Guts of a Virgin (Electribe 2)

256K · Post by **256K** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 12:55 pm

Man these 2 disabled effects sound awesome! Especially the transpose!

Poumtschak · Post by **Poumtschak** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 1:05 pm

256K wrote:Man these 2 disabled effects sound awesome! Especially the transpose!

Nice one.

cntrlchng · Post by **cntrlchng** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 4:38 pm

Im pretty sure that there are 3 file headers in the file, just search "KORG SYSTEM FILE" im thinking that maybe the fw update is actually 3 updates rolled into one.

Also, if someone understands how to get a disassembler for this thing working, please share, as I have no idea... I've tried rasm2 and an online disassembler... figuring it all out will probably take a lot of time for me...

256K · Post by **256K** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 5:00 pm

cntrlchng wrote:Im pretty sure that there are 3 file headers in the file, just search "KORG SYSTEM FILE" im thinking that maybe the fw update is actually 3 updates rolled into one.

Also, if someone understands how to get a disassembler for this thing working, please share, as I have no idea... I've tried rasm2 and an online disassembler... figuring it all out will probably take a lot of time for me...

you're talking about the 1.03 fw?

cntrlchng · Post by **cntrlchng** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 5:04 pm

Poumtschak · Post by **Poumtschak** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 5:11 pm

cntrlchng wrote:Im pretty sure that there are 3 file headers in the file, just search "KORG SYSTEM FILE" im thinking that maybe the fw update is actually 3 updates rolled into one.

Given there're 3 different computing units in the EMX2, that would make sense.

256K · Post by **256K** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 6:56 pm

PCM, synth and MFX?

Spleen · Post by **Spleen** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 11:44 pm

dutchcow wrote: It didn't find much interesting apart from a certificate used to sign the firmware

Thanks for your work. But most probably the certificate is the showstopper which stops hackers from manipulating the firmware.
The firmware has been signed with a private key from Korg which will be checked with a public certificate in the machine. Change just one bit and the Electribe will refuse to accept your homebrew....

cntrlchng · Post by **cntrlchng** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 11:47 pm

Spleen wrote:
dutchcow wrote: It didn't find much interesting apart from a certificate used to sign the firmware
Thanks for your work. But most probably the certificate is the showstopper which stops hackers from manipulating the firmware.
The firmware has been signed with a private key from Korg which will be checked with a public certificate in the machine. Change just one bit and the Electribe will refuse to accept your homebrew....

This is what I am afraid of.
Anyone feel like trying to perform an update with a modified binary?

dutchcow · Post by **dutchcow** » Wed Jan 28, 2015 8:28 am

After doing a factory reset and refreshing the latest firmware in the idle hope it would fix stuff. I was greeted with a blank display so my e2 has gone back as there is no way to recover from a bad flash as of now. That is, I do not know howto start up in recovery mode and contacting Korg is totally useless.

I think copying the firmware to SD card went wrong. So it seems the e2 does not check if the firmware is valid before flashing it (this is pretty bad, but good for a modding). The flashing itself went without an error and was told to reboot.

But due to the lack of knowing howto enter recovery mode to reflash the firmware I would advise against messing about until we know how to recover from a bad flash

Poumtschak · Post by **Poumtschak** » Wed Jan 28, 2015 8:54 am

dutchcow wrote:After doing a factory reset and refreshing the latest firmware in the idle hope it would fix stuff. I was greeted with a blank display so my e2 has gone back as there is no way to recover from a bad flash as of now.

You mean you've done an un-necessary factory reset and flash "hoping it would fix stuff" and, by doing so, bricked your unit?

dutchcow · Post by **dutchcow** » Wed Jan 28, 2015 9:02 am

^ Yep

Sometimes refreshing and resetting does help

I'm pretty sure the file didn't copy properly to the SD card and due to no CRC check the unit just flashed a bad file and told me to reboot.

This is not a big deal though, you can boot into the boot loader and reflash. It just isn't documented anywhere. And the unit is too new for anyone to have figured out the boot modes.

cntrlchng · Post by **cntrlchng** » Wed Jan 28, 2015 3:44 pm

dutchcow wrote:you can boot into the boot loader.

What do you mean? What's undocumented?

also, this string makes me think you can flash over usb:

Code: Select all

./src/SerialFlash/SerialFlash.cpp

256K · Post by **256K** » Wed Jan 28, 2015 7:10 pm

this thread gives me hope you guys.... keep up the good work. i wish i could contribute but my coding knowledge is extremely limited!

dutchcow · Post by **dutchcow** » Wed Jan 28, 2015 9:11 pm

cntrlchng wrote: What do you mean? What's undocumented?

also, this string makes me think you can flash over usb:
Code: Select all
./src/SerialFlash/SerialFlash.cpp

I tried connecting it with the blank screen but my laptop didn't see any USB devices being connected. Undocumented is which pads/buttons to hold down for it to boot into some fail safe where you can flash a new firmware.

It probably involves putting the firmware in the root on an empty SD card and then holding down a certain combo to make the device flash it. Sending it back for a replacement is the only way for now as Korg does not respond to email support questions at all. I doubt they will tell anyone how to recover form a bad flash.

IMHO they should tell people howto recover from a bad flash in the pdf file that came with the update. Relying on a good copy alone is not very smart. At the very least the e2 should've done some checksum check rather than just flash the file which was obviously corrupt.

Because if it wasn't a bad file it would mean a perfectly fine flash can brick your device