Proxmark3 community

ereon

Member

Registered: 2009-03-31

Posts: 7

Flashing issues

Hi,

I'm new to this community and I don't know whether there is a dedicated place on this forum to introduce myself, so i will just write a few lines here about me before asking my question.

My name is Julien, i'm working as an engineer in Europe. I'm impassionated into RFID technologies and I bought a Proxmark III (at http://proxmark3.com/) a few days ago.

I'm used to handle RFID technologies at a software level but i have to admit that i'm really not good at electronics.

I managed to plug the Proxmark to my computer and to execute some commands (tune, loread, losamples, plot, ...). All was working well.

This morning, i tried to flash my proxmark with a new firmware image (20090301_proxmark_doob.zip) using the Windows Compile Environment.

I followed the instructions given on this post but here goes my problems :

When i issued the following command, for the second time :

..\winsrc\prox.exe bootrom ..\bootrom\obj\bootrom-merged.s19

I got the following response :

...no device connected, polling for it now
expected = 00000d4c flush, c.ext1 = 00000d00
done.

But since then, the led booting sequence of my proxmark changed : it is now :

1. All leds on

2. Red led on

3. Yellow led on

And the device is sometimes rebooting by itself.

Now, I can't manage to use any of the flash commands, i always get :

...no device connected, polling for it now
expected = 00000100 flush, ERROR: A device attached to the system doesn't work (I translated the error message)

I can still use some commands on my proxmark (like tune, loread, ...) but for instance, using "losamples" switches on the red led and then reboot the device.

I guess i'll have to flash my device using the JTAG interface to recover from this situation, but as I said, i'm really not good at electronics and am not even sure what kind of JTAG cable/program/procedure I have to buy/use/follow.

Do you, guys, have any advices or clues ? I searched on the forum but since english is not my native language, i might have missed an important answer.

ereon

Member

Registered: 2009-03-31

Posts: 7

Re: Flashing issues

Well, i just found this thread where d18c7db says :

Hey just a quick caution message regarding 20090301_proxmark_doob.zip I was going to build on it and make some changes when I noticed that the fpgaimg.c file in that archive has a zero length and therefore the fpgaimg.s19 produced is incorrect and flashing it will erase your FPGA code. Just drop in the fpgaimg.c from the previous version and you'll be sweet.

Since i didn't replaced any file, i bet this is/could be related to my problem ?

rule

Member

Registered: 2008-05-21

Posts: 417

Re: Flashing issues

Welcome to the community.

It seems that (usb)flashing went wrong. You can always recover using the JTAG interface.
Take a look in the files section, by the documents/howto's
http://www.proxmark.org/files/index.php … FHOWTOs%2F

You will find a first flashing (JTAG) document that I wrote some time ago.
I guess this will at least help you recover the proxmark. After this you can start playing to flash it again

d18c7db

Contributor

Registered: 2008-08-19

Posts: 292

Re: Flashing issues

I'd suggest you flash the ebuller image available in the files section (but that is a little old now). If you want the newest features perhaps go to 20081211_prox which is fairly well proven to work. I believe the 20090301_proxmark_doob is still in development and not 100% ready (Greg can you clarify please).

If your board still boots and you can use some commands but not others, that means the bootloader is good so you could just flash the fpgaimage.s19 from 20081211_prox and you'll be golden.

Also remember to hold the button down when reflashing your board. Press the button and keep it pressed while issuing the flash commands and don't release it until the flashing is complete.

Last edited by d18c7db (2009-04-08 12:57:19)

ereon

Member

Registered: 2009-03-31

Posts: 7

Re: Flashing issues

Thank you roel and d18c7db for your answers !

By pressing the button, i managed to reflash my device using USB ! I downloaded the 20081211_prox version and issued the following commands, again, holding the button down :

..\winsrc\prox.exe bootrom ..\bootrom\obj\bootrom-merged.s19
..\winsrc\prox.exe fpga ..\armsrc\obj\fpgaimage.s19
..\winsrc\prox.exe load ..\armsrc\obj\osimage.s19

Now my device seems to have the correct behavior. It loads and I can execute all commands without seeing it reboot.

Now i just need to learn the use of the different commands (and probably tune my antenna) but that's another point !

Thank you again