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Gordon Neal
Having bought one of these X96 boxes last year I always wondered if or when there will be an update available.
With the thing running on Android 6.0.1 already I was not expecting monthly updates though.
Sadly the box always gives an error in regards to stack not being able to access the internet.
Turned out, at least for my box there is no real link it tries to access for the update, so it will always fail.
It also seems I am one of the lucky guy who already had a quite recent firmware installed - from July 2016.
Considering their release strategy and time stamping procedure the firmware was created sometime Feb- March 2016.
Everything worked fine except that some programs I installed caused crashes at times with no reason I could find.
Plus Kodi would often take forever and a bit more to get through the menus and start things.
The most annyoing part howver was that the remote did not provide the stop function.
All player buttons olny pause the video or skip it by 15seconds.
I decided it is time to search for some updates somewhere.....
If all works fine you should not!
It is always better to leave a well running system alone.
Sometimes Android like to bloat up from all the things we installed.
As with Windows everything leaves stuff behind even if uninstalled correctly.
Over time things can get slow or after some "tuning" certain parts not longer respond as the should.
With most of these boxes already rooted and open to all sorts of attack people even ruin their Android system by the use of tuning tools designed for smartphones....
And there are claims the some people got their box shipped with totally outdated firmware and no online update working.
For all this a backup of what you need and a fresh firmware install can solve a lot of problems and give you some speed back too.
Best reason is if you want to sell your box after extensive use and including quite a few personal things on it.
Nothing beast a fresh firmware when it comes to removing ALL your user data.
You can also try a wipe and factory reset from the recovery console if you don't want to flash a firmware.
With the S905 and S906 chipsets the good thing is that basically every box with the same amount of memory and same WiFi chip will be compatible for a firmware donation.
Big downside of this way is that you get a box branded for some other manufacturer and that the remote might not work at all.
No big deal if you prefer a WiFi mouse/keyboard kombo anyway.
And of course not every firmware comes in a format the X96 can use right away.
There are UBS burning tools to get these firmwares onto a box if you really need to though...
However, I wanted to get the original back in the hope to get a working remote or to find a way to turn the box on and off through the airmouse.
After some digging on the web I found the guys behind the X96 are actually nice enough to provide more or less regular updates for their boxes, even for the new model with dual WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0.
Only problem with these updates is that they come without any instructions and are located on a chinese file hosting and website service - pan.baidu.com.
I used the Google translator for several hours without finding any way to register an account at Baidu without the need for a china based landline or mobile number to activate it.
There is none, which means as a normal guy you can only download files of up to about 200mb, everything bigger gives you an error message telling you to use their downloader tool - which needs a registered login as well.
But at least the firmware was found :)
The actual download problem was solved with some script and browser plugin in conjunction with a download manager.
If you need the details on the how to then please check my Ible about this task.
All original firmware versions for the X96 boxes can be found on this Baidu account for download.
Found an easier and faster way to get firmwares for all sorts of S905 boxes.
I assume you installed a download manager of your choosing and the browser extension and script.
In the Baidu account you see a normal folder structure as you would with any filemanager.
It is all a bit messy with folders, files and Rar archives wildly mixed here.
If you click on the chinese symbols above the listed dates you can sort it all by date, which makes finding the latest version soooo much easier.
You will now notice the folder names.
X96 is pretty obvious, same for the added (2+16) or (1+8) in the name - indicating the firmware for 2GB/16GB and 1GB/8GB boxes.
The latest dates is always the latest firmware.
The one with 6330 in the name is for the new model that has dual WiFi and BT4.0, available for the normal and 2G versions.
As I only have the standard 2/16 box I will focus only on that model but the procedure is the same for the others.
A double click on the folder symbol next to the name will open the files contained within.
Usually 3 or 4.
You need to download all of them! Don't just download the image for the firmware alone as it won't work.
For Kodi you can use backup tools provided by the community, just make sure to save or copy it on a SD/USB stick.
For the programs, games and other things you might have installed on your box the best option is one of the backup solutions from the playstore or to install them all fresh if you have your progress and details saved in the cloud anyway.
