yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
Everytime I make a request for source code, they send me the latest firmware package. I've sent examples of what I'm needing and I've spelled it out to the letter. My meaning could very well be getting lost in the English to Cantonese translation. I simply don't know how else I can ask. On the bright side, they have now sent me a total of 10 factory images for the Scepter 8. 😏

@SamuEDL, if you want, I can put you in contact with the CEO of Hot Pepper Mobile. Perhaps if we both make formal requests, it could make the difference. I should note that Hot Pepper's actual software development team is located in mainland China. The US-based CEO, Shawn Sun, corresponds with the team on my behalf. Every factory image I've procured has originated from China upon the request of CEO Shawn Sun on my behalf. I'm actually testing a new Hot Pepper smartphone right now for Mr. Sun, called the Chilaca. Very nice people. I think the language barrier is the issue.
[Android General] SamuEDL:
I apreciate it. But I am not a user of a q-link device, so I think I am not the best person to make requests.

Thank you also for everything you have done and for paying attention to me, despite not having the tablet. :)
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
I don't use QLink either. Keep in mind that the maker ot the Scepter 8, Hot Pepper Mobile, is not affiliated with QLink.

I actually do have a tablet now. The Gen 2. Makes it a lot easier working on this project. Always a pleasure to chat with you @SamuEDL.
[Android General] tmitech:
Hey Viva,

Thank you very much for all your work/guides! Just an FYI: I believe one of your links under "Downloads & Links" is actually linking to the wrong page. Specifically, the Stock Firmware Restoration Guide points to this very thread. My assumption is that it's actually supposed to be this link: https://xdaforums.com/t/guide-firmw...firmware-restoration-upgrading-guide.4412585/

Anyway, thanks again!
[Android General] SamuEDL:
I don't know if it's worth anything to you. But recently I discovered how to get the .dts from allwinner A100/133 tablets. I have tried to get the one from the q-link 1Gen model CF and it went well.

The DTS of the q-link 1gen model CF: https://github.com/SamuEDL/Tools_T8100/blob/main/DTS/Qlink_1Gen_CF.dts

The guide I used to get the DTS: https://bbs.aw-ol.com/topic/1352/萌新在淘宝整了一台-台电-p85-tla016-平板电脑/27?_=1681047315261&lang=es

I guess if we ever get the kernel source o Allwinner SDK, it might be of some use to us.
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
Thank you. Yes, indeed. The DTS would be invaluable, along with the kernel source, for compiling custom ROMs & kernels. But, nevertheless, thanks for providing the DTS and taking the tedious work out of it. Thanks for the guide as well.
[Android General] SamuEDL:
Even here there is a lot of documentation in Chinese from allwinner for the A133 (which can also be used on the A100). They explain how to build roms from the allwiner sdk, for example.

全志A20 / A64 / A133 / D1 / T113-I/V83x /V85x Tina / Android 文档合集/集合，很全! / 全志 SOC / WhyCan Forum(哇酷开发者社区)

哇酷开发者社区，你值得拥有。

whycan.com

I have also tried registering on the allwinner page, to get it... But to apply for the allwinner a100/a133 SDK you have to be a company verified by them. The only thing I have managed to see is that they already have SDK for android 13 in A133.
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
I will reach out to Hot Pepper Mobile and ask if we can use their Allwinner credentials to compile. Maybe they have a quest account or something similar we could use.
[Android General] Duhjoker:
just want to point out that many roms and twrp can be compiled using prebuilt kernel. all that really needs to be done is to create the device trees and pull the proprietary vendor and kernel files.
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
Indeed. @SamuEDL has most graciously compiled TWRP for both tablet models. The issue is installing it, as the Scepter 8 bootloader does not permit fastboot boot TWRP.img - a necessary component to installing TWRP to the /boot partition.

I believe he has a device tree as well, hosted on GitHub, for at least one of the Gen models. I'm glad you chimed in. Sounds as though you know a bit about custom development. Would love to have you on board.

In fact, this appears to be @SamuEDL's device tree. https://github.com/twrpdtgen/android_device_qlink_Scepter_8_Tablet
[Android General] Duhjoker:
forgive me if im wrong but twrp compiler can build a .zip as well as the .img that can be flashed using something like fkm
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
Would you be interested in helping on the project? I do believe you're correct by the way. I recall something on this fron the Moto G7 Play TWRP early builds. (Also TWRP on /boot). How familiar are you with FKM? I've used Ex Kernel Manager quite a bit. I'm assuming the two are similar?
[Android General] Duhjoker:
i can help out as much as time permits. i do have other projects. i do have plenty of compilation experience and knowledge. i could make a telegram group or lead you to one where help can be acquired just send me a pm and ill link you

i do alot of help and reachout through there since its easier to help and guide when you can have one on one converstaions with out waiting to long
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
Excellent. Whatever time you can spare for the cause will be most gracious of you. I'll shoot you a PM shortly.
[Android General] SamuEDL:
I understand, in my case I have to say that my knowledge is minimal. And I do research when I have some time.

