Jibo Revival Docs

08 - Troubleshooting

3 min read

Troubleshooting

This page is a practical checklist for common failure points.

If something fails, also see:

1) Jibo not found / can’t talk to APX (RCM)

Symptoms

  • Tool prints “Jibo not found in RCM mode”
  • EMMC_READ / EMMC_WRITE fails immediately
  • On Linux, lsusb does not show 0955:7740

Checklist

  • Use a known-good data micro-USB cable (charge-only cables are common).
  • Ensure the robot is actually in RCM:
    • hold RCM button
    • press reset/power
    • release when you get red LED and no normal boot
  • Try a different USB port (avoid hubs).

Linux permissions

  • If it works only with sudo, consider installing the udev rule:
    • see ../99-jibo-rcm.rules

Windows driver

  • Install WinUSB for the “APX” device using Zadig.
  • Run the tool as Administrator.

2) ShofEL build issues

Symptoms

  • make fails in ../Shofel/
  • Tool complains about missing payload binaries (like emmc_server.bin)

Checklist

  • You need normal build tools: gcc, make, libusb dev headers.
  • If payload .bin files are missing you also need the ARM toolchain:
    • arm-none-eabi-gcc

Notes:

  • The tool’s --rebuild-shofel forces a rebuild.

3) Dump is slow / crashes near the end

Full dump mode

  • Full dump reads ~15GB; multi-hour runtime is normal.
  • If it fails at ~99%, you often still have most of the content.

Use fast mode instead

If your only goal is enabling SSH/dev mode, you can usually skip the full dump:

  • --mode-json-only

This reads only GPT + /var (~500MB) and writes back only what changed.

4) mode.json edit fails

Why this happens

/var is an ext filesystem image. Editing a file inside it is easiest on Linux (mount) and harder on Windows.

What the installer tries (in order)

  • Linux: mount loop device and edit /var/jibo/mode.json
  • Any OS: try debugfs if installed
  • Fallback: raw byte-pattern overwrite

Fixes

  • On Windows, install debugfs via MSYS2:
    • package: e2fsprogs
  • If raw patching fails:
    • it likely can’t find the exact JSON string pattern, or it would need to grow the data region.
    • installing debugfs is usually the right fix.

5) Fast mode patch-write writes too much (or falls back)

What patch-write is

In --mode-json-only the tool tries to compute which 512-byte sectors changed between:

  • var_partition_original.bin
  • var_partition.bin

Then it writes only those sector ranges.

When it falls back to full /var write

It will write the entire partition if:

  • the images differ in size (shouldn’t happen in normal flows)
  • too many sectors changed
  • too many disjoint ranges were detected

If your edit method rewrites a lot of blocks (filesystem reallocation), you may see a full write anyway.

To force full write explicitly:

  • --full-var-write

6) Verify step fails (hash mismatch)

Meaning

  • The read-back does not match the local file.

Common causes

  • Unstable USB connection/cable
  • Jibo dropped out of RCM mid-process
  • Write succeeded but read-back got corrupted

What to do

  • Re-enter RCM and re-run with --mode-json-only --full-var-write (simplest “make it match” path).
  • Consider disabling verify to proceed if you’re confident the write worked:
    • --no-verify

7) SSH works but updater fails

Connection failures

  • Check Jibo is booted to the checkmark and reachable:
    • port 22 open
    • root / jibo

“Rootfs is read-only” issues

Updater tries to remount / read-write:

  • mount -o remount,rw /

If that fails, the updater will refuse to upload.

Archive layout issues

If the updater cannot find build/ automatically:

  • pass --build-path to point at it inside the extracted tree

Dry-run

To debug without uploading files:

  • --dry-run

8) Where to look for logs / outputs

  • Installer work files: ../jibo_work/
  • Updater cached downloads/extraction: ../jibo_work/updates/
  • Updater state tracking: ../jibo_work/update_state.json

See: 07 - Working Directory + State Files

Graph View

Backlinks