Specifics of the yi-hack-v5 firmware and flashing

[alienatedsec]

[Updated] 2024/03/01

There are certain complexities with the project and what it was based on; yi-hack-v3, and yi-hack-v4.
The above versions are optimal for what was required at the time and reside within the device's rootfs and home partitions.

This has evolved with yi-hack-v5 - the rootfs is too small to hold all binaries, and home is not flashing when packed with more files. As an outcome, the yi-hack-v5 folder is located on the SD Card; however, the yi-hack-v5 needs the initial baseline hack to rootfs and home partitions too.

• The latest baseline version is 0.4.1.

The yi-hack-v5 comes with several challenges:

• To load the baseline hack into rootfs and home partitions, you need to prepare the SD Card for it. The below text was copied from the project site.

You can get a microSD card, preferably of capacity 16gb or less and format it by selecting File System as FAT32.

IMPORTANT: The microSD card must be formatted in FAT32. exFAT formatted microSD cards will not work.
I have not formatted any of my 32GB cards to load the firmware. Just copy files directly and it should work.

How to format microSD cards > e.g., 32GB as FAT32 in Windows 10

For microSD cards larger than 32 GB, Windows 10 only gives you the option to format as NTFS or exFAT. You can create a small partition (e.g 4 GB) on a large microSD card (e.g. 64 GB) to get the FAT32 formatting option.

• insert microSD card into PC card reader
• open Disk Management (e.g. Win+x, k)
  • Disk Management: delete all partitions on the microSD card
    • right click each partition > "Delete Volume..."
    • repeat until there are no partitions on the card
  • Disk Management: create a new FAT32 partition
    • right click on "Unallocated" > "New Simple Volume..."
    • Welcome to the New Simple Volume Wizard: click "Next"
    • Specify Volume Size: 4096 > "Next"
    • Assign Drive Letter or Path: (Any) > "Next"
    • Format Partition: Format this volume with the following settings:
      • File system: FAT32
      • Allocation unit size: Default
      • Volume label: Something
      • Perform a quick format: ☑

You should now have a FAT32 partition on your microSD card that will allow the camera to load the firmware files to update to yi-hack-v5.

Example: 4 GB FAT32 partition on 64 GB microSD card

Alternative way:

• open cmd with admin permissions
• run diskpart
• type "list disk"
• find your sd card (for example Disk 7)
• type "select disk 7"
• if it has one partition - type "select partition 1". If more - delete all the partitions and then create one
• type "format FS=FAT32 QUICK"
• done. 32GB partition in FAT32.

IMPORTANT STEPS

• Once you copy your firmware files and the yi-hack-v5 folder, it will flash with the initial baseload files.
• Once flashed, there will likely be no video recording - this is because the SD card is formatted as FAT32, and this will be seen as an error by the camera's firmware.
• To enable video recording, you need to format the SD card with the YI App.
• It will remove everything and once again you have to copy the yi-hack-v5 folder for the hack to work again. You can simply copy the folder over FTP as this will be enabled if the yi-hack-v5 folder does not exist during a bootup process.
• Reboot the camera after copying the folder.
• I have made some pre-checks if the baseline firmware is loaded correctly - if you find fat32error.txt in /tmp/sd then your version file does not exist and your firmware was flashed incorrectly.
• run ./script/launch.sh from the console to check the versions installed
  
• I plan on keeping the version on cam as 0.4.1 and this will unlikely change, unless we find the Busybox 1.36.1 buggy and need updating again.

[lbls55]

Hi friend, first thanks to your incredible work.
I've installed you last pre release version (0.4.1g) on my Yi Dome 1080p, it's working, but I have 2 questions:
In which folder do I have to copy (by FTP as you said) the Yi-hack v5 folder again after formatting the SD card with the Yi app?
And my second question is: how to set ptz presets, when i move the cam using arrows to a specified position, I give a name to the preset and after I click on "save preset " button, nothing happens.
Thanks for helping.
Laurent

[alienatedsec]

Please copy the yi-hack-v5 folder onto /tmp/sd/

In regards to presets, I would need to double-check on my yi_dome but it used to save in the YI app and restore via a hack WebGUI

[lbls55]

ok, thanks, I only need yi-hack-v5 folder, nothing else? no rootfs_h20 and no home_h20?

[alienatedsec]

Correct. Just to be aware of the ongoing work which requires updating the baseline until the official latest release

[othyro]

I was looking to update one of my cameras today (Hardware ID: 47US), because it's running hack (SD) firmware version 0.4.0 with baseline firmware version 0.3.8. In the web UI, this version doesn't show as available (blank). IIUC, I need to do an install from scratch following the above steps and use the Yi app. Does the desktop version of the latter work for this? I have no desire to use their mobile app.

This project's versioning is a bit misleading. The .z in x.y.z is a revision increment. This update sounds like a whole major version based on the procedure I'm reading. Is this going to be the same process every time you update the baseline version? If so, I'm not seeing the benefit of upgrading, because this seems painful.