Adding that I have a T8100 that although it has hardware similar to the q-link (Both are Allwinner a100) in software it differs in several things. Since from android 10 to android 11 there were several changes (partition structure, kernel version, uboot). So sometimes things differ from one tablet to another.

For example, on my T8100 tablet I have been lucky enough to make a working TWRP with the prebuilt kernel.
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
The upgraded Allwinner-A133 in the Gen 2 Scepter 8 is a tangible improvement over the A100 used in the Gen 1. But, my understanding is that the A100 & A133 are fully intercompatible in terms of software & firmware implementations. I feel strongly that the TWRP builds compiled for both models of the Scepter 8 will function normally when we get past the installation dilemma. I decompiled and analyzed both of your TWRP builds and both appeared to be error-free. In addition, both of them ran on my emulator setup. So @SamuEDL I must commend you on your work..
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
Unisoc bootloaders are a different breed of code. I may can help you unlock the tablet, but let's take the discussion over to the general info thread to keep things on topic. Just make a post at this link and I'll try to help.

Scepter 8 General Discussion Thread
[Android General] alexisleutzinger:
file link not valid
[Android General] bencinilife:
Link doesn't work thank you in advanced
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
There are four links in the OP of this thread. I just checked and all four are working. What link are you referring to?
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
I have firmware packages for all variants of the Scepter 8 over at my firmware restoration thread here.

QLink Scepter 8 Firmware Restoration Guide

The link you referenced, for the v6 firmware image, is not available because that firmware was updated by a more recent build. That updated build, as well as firmware for all other models, is available at the link above.
[Android General] bencinilife:
The one in email notification shows your 2 links but I'll check again
[Android General] alexisleutzinger:
Oh my apologies. I thought my comment would stay in line with the post that had it.... it was a single post with a mega host, and a direct download link... lemme look.
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
What email notification? All permanent links for firmware are posted in my firmware thread, where there are builds listed for all four models of the Scepter 8. Disregard any other links.
[Android General] alexisleutzinger:
Thanks.
[Android General] bencinilife:
I thought there was a upgrade for the scepter sorry
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
You're no bother @bencinilife .There are updates for a Gen 1 variant and Gen 2 variant being released at the end of July. I'll update the thread with the new builds when I get them from Hot Pepper, and I'll tag you in a post to inform you. Remind me again which Gen and variant you have.
[Android General] pelolinho:
Hello my friends! Would anyone have a boot.img of the tablet PC wifi p33?

-It is an Allwinner A133 with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, it would help me a lot.
[Android General] iamoz:
I have a FCCID=2APD4-AP15 S/N=MD2210AP-13143253 Qlimk Scepter8 Tablet that a few days ago I attempted to root

ressulting in a blank screern and no boot... I have no issues getting it recognized in Windows and using the Flashing software you all have recommended.. Problem is I cant find the damn software, Roms, or pretty much anything to fix it.. Every link I come to is dead or I cant use it... I tried to make my own custom Rom But was evidently using the wrong stuff, probably because of the confusion with the ODD versioning they have going on..

Anyway if one of you fine people could see fit I need some files for this thing please... And A link that works...

Thank you all for the work ya do...
[Android General] iamoz:
Having trouble mounting / rw for some reason.. Im rooted, running as root but commands fail.

Called su to start with but no go.. Im trying to make backup images but cant get rw permission.

Android12 go.

Qlink8 Scepter Tablet gen2 MD
[Android General] iamoz:
NEVERMIND--- Got it to work just beautifully, Finally... But had to work at it...

From PC in adb prompt:

Copied partitionbackup.sh to /Downloads on tablet.

From Tablet:

Using "Total Commander" file manager, as it seems the only one to actually be able

to do root operations, SOMETIMES...

Copied the script to /system/bin

Set perm's on file to 755,root,root

From PC in adb prompt:

adb shell

su

cd /system/bin

su partitionbackup.sh (su throwed up the useage text but script started finally)

script ran for a short time, Stopped at flashing prompt, After seemed 5min or so it continued,

stopped again, Continued after a while, and finally finished. Might of been another stop.

My patience was to short the first time...

But now it handed me my partition images to make a custom disk...

About 5-6 gig of images, including the actuall "zero" size images like,

frp-empty-metadata-media_data-private...etc.. Ones that were not unzippable

from the factory disk image without a zero byte file...

I now have:

boot a&b

bootloader a&b

dtbo a&b

env a&b

frp

media_data

metadata

misc

private

product_a

super

system_a

vbmeta a&b

vbmeta_vendor a&b

vendor_a

vendor_boot a&b

Images saved to PC now..... YAY!!!

