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I received a used product that was advertised as functional, but is defective, and now I feel bad about talking to the seller about it (self.rant)

submitted 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) by user224 to c/rant

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Weird one, but there's always that feeling that it's my mistake. It's just too suspicious.

So the matter is one of those cheap game consoles you see on AliExpress. This one could do PS1 emulation as well, so sounds cool.

Welp, first a software issue. It wouldn't boot. I contacted the seller, he said it worked, and has been laying unused for 2 years, and that I can find guides on how to fix it myself.
OK, the software is booting from SD card and happens to be Linux based. In fact, it's just EmuELEC with "Kinhank" skin. Checking the hashes on there, I found SquashFS file to be corrupted. I tried Manjaro ARM unsuccessfully, and then went back to EmuELEC, also copying the required device tree blob image which happened to survive.

Software fixed. Mostly. I don't know if the ROMs are OK. By the way, there's also a random .exe with trash icon that gets 29 detections on VirusTotal.
But anyway, this would still fly with me.

Issue 2, the controllers don't work. Just some cheap ones with 2.4GHz dongles. I found others with same issue based on status LEDs, and the solutions are none. I tried them with my PC, I tried them with the original software just replacing the SquashFS, I tried in another room just in case it's RFI, I tried connecting one of the controllers to 3V PSU. Nothing.

So I once again wrote to the seller.
But now I feel bad. How the fuck does just everything break?

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[–] user224 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Or perhaps worse (like paying extra money or installing provided malware (at least seems like it based on VirusTotal)).

I've checked the official guides. They're awful as hell. They use some random programs, which are provided on there as exe files. Considering that the one I checked makes VirusTotal blink like a Christmas tree, they're probably not good. Mind you, the card was still taped in with warranty void sticker.

For restoring the image, they provide disk images as .pmf files, which I have trouble finding information about.

They also talk about file access over SMB and SFTP. All is well, except that they show you to log into your router to find the device's IP address to connect to it. Meanwhile, it responds to mDNS for emuelec.local. They don't even know their own products? Right, they just copied FOSS software and sold it.

Worst part now. The provided software to browse the SD card will mount it read only. As people report in YouTube comments, they had to pay for a license to mount it read-write and modify configs as the official guides instruct.
Guess what that is doing.
Mounting ext4 on Windows. That's it. Paying money to use ext4.