HackRF Mayhem Failed to Update – M0 Guru Meditation Hard

I was on Mayhem Portapack v2.0.1 and want to upgrade to the latest stable release v2.1.0. The update went okay using the web upgrade https://hackrf.app/. But then I saw the latest nightly update and want to try it, since it has many new tools that are not yet included in the stable release. But then the update failed 🙁

Disclaimer: I didn’t take any photos of the errors, since I was focused on googling the solution.

So the error was “Bad Firmware or Failed W/R error” during the upgrade process, and it was stuck. So I had to restart the device, and it was booting to the Mayhem menu, but on the bottom left, which should show the current firmware version, it was showing a “FLASH ERR” message.

I think I should go back to the stable release, but I can’t. Every time I want to flash the stable release version, the portapack will shows an error M0 Guru Meditation – Hard Fault. 

There’s an issue that was closed on the Mayhem GIT repo that has the same issue as mine; he mentioned that it was something with the SD card errors. So I went to use another card, and the issue still there.

So I went to try to update using the flash_ portapack_mayhem.bat script that is available for Windows when downloading the firmware. The script needs the portapack in the HackRF mode, but when I tried to load the HackRF mode, it was blank.

I tried the other script dfu_hackrf_one.bat and it cannot detect the HackRF device. I already pressed the DFU and Restart button together, and released the restart button, and DFU button after that. But still nothing.

Solution

The solution was to hold down the DFU button and plug in the USB. The HackRF will be detected right away. Then I can run the dfu_hackrf_one.bat and then the flash_portapack_mayhem.bat. Now it’s normal and using the latest nightly release. Hope this article will help someone 🙂

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