Now can I make a restore image thats acceptable to the phoenix software..
[Android General] Alkuam:
Qlink's EBB participation has been an absolute mess.

My account showed that I had unlimited data for quite some time before EBB was even announced, but it was before they switched to t-mobile's network and I had such a weak signal that I couldn't even use my phone for calls.

After the switch I had "unlimited" data up to a random number where they would throttle me down to about 0.75 Mbps. So it was basically useless.

Sorry about the rant.
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
I completely understand. I've been hearing strikingly similar experiences from other QLink subscribers for a while now. There are ways around the speed throttling as well. When I wrap up my thread on bypassing mobile hotspot, I'll be doing a guide on getting around the speed caps.
[Android General] Gborg3:
I have found PhoenixSuit v1.10, PhoenixUSBPro v4, and LiveSuit 1.11 and downloaded them to my Windows 10 computer. None of them specifically mentioned the Allwinner A100 but they also have it generally noted it should work with any Allwinner chip. I should have time to try them tonight and see if anything works.
[Android General] Gborg3:
Everything recognized the device but none were able to pull the firmware.
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
I have tried all of those I believe, with no luck on Allwinner-A100 support or recognition. But that would be great if you would give them a going over. I can tell you know your way around Android so maybe you will see something that I missed. Thank you for your efforts towards the cause.

The Livesuite I used was a modded software repackage that included support for virtually every Allwinner SoC, even some of the more obscure chipsets that are mostly exclusive to devices used in Asian countries. I wish to Buddha that I had kept a copy of it. It had a DL Partition Dump feature that listed a compete partition index and gave the option for a complete RAW dump, or individual partition dumps in .bin format. The .bin files could simply be renamed with .img extensions. I wish you all the luck on the planet and look forward to your findings.

In retrospect, the recognition issue I experienced with the Livesuit and Phoenixsuit tools may have been a missing or incorrect USB device driver for the Allwinner-A100. Oddly, the various versions of the Allwinner-A series appear to all use their own specific USB device driver. Have you had any luck finding drivers for the A100 in particular?
[Android General] zefie:
Just an update they did bill me (and I paid with a PayPal key in which I changed the CVC right after) $10.01 for the silly tablet.
[Android General] Gborg3:
allusbdriversDotcom/allwinner-a100-usb-driver/ is one place I found with the driver but the installation process is interesting. I will update as soon as I have time to try it.
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
Yeah the person I bought my original tablet from jokingly said that the government had a $10.01 lien on the tablet. Except, he wasn't actually joking because QLink had billed him for $10.01 a couple weeks after he received it. My guess is, half the recipients of the Scepter 8 probably will never pay QLink a dime.
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
Yeah I'm guessing you have to piecemeal the installation via Windows Device Manager and several incremental steps. Another great thing about the Livesuit tool I used previously is that it included installers for the individual drivers, which were all packaged within the utility. Man, I am sick over not saving that tool. I know one thing, I don't care what it is from here on out, if I use it I'm saving it. In fact, if I take a leak while I'm using it, I'm saving the leak in a jar just in case. Well, you get my point. 😆 I had a full system image, vbmeta image, boot image,all the key partitions of this tablet dumped. Dammit, what a party foul.
[Android General] Gborg3:
Hahahaha exactly.
[Android General] zefie:
I thought about ignoring it, but didn't want to give them a legal excuse to terminate my account.

Edit: also what is stopping some poor fool from just buying it on amazon without a qlink account? Are they manually checking every order for validation?
[Android General] Persuasion89:
So when I did it I think that in the bootloader it didn't work but when I "fastboot reboot fastboot" it went to the actual fastboot screen and I was able to OEM unlock there.
[Android General] Persuasion89:
I don't know if you've seen but I've been tinkering with Sunxi tools and FELix that I found on Github and they interact with the device but I just have trouble actually getting them to do anything. I think I may have pulled a boot image but I'm afraid to flash it. Does anyone know of anyway to verify it?
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
Boot the boot img versus flashing it.

fastboot boot boot.img

Versus

fastboot flash boot boot.img

Did the tool pull the boot image in .img format or another extension such as .bin, .mbn, or raw? If booting it doesn't answer the question, upload it and post a link. I'll decompile it and see if it has a boot image structure. That'll only take a minute or two to determine.
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
I will port an unofficial TWRP build as soon as we can get s stock recovery image pulled.
[Android General] drakeheart77:
Anything I can do to assist I'm happy to help!
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
Any word on the boot image file?
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
Here is the latest update on the source code request I made to the manufacturer.

