M3 dead and no cure with DFU... Please help!

hx12 · 01-31-2008

hi, seems that i am another unhappy user who had bad luck with its M3 (SP, 8GB).
So without any special reason or cause the M3 cannot be switch on again. When turning it on it just flashes and that's it.

No reset method helped.
then i read the available information at the internet and i saw that there are other people with the same problem.

I studied almost all forum entries for this particular problem and also tried to solve it with the DFU tool:
Please, help, my M3 doesn´t start

My M3 died and resurrected!

i also manged to get the m3 connected via the DFU server software it also -sometimes- can download "Image 1" to the m3 but it always gets stuck when it starts downloading "Image 2". The status field says "Downloading" but nothing happens, no process bar, nothing.

i have to kill the DFU server application with the task manager.

i really do not know what i can do else to get it running again.

Does anybody have another idea???
thanks in advance!!!

tomik · 01-31-2008

Hi, I am just doing the same

I mean - trying to upgrade the firmware from DFU. Got the same problem as U... Please, if U find out something, write it here (of course the same vice versa) Thanks.

roryrudy · 01-31-2008

i was having the same problem with my m6 and i read somewhere that when it is stuck at the image 2. Wait for about 5 mins then unplug the usb FROM THE M6.

I tried it and it worked. I was soooo happy.

I hope this helps

wpyh · 02-01-2008

@hx12: did you edit secdfu.ini to say "M3.EBN" instead of "M6.EBN" for the second image? By the way, I also have that problem but it could usually be solved by waiting for a few seconds (15 seconds +/-) after connecting the USB plug.

hx12 · 02-01-2008

@roryrudy: thanks for your hint. however so far it did not work. every time i plug in the m3 (and it is recognized as DFU device) and then start the secdfu.exe i get various results:
1. sometimes it is not recognized at all => cannot press te download
2. sometimes it is disconnected after a few seconds ("cannot get device status")
3. sometimes you can press download then it says downloading but nothing else happens.
4. sometimes the download bar of image 1 gets stuck after 4/5 of the bar.
5. sometimes the download of image 1 is successful and it says "manifesting image1", but after that "failed to reenumerate the device"

it really drives me crazy. trying it dozen times but never success...
do i have to change te delay times? the preset is 1000ms.

hx12 · 02-01-2008

@wyph: yes, i changed the ini file accordingly to m3.ebn but i did NOT change the entry
File="SST39VF800.dfu" to
File="SST39VF800.dfu"
as it was recommended by member ADIKOSA.

because if you do that the program gets an error message that it cannot find this file. even renaming file SST39VF800.dfu to SST39VF800.dfu did not work...

hx12 · 02-01-2008

by the way: in some threads you can read that the DFU tool does NOT work for M3 but only for M6.

but other users wrote they use the DFU tool with their M3 and it works.

so what is correct??

if DFU tool does not work for the M3 what other software can help?

at the end this is a very frustrating piece of hardware.
it quits its operation completely out of the blue. and then the only way to make it work again is using a tool which is completely unreliable. using it ten times results in ten different error messages but with no success at the end...

wpyh · 02-01-2008

I've tried it on WinXP and Vista, and both do work. Where did you get the DFU tool from? I used the one from this site.

There are so far 3 different cases I've encountered when trying to recover a dead M3:
1. Not recognized at all by the computer.
2. Recognized but disconnected after a short while.
3. Recognized and can be flashed by the DFU utils.

I've also encountered the dfu utils stop halfway case, but I think it's because I didn't hold the M and Play buttons correctly.

hx12 · 02-01-2008

yes, i took the DFU tool which i found here. the file was "DFU tool for SP.rar". when installing the tool it says "MEIZU DFU Tools 2006"

wpyh · 02-05-2008

Well, I'm also using that same DFU Tools package. Maybe you should try some more...

hx12 · 02-05-2008

hi wpyh, thanks for your support.
i have 2 questions:
1. how long does it take for a successful download of the firmware via DFU tools? is it just seconds or 2 minutes or longer?
2. during a successful download do you see a progress in the status bar or not?

once you had recovered your m3 did it happen that it loses its firmware again? my m3 is 5 months old and i did not used it very often. ironically now when i wanted to use it more often it failed...

hx12 · 02-05-2008

unbelievable. finally i managed it. how?
well, i gave it a last try and used another PC (before that i have used my XP desktop and my vista laptop). it was my colleagues pc actually the same model as mine with similiar setup. however with that PC it worked right from the beginning. so it is maybe something with the USB ports or any config setting of windows which caused all the problems.

so if someone has trouble in downloading the firmware to the m3 using dfu tools, my hint is: use as many different PCs as possible. it is very likely that on one of them it might work...

however which one it will be is still voodoo...

anyway i hope that the m3 does not require more often firmware downloads in such a manner...

so, many thanks again to tomik, wpyh and roryrudy who gave me support and who encouraged me NOT to give up.

wpyh · 02-11-2008

Well, happy to hear that!

I'm not online everyday, so I didn't reply in time for the previous post...

For me, it takes about 1-2 mins, and although my fingers get tired I still bear with it

There is a progress bar in the secdfu application, so we can monitor the progress.

By the way, no, I haven't experienced my M3 "losing" its firmware. If you continue to have this problem, I think it may ("might") have a bad or failing flash module. Try to have it exchanged under warranty.

adriano · 02-19-2008

I have the same problem with my meizu m6 sp 4gb. Just flash but does not work. When usb pluged does not recognise. In dfu server just says:failed to open file m6.ebn! In the mirror image 1 appear SST39VF800.dfu, in the mirror image 2 is not possible to type nothing. If with you was all ok please teach me fix the mine. From Brazil adcinco@hotmail.com,
please add me msn. Thanks a lot.

Atze83 · 07-02-2008

I had the same problem with my M3, flashing screen when trying to switch the player on, no reaction when connevting to the pc... and even with the dfu tool, i couldnt connect it to the PC. Ive tryed it on another PC and it connected! But it always sayed "connection time out" or sth. I've tryed it several times, but now it doesn't do anyting. The player doesn't even flash anymore when im trying to switch it on. Can anyone help me with this problem? Is the player completely damaged now?

Sorry for my bad english! I try my best!