior like when the bootloader is blocked. Also no way to install anything from uSD/USB devices...

[izprtxqkft]

This is similar behavior like when the bootloader is blocked. Also no way to install anything from uSD/USB devices...

you're right, secure boot is still enabled
i'm back to trying to figure out an otg cable so i can issue the fastboot oem unlock
tried fastboot over tcp and udp just for the sake of being able to say i did but as expected this fastboot doesn't use network

an otg should also allow me to extract the dtb from the device itself as well so that's also useful for that

took it offline for now and it's joining the other devices on the shelf, will revisit at some point

[Sholander]

This is similar behavior like when the bootloader is blocked. Also no way to install anything from uSD/USB devices...

you're right, secure boot is still enabled
i'm back to trying to figure out an otg cable so i can issue the fastboot oem unlock

IIRC this will only work if bootloader is not encrypted, as is on many Android L1 certified boxes.

[izprtxqkft]

IIRC this will only work if bootloader is not encrypted, as is on many Android L1 certified boxes.

gray area
this is not L1 certified, even zidoo devices claiming to be previously used fake keys, the image is userdebug not release-keys
doesn't indicate either way but leans towards not

it's technically pre-rooted too, if you can actually get to an adb shell the SU command exists but is renamed to ZU
i'm using a generic shell emulator app which runs as an app uid instead of shell uid so it just states access denied when trying to execute it (but it does exist)

[clarkss12]

@clarkss12 - as recommended by u, I got my TOX3. Loaded CoreELEC-Amlogic-ne.aarch64-21.1.1-Omega-Generic.img.gz. 
Correlec gets installed. I went ahead and also enabled passthrough for all Audio codecs as well since my device chain is TOX3 -> Yamaha TSR 7810 -> Samsung 90D. 

Except for 2 videos, every other mkv crashes the box ! The content is mostly HEVC 4k with TrueHD Audio but I even tried a H264 HD+AC3 combo - even that crashes !!

I checked the coreelec thread and somebody had reported success in Jan 2024 with https://discourse.coreelec.org/t/truston...ence/49156 with 
Amlogic-ne.arm-20.2-Nexus-Generic.img.gz - I tried that as well .. but no luck.
 
I am using the DTB related to generic, 4GB and 1Gbit .. 

Obviously, I am not doing something right. Pl. suggest ..

You need to post your debug logs on their help site and I am sure they can solve that issue.  That is not normal. 
https://discourse.coreelec.org/c/help-su...-system/16

Edit: for trouble shooting did you connect the box directly to one of the HDMI inputs on your TV??

[pkaa]

@clarkss12 - as recommended by u, I got my TOX3. Loaded CoreELEC-Amlogic-ne.aarch64-21.1.1-Omega-Generic.img.gz. 
Correlec gets installed. I went ahead and also enabled passthrough for all Audio codecs as well since my device chain is TOX3 -> Yamaha TSR 7810 -> Samsung 90D. 

Except for 2 videos, every other mkv crashes the box ! The content is mostly HEVC 4k with TrueHD Audio but I even tried a H264 HD+AC3 combo - even that crashes !!

I checked the coreelec thread and somebody had reported success in Jan 2024 with https://discourse.coreelec.org/t/truston...ence/49156 with 
Amlogic-ne.arm-20.2-Nexus-Generic.img.gz - I tried that as well .. but no luck.
 
I am using the DTB related to generic, 4GB and 1Gbit .. 

Obviously, I am not doing something right. Pl. suggest ..

You need to post your debug logs on their help site and I am sure they can solve that issue.  That is not normal. 
https://discourse.coreelec.org/c/help-su...-system/16

Edit: for trouble shooting did you connect the box directly to one of the HDMI inputs on your TV??

@clarkss12 Sorry - I forgot to update yesterday. I have resolved this issue ! Issue was probably related the HDMI EDID handshake between the box and the receiver. After I whitelisted a specific video resolution in coreelec, there was no issue ! Clue for it, as u have pointed out, was connecting the box directly to TV and everything playing fine. After I whitelisted a specific resolution in Coreelec, I can maintain the device chain of Tox3 -> AVR -> TV. I need to now try out longer playbacks and see how this box performs.

But TOX3 seems like a winner in the $50-60 price bracket !

Thanks again @clarkkss12 for the suggestion