Maybe I'm overthinking this a bit, but I'm getting the impression that Hot Pepper is passing the buck in this matter to these "Software Engineers" in China, perhaps to detach themselves from liability. It doesn't actually work like that legally. The manufacturer is responsible for releasing the source code, not the software devs. On the other hand, it may just be that the manufacturer in this case doesn't actually host their own source code, and that the software engineers in China maintain the code.
[Android General] Gborg3:
I am trying to figure out what I need to learn of coding to feel more able to try to figure this tablet out. It is too terrible of a device to not be stupidly easy to work with.
[Android General] Hippychic1us:
This is great news that there will be a way to root this table. I am currently having trouble even updating it after getting it set up the first time. It just won't download the updates. I mean it's all connected to my home wifi and I can go to google and facebook and all but its not downloading the updates.
[Android General] Gborg3:
There are more than an app or two that immediately need removed for anything to even pretend to be functional. There was one useless appservices app that needs disabled to get rid of the ads automatically popping up and things begin working some then. Remove or disable anything you do not need past that and it seems somewhat capable then. I also set a private DNS, dns.adguard.com , since I stopped wanting to search for an ad blocker that would install.

I downloaded the Blokada 5 apk from their website and it installs and works no problem through side loading it.

Blokada - the popular mobile adblocker and VPN for Android and iOS

Keep all your devices protected with Blokada content filtering and encryption.

blokada.org
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
Are you referring to the preinstalled app updates or a pending system update?
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
Okay finally great news for owners of the QLink Scepter 8. I have been contacted by the CEO himself of Hot Pepper Mobile.

It appears that the only hold-up was a translation issue with English to Chinese regarding the language of my request. I have also asked for a full stock firmware package for the Scepter 8, in addition to the kernel source code, in my reply to Hot Pepper Mobile's CEO.
[Android General] GurneyHallek:
Did you have to install any drivers? Also, It was Vol Down + Power for me in order to get the open chest Android. I plug it in, device manager says no drivers installed.
[Android General] zefie:
I just used the generic Google drivers that you get from the SDK.

Get the Google USB Driver | Android Studio | Android Developers

The Google USB Driver is required to perform adb debugging on Windows with Google devices.

developer.android.com
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
Great news guys. I have been given a full stock firmware package for the Scepter 8. I am uploading it now and will post the link in the OP shortly. Hot Pepper has provided the V6 and v9 firmware packages. I'll be posting links to both within the next hour. As a heads up, I have been advised that this tool will be needed to install the firmware.

PhoenixUSBPro_CN.msi

The firmware packages are in .img format.

V6 Firmware Package https://mega.nz/file/VNpmEBST#II3hSJnL2Y_rnBMqkeOuZXWX0pDkoe0r79mgeYhXFek

V9 Firmware Package 02/21/2022:

File on MEGA

mega.nz

I'll get the OP updated later when I have the time. I just wanted to get these posted for you guys.
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
When one of you guys get a chance, please take the liberty of extracting these firmware images into individual partition images. This will enable flashing via fastboot mode. I'm on the road working at the moment and won't have time for the next week or so.
[Android General] Gborg3:
I will start trying to figure out how to do that today.
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
You should be able to use a Phoenix-based firmware extractor utility for unpacking/repacking firmware images.
[Android General] menace211:
Hell yeah, I just stumbled onto this thread. I love it when people come together for a cause. Even if it's for a gray area I guess lol. I got this tablet, booted.... Took like 45 minutes to even set up because of the lack of RAM, and literally it has been sitting in my dresser drawer since. I think this would be, if anything, a cool tablet to use as a smart home hub/controller.

Tablets with such low ram, you kind of have to dedicate it to one purpose. Like I used my old slow tablet to run Kali Linux basically for fun. But there's no way I would have installed a bunch of music and music apps and photo apps also on it. I'm sure you guys know what I mean. I'm a long time member here if there's anything I can help with let me know.
[Android General] Gborg3:
I found https://github.com/Zepan/lichee-pi-zero/blob/master/SoftWare/PC_tools/PhoenixUSBPro_CN.msi

But it is not installing yet and this is the error it gives. I am using Google Translate but I am not seeing any hints anywhere yet.
[Android General] Viva La Android R.I.P.:
Try the Phoenix USB Pro tool I linked in the OP under the Downloads heading.
[Android General] Gborg3:
It installed but the Help file is still the CN version. I do not see anything obvious pointing to dealing with partitions.
[Android General] Overett:
I stumbled upon this thread in my quest to make this tablet work better fo a friend of mine. Her tablet is the v8 version. Straight out of a fresh install she was able to unlock the boot loader in developer options..no greyed out issues like some of you are reporting. So I'm curious if either the v6 or v9 images would work for me to create a patched boot.img from.. I will tinker around with her tablet and report my findings back here. Many thanks for those contributing to this thread so far!

Edit: I can vouche for those who had positive results by disabling certain apps. There are quite a few to disable, too many to list from memory, but finding and disabling them does speed up the device quite a bit. Just be mindful not to disable apps that the tablet needs to function properly..