If you accidentally soft brick your PBP there is special mode implemented called maskrom mode. In this mode the device is accessible as regular USB device and can be accessed using rkdevelop tools. Especially to rewrite SPI flash or to erase it.

According to Rockchip documentation it should be accessible following below procedure:

1. Press and hold recovery button.
2. Short press reset.
3. Release recovery button after about 3 seconds.

Unfortunately it is not always the case. I had a clear SPI from factory and had to do this procedure trillion times to eventually get into maskrom mode. There is another person who had the same problems.

The nature of this problem is not clear. There are two suspicions:

- the button is not working correctly or is just prone to failures.
- the problem occurs only when the SPI was previously flashed.

One way or the other the button works shorting two pins in an SPI device. But in some cases it just does nothing. So if you experience such problem there is a way to overcome it. You can short the two pins by yourself.

Procedure:

1. Unscrew bottom cover.
2. Remove the metal shield surrounding main CPU - it is held in place by a tape and micro clamps on pcb.
3. Disconnect all (!!!) boot devices (emmc, sdcard, usb).
4. Locate SPI flash (number 29 on picture).


  PBPL_S.jpg (Size: 442.41 KB / Downloads: 7614)

5. Connect pbp with USB-C - USB-A cable to another computer (pbp on USB-C side).
6. Turn on pbp, short pins CLK and VSS and press reset. It should get your pbp into maskrom mode.


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On another computer:

1. Compile rkdeveloptools --> https://github.com/rockchip-linux/rkdeveloptool

2. Create a file filled with zeros:

It's probably me being a total noob, but i fail to use the flashing script:




Is writing mmcblk0 wrong?

We're pleased that you guys are excited and sharing pictures of your phone. However, it is advisable to keep the caseback ON when sharing photographs of the phone, since a number of potentially sensitive numbers (notably IMEI) are etched on the metal cover of the modem.

If you are keen to show others the internals of the phone, then feel free to share this image. It looks identical to the inside of your phone.

If you already shared pictures with the cover off, don't worry about it; consider this a precautions post.

Hey, having a bit of an issue. I got Sailfish installed and up to a point where the screen is locked and there are arrows pointing out from the sides implying I should swipe. But nothing happens with swipe sideways. The swipe up and down works as expected. Anyone know what's going on?

Thank you all for getting a PinePhone BH. With the release of this early adopters version of the PinePhone we've also taken the opportunity to try out a new shipping method. There are a a number of upsides and drawbacks to this shipping method - which I've listed in the January community update - but shipping cost is probably the most notable positive.

So, then, I (and likely other end-users) would like to find out how many of you were asked to pay import tax on your PinePhone? In the comments feel free to include other relevant info such as country, amount paid, etc.
Thanks

Sailfish is one of the oses i'd like to try out, but it's also the only one I can't get to boot properly.
The flash-it script reported success, the device starts to boot, the sailfish logo appears then it goes to a blank screen and the led comes on. looks kind of pink. I've left it in this state for several minutes but no change. 
All other images I've tried have worked fine on the phone, including using the same sd card. any clues? what am I missing?

Edit: That's a bit scary, nothing else would boot on the pinephone until I did a reset (long hold vol down plus power). back to normal now but something's really wrong with sailfish.

Warning: As far as I am aware, so far, this flash process has had about a 16% failure rate. It is difficult to restore your machine with a bad SPI flash. Please proceed at your own risk, and probably best not to try at all if you don't have experience or the time it takes to recover your machine. 

Necessary Items:
 - a screwdriver
 - USB Type-A to USB-C cable
 - Another Computer with a USB-A 3.0 port (I used a Macbook Pro with a type-c dongle, if you use something else, idk.)
Not a requirement but if you want to boot from nvme you need:
 - bootable NVME (i.e., with /boot/boot.txt having root=/dev/whatever_your_nvme_is plus some operating system. I use Manjaro. if you are unsure how to do this or want to sync your emmc with your nvme before hand, as400 has a great guide) preferably an intel 660p since it is what I have. 


Build and install rkdeveloptool on your other computer, find out all the info to do that on their Github. 
    
sanity test that you have installed it correctly

1. the db flash helper(https://www.ironrobin.net/clover/droppy/$/i1mNQ). This prepares the SPI for a binary, in this case, u-boot.
   
2. the uboot binary (https://www.ironrobin.net/clover/droppy/$/H3yzt), built from dhivael's version of u-boot. 
   

This recipe is for a manjaro xfce pinebook pro image installed to an sdcard.  This recipe may work with other manjaro pinebook pro images.  
First I created a separate partition for /boot that remained unencrypted.  Second, I encrypted the existing root / installation using luks.
I used debian os installed to emmc of pinebook pro, any os that supports luks should work (the default os on pinebook pro does not support luks).  You may want to make sure to have a good backup first in case something goes wrong.

I ended up buying https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0756RLGRH/  
iUniker Raspberry Pi 3 B+ Case with Cooling Fan.... along with a Dremel. It fits rock64 after a few cuts :-) (my board came in a cardboard box so was not able to follow https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=4961)

Fan works great (I think I can use the P5 connector and then cut out space for the regular GPIO pins to be usable in this case). I ended up hacking together a stress script to plot charts ala Stressberry that works on the rock64 and the pi. The fan is definitely worth using based on my quick tests.

It came with 3 heatsinks and tape. 2 Aluminium ones with fins and a solid copper one with no fins. I was going to use the bigger finned one on the CPU but wondered about what to do with the other chip. Do nothing or use either the copper or aluminum one. Any thoughts/comments on that?

EDIT added PNG (SVGs not allowed by forum) of temps
  temp.png (Size: 111.85 KB / Downloads: 706)

I finally figured out how to get around the screen turning off and on with the current version of sailfish. Looks like the issue is the with the light sensor, I found that it would the screen would turn off less often if I angled it just right into some strong light. I was able to get into the settings and turn off the "Adjust automatically" setting in the "Display" settings. Once that was turned off everything worked as normal.