ADB Functionality Togglable in UI

[Tartarus6]

Goal

Enabling ADB functionality is really easy, just renaming one file does the trick. The issue is that it breaks certain features. So I want it to be better handled within the UI. I want to be able to enable and disable ADB functionality along with DAC mode and mass storage mode.

How...?

I know that ADB functionality has been built into older versions of HiBy OS firmware, so it should be able to be brought back.
Additionally, functions to toggle ADB mode do exist within the hiby_player binary.

TODOs

• (75% done) identify ADB functionality within hