I'm trying to do a full reflash of an N900 from a 32-bit Ubuntu laptop.
I'm trying to get flasher-3.5 to download the firmware, by doing the following steps:

1) Remove the N900 battery to make certain it is off.
2) Re-instert the battery (it does not boot at this point).
3) On the laptop, run

sudo flasher-3.5 -F RX-51_2009SE_1.2009.41-1.VANILLA_PR_EMMC_MR0_ARM.bin -f

That command immediately produces the following output:

Image 'mmc', size 241163 kB
Version RX-51_2009SE_1.2009.41-1.VANILLA
Suitable USB device not found, waiting.


4) While holding down the "u" key, I plug the USB cable into the N900, the N900 powers-up, dispalys NOKIA with no backlight, and shows the USB icon. On the laptop, the following text appears:

USB device found found at bus 002, device address 009.
Found device RX-51, hardware revision 2104
NOLO version 1.4.14
Version of 'sw-release': RX-51_2009SE_21.2011.38-1_PR_MR0
Booting device into flash mode.
Suitable USB device not found, waiting.


The USB icon on the N900 disappears, but nothing else happens. In particular the firmware does not download.
The front LED on the N900 illuminates amber continuously.

I have also tried executing "flasher-3.5 -i", just to check that USB comunications are taking place. The command produces the following output:

USB device found found at bus 002, device address 005.
Found device RX-51, hardware revision 2104
NOLO version 1.4.14
Version of 'sw-release': RX-51_2009SE_21.2011.38-1_PR_MR0


DOes anyone know what might be going wrong here? The laptop is clearly communicating with the N900 to some extent, because the outputs quoted above appear immediately after the USB cable is connected to the N900. But for some reason, flasher-3.5 is just refusing to proceed with the download.

Thanks for any tips!

I was also unsuccessful flashing my N900 with Ubuntu a few years ago. Fortunately I had a Windows XP machine available which worked with no problems. I haven't tried flashing from an Ubuntu machine in the few times it's been necessary since.

I've never had problems with flashing via ubuntu, except the need to apt-get install ia32-libs on the amd64 version.

The problem is indeed weird, I don't know if it has anything to do, but I never needed to press u when plugging in. The second "Suitable USB device not found" message is normal, but it should be quickly succeeded by the firmware download.

According to the wiki, flashing the emmc when your rootfs is borked may not work, so I would try flashing the rootfs first then the emmc and then rootfs again.

hope that helps.

Canonical Ironical, isn't it? But indeed, I recall some reports of people not being able to flash from ubuntu, with exact same results. No idea why - Ken-Young maybe try liveCD of some other linux flavor? at least, it would allow to filter out possible cause(s).

/Estel

FWIW, I have never managed to flash VANILLA on any of my 3 N900s. Using two different PCs, both 32 bits, running Debian Squeeze, Debian Wheezy, EasyPeasy (basically Ubuntu 10.04) and Windows XP. Flashing COMBINED worked fine in all cases, but VANILLA failed every time. As a conclusion, I do not believe it can be done and treat all reports of people having done it successfully as myths.

Edit rather than reply so I don't bump the thread...

The above was correct as of time of writing. I have since then acquired a new laptop and hey presto, flashing suddenly worked! Weird...

No idea really what I'm talking about, but it sounds like you're trying to get flasher to download the firmware. I downloaded the image first and pointed flasher to the file, folowing the instructions on the wiki. mine wasn't the vanilla so I'll just shut up now.

Heh, then I'm mythical hero (tm) myself. But it's very strange, indeed.

I flashed both of my N900's countless times, using a 64 bit version of Ubuntu or Gentoo. Never ran into trouble al though at times I had to ignore advise given by the maemo wiki.

Every machine is different, every Tux install as well. To point to Ubuntu and state "it doesn't work and if it does it's magic", at least to me, is nonsense...

I have the same issue with ALL of my N900's on Ubuntu 64-bit (latest), I can flash rootfs but not eMMC.
I'd be interested to know why.

Well I have solved my issue.
I decided to try the USB2.0 ports on the rear of my desktop and everything worked.
However, any of the regularly used USB ports on the front will only flash rootfs.