Recovering from Shield TV upgrade to version 9

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jfabernathy
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Recovering from Shield TV upgrade to version 9

Post by jfabernathy »

I had big issues with Nvidia's move to Android 11 with their software version 9.0. You can check their support forum for all the noise about that. The big issue for Mythtv users is Leanfront is definitely worse on version 9. I got some help on the mythtv user mailing list and there were some key things I felt should be documented in case you wanted to roll your v9 Shield TV back to 8.23. It's not too difficult a task, but like walking into a dark room, you need to know where the light switch is.

So if you want to attempt the roll back, you'll need to download the image and instructions from Nvidia's website: https://developer.nvidia.com/gameworksdownload

The key to that is having to accept conditions to download and maybe create a free account on their developer website. I could not do this in Google Chrome. I had to do it in Firefox. could be a popup issue or some other weird browser protection code.

I did this in Linux and had to download android tools like adb and fastboot.

Before you get started you need to make sure you can do USB debugging on your current version of the Shield TV. You have to enable developer options and then select the right USB debugging option. But more than that you have to try it so the Shield TV will show the popup on your TV asking for permission. You can set the checkbox and click okay with your TV remote. Try "adb connect usb", and/or "adb shell", whatever makes the permission granting screen popup on the TV.

If you get that far you can just use adb as noted in the instructions you downloaded to reboot the Shield into fastboot mode where you will do all your work.

That was the part that stumped me for a while. The instructions talk about getting into fastboot mode using a USB keyboard, or the Nvidia game controller connected with a USB cable, or just use the adb command from your Linux PC console. Since you will need the PC console to upload the new image, you need to get that working.

The keyboard or game controller is needed in fastboot mode to select the unlock bootloaded before and locking after the recovery.

The instructions are divided into 2 sections; before Android 6 and after. So make sure you read the right section.

My advice is to first find a USB keyboard that works with the Shield TV in normal mode. You can test this before upgrading. Having the keyboard will help in typing in all the passwords for your streaming apps which will need to be reinstalled. The keyboard needs to be plugged into the USB port closest to the HDMI port. The USB port for connecting to the Linux PC is the other port furthermost from the HDMI port.

So it boils down to:

1. Get the keyboard working in existing Shield version.
2. Get current Shield version setup for developer mode with USB debugging working.
3. Reset into fastboot mode and unlock bootloader
4. Run fastboot commands from instructions
5. Reboot into fastboot and lock bootloader
6. Reboot and setup Shield with the older version of Android
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