Sorry for the bad image quality bad my cam struggled to get any focus on the screen :(
Get a SD card that is formatted in FAT32 - no ETFS no NTFS please!
Copy all firmware files into the root of your SD card.
Place the SD card into the slot of your box - without the power cord in it please.
Turn the TV on and get a toothpick ;)
Inside the AV port is a tiny push button - you need to press it with the toothpick, hold it and plug the power in.
After 2-5 seconds you will see a X96 logo on the screen - now release the button and remove the toothpick.
The box is now in the correct mode to install the firmware without asking from the SD.
You will see a little Android on the screen and a progess bar showing you how long it might take.
Whatever you do - do not turn the power off at this stage or will have a useless brick!
In my case it was about 10 minutes to complete.
The box will reboot and as it struggles to deal with the SD and dongle for the airmouse it might hang on the X96 logo.
Wait a minute or two and if still stuck power off and remove both the SD and the dongle or whatever else you might have in the USB port.
Now the box will start as normal and get back to naked Android, meaning you have to setup your Wifi and accounts.
After that Kodi will work as before and needs to update some addons and also deactivate some that no longer work - damn bloatware...
You are ready to enjoy a new box now.
The firmware currently available is dated August 2016 but was only uploaded recently.
The first thing I noticed that sometimes the remote is already activate and sometimes it is not.
Very annyoing if you don't have a keyboard/mouse at hand to change the settings.
But as before the remote still fails to give me a stop button that does what it is supposed to.
I will try to play around with the config file for the remote to see if I can get that fixed somehow but if all works fine on your remote I might just have a dodgy one.
In some cases I noticed that the Google Play services crash right after the start.
If it happens once and after that every boot up is fine all is good.
In case it always crashes and the Playstore or your games fail to work install the firmware again.
I guess the installation does not fully delete the partitions before getting the new firmware on it.
The Kodi version is now slightly different and allows for easier downloads of the stuff you watch, but I won't get into details of this.
The usual addons are all there, same for the wallpaper and menu structure you are used to.
I strongly recommend to give Kodi enough time at the first start to update and discard all addons!
Failing to do so will cause problems later on, so don't say I did not warn you.
Some addons also mess up certain things in Kodi, so be carefull what you install on your own when it comes to wizards.
If in doubt and Kodi ends up badly you can always flash the firmwar again and start over :)
Firstly I want to get the remote working with all buttons as they should but as said mine might be dodgy so please report back if you have the same problem with the stop button.
Secondly I would like to homebrew the firmware to include a basic Bluetooth stack that would allow the use of a dongle.
Last but not least I would like a bloat free Kodi version included.
Don't get me wrong, it is quite nice to have a lot available but not so nice if 80% is of no interest at all or not even working in my region.
For this I am not sure if it is easier to do on a firmware level or by adding it thorugh the recover in the form of an additional firmware part to be installed.
The first with the remote seems to be doable one way or another for the rest I will need time, mostly for reading up on how to make your own firmware.
Yes and no.
No because I really don't have a clue about the actual hardware of your box.
Yes because all boxes with identical hardware and using the same update procedure should be compatible.
For you it means using a hardware info program from the playstore to check if memory, CPU, GPU and other hardware are the same as for the X96 firmware in question.
As most modded or geniune firmwares for these S905 boxes work fine on the X96 I don't see why it would be any different the other way around.
But as with the X96 you might have problems getting all functions of the remote working.
Mostly the power button is affected being lost or relocated to the 2 key on the remote.
If in doubt always keep a copy of your remote config file.
It is possible that some boxes ignore the files on the SD as they expect different filenames.
Here I can't help unless you find the correct filenames yourself.
Same story if the box only expects a ZIP file on the SD for the update.
The only sure way to overcome these issues is to use a USB flasher program and to convert the firmware files into a format the program can handle.
Like this you can literally install whatever you feel like but also risk ending up with a brick if the firmware is really incompatible.
Worst here would be to use a version that is only supposed to work with a different amount of RAM - like installing a 2/16GB version on a 1/8GB box...
If you do it then you do it at your own risk!
Don't come back to blame me if a firmware not designed for your box won't work!