Help Firmware for iMXQPro 4k/MXQ Pro 4k

[TitaniumPEI]

I have a real head scratcher and I am hoping for some help.
A friend tells me he has this MXQ Pro 4k Android box, and he is having a hell of a time getting Kodi updated on it. Having used and directed friends and family to the MXQ Pro 4k as their choice to get in purchasing an Android box I am quite familiar with the model. So I get my friend to drop over his box so I can take a look and update his Kodi for him, fully expecting to see one of these being delivered to me;

But instead he takes this tiny little thing to me;

The box is half the size and half the thickness to what I am used to seeing for a "MXQ Pro 4k"
Anyways moving onward. I load the box up and it has the most god awful launcher on it. On top of that this launcher has a series (of what I can gather) scripts that check to ensure the software they want bundled on it is installed. If it was uninstalled, it will reinstall it onto the unit. ANNOYING! They packaged some kind of XBMC software that is half Kodi, half something else. So after some fooling around I decided, you know what, if the launcher is checking and doing all this stuff, why don't I just change the launcher? So I go to install what I thought was a stock launcher and restart the device and it wasn't the stock android launcher, it was some third party one, which would be fine and dandy, but now the entire screen freezes when it loads. I can still move the mouse pointer around but and clicking or buttons being pressed from the remote or a mouse give no results. So I decide to do a factory reset on the device. Well holding in the reset button to do a factory reset doesn't do anything, because it really isn't a factory reset button, it is a "update" button.

The only place I can find that sells this "MXQ Pro" is on DroidBox located here;
https://droidbox.co.uk/droidbox-imxqpro-pro-best-kodi-xbmc-tv-box-amlogic-s905.html

My only option left that I can think of trying at this point is to reload the firmware. Well considering I can barely find out anything on the unit to begin with I seem to be SOL at this point. I highly doubt this box will take a standard MXQ Pro firmware as the boards look completely different.

I am looking for any help anyone can provide. Or even if anyone can point me where to go to get Droidbox's firmware for this unit, at least theirs looks a bit better than what was originally on it.

Even if anyone knows a fix to get into the bootloader to do a factory reset that would be a great help also.

Thanks for the help.

 

[mikedt]

There's multiple different devices called "MXQ", and sometimes, MXQ+, MX, MX+, MX Pro, MX8, MX4K, etc, all from unknown anonymous manufacturers, so it can actually be pot-luck about what you're going to get. In China at the tech bazaars, one might never see the same device twice, and they change week-by-week. So to get solid manufacturer information about a particular one, is damn near impossible. If one is buying them over the counter, it can be, oh this one has a fugly clunky UI, I'll have the other one instead.

 

[TitaniumPEI]

Oh I totally agree. It is always a nightmare trying to find firmware for these boxes. I wish they would just release one model and keep the specs the same and there would be a standard stock firmware available. So frustrating as I am now up to about ten different firmwares for this model that I found. So I guess I will just have to go through them and hope for the best. I was secretly hoping someone might of had the Droidbox firmware in their possession as at least that box looks the same and I would have a slight more confidence that that particular one would not brick the device! lol