How to enter FEL mode?

[Giddyup]

Model: Community Edition: KDE Plasma Mobile 2GB Ram

I'm currently waiting to hear back from support for an issue I'm having with my phone, in the mean time I was looking into this method to possibly fix it by triggering the device to boot into FEL mode.

https://linux-sunxi.org/FEL

These are the instructions I'm attempting to follow, under the section "triggering FEL mode" I don't believe my model has a special button unless someone can tell me? I have a reset button on the back but I believe that only hard boots the device. The only physical buttons I have on the sides of the phone is a volume up and down and a power button, I was hoping I could trigger it "By holding a standard button" as the instructions said where it explains by pressing a certain button combination on the device itself you could activate this mode. I've tried the directions with volume up and down and it doesn't seem to be working.

I've already downloaded and built "Sunxi-tools" on my distro to be able to use for the next step when the phone is recognized, the directions says to know if I've booted into FEL mode successfully I should see a new device appear with the `lsusb` command. Will the USB-C to USB-A cable that came in the box to charge my phone work with these directions?

Without going the serial cable route, does anyone know how I could boot into FEL mode with my specific model? If I was able to get the device to recognize on my distro then I could flash an image to the emmc directly?

Thank you in advance anyone willing to try and help me with this

[xalius]

As mentioned in https://linux-sunxi.org/PinePhone#FEL_mode the easiest way to enter FEL is probably via sdcard image. Otherwise you can enter FEL if you don't have a valid boot signature on the eMMC and no sdcard inserted. There is a testpad for the FEL pin (that you could pull low with some soldering and flying wirres) but I haven't checked where it is located on the PCB... for what purpose do you need to go into FEL mode?

If you just want to expose the emmc via the USB port, using the jumpdrive image is a lot easier: https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePh..._JumpDrive

[Giddyup]

As mentioned in https://linux-sunxi.org/PinePhone#FEL_mode the easiest way to enter FEL is probably via sdcard image. Otherwise you can enter FEL if you don't have a valid boot signature on the eMMC and no sdcard inserted. There is a testpad for the FEL pin (that you could pull low with some soldering and flying wirres) but I haven't checked where it is located on the PCB... for what purpose do you need to go into FEL mode?

Thanks for the reply, I'm waiting to hear back from support because of an issue with the SD card slot on my phone being defective. I'm completely locked out of my device the day it arrived in the mail, I changed my password from 123456 as the instructions in the box suggested from command line, but without warning I would of never of guessed the pin number to unlock your screen had anything to do with the password for the standard user or that your password needs to be all numbers.. After I tested calling and texting on my phone, I went to command line and I updated/upgraded, disabled the SSH daemon for security reasons and changed my password from 123456 and I haven't been able to get back in my phone since day 1.

I attempted to fix this problem by flashing an image to the SD card (JumpDrive or OS image) and it seems like the slot on my phone for the SD is defective. I've made a forum post (https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=13079) but at this time I've tried 3 different SD cards, on multiple devices using multiple images and multiple programs for flashing to attempt to boot from an SD. Through a realization yesterday, the "problem" I described on that forum post no matter if there's an SD card in the slot or not it behaves the same as I described.

This FEL mode as I put, it should help me flash an image to the emmc directly correct? by connecting it to my distro with a usb cable I should be able to correct my issue using the tools they've provided, unless I'm mistaken.

FEL mode seems to be my last resort in attempting to get back into this phone and fix the problem since unfortunately after many days of messing with this SD card issue the only thing I can conclude is it's defective and not user error.

[_radv_]

As mentioned in https://linux-sunxi.org/PinePhone#FEL_mode the easiest way to enter FEL is probably via sdcard image. Otherwise you can enter FEL if you don't have a valid boot signature on the eMMC and no sdcard inserted. There is a testpad for the FEL pin (that you could pull low with some soldering and flying wirres) but I haven't checked where it is located on the PCB... for what purpose do you need to go into FEL mode?

Thanks for the reply, I'm waiting to hear back from support because of an issue with the SD card slot on my phone being defective. I'm completely locked out of my device the day it arrived in the mail, I changed my password from 123456 as the instructions in the box suggested from command line, but without warning I would of never of guessed the pin number to unlock your screen had anything to do with the password for the standard user or that your password needs to be all numbers.. After I tested calling and texting on my phone, I went to command line and I updated/upgraded, disabled the SSH daemon for security reasons and changed my password from 123456 and I haven't been able to get back in my phone since day 1.

I attempted to fix this problem by flashing an image to the SD card (JumpDrive or OS image) and it seems like the slot on my phone for the SD is defective. I've made a forum post (https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=13079) but at this time I've tried 3 different SD cards, on multiple devices using multiple images and multiple programs for flashing to attempt to boot from an SD. Through a realization yesterday, the "problem" I described on that forum post no matter if there's an SD card in the slot or not it behaves the same as I described.

This FEL mode as I put, it should help me flash an image to the emmc directly correct? by connecting it to my distro with a usb cable I should be able to correct my issue using the tools they've provided, unless I'm mistaken.

FEL mode seems to be my last resort in attempting to get back into this phone and fix the problem since unfortunately after many days of messing with this SD card issue the only thing I can conclude is it's defective and not user error.

Were you able to fix the problem?  FEL seems to be the only option I have available to get my device to work.

[Pavlos1]

@_radv_ Following OP's link: it looks like the easiest way is via UART. Either use the official Pine64 serial cable or make your own*. Remember to flip dip switch 6 (UART/audio) to enable the serial console.

* e.g. out of an old pair of wired headphones + existing UART adapter. Pinout here: https://pine64.org/documentation/PinePho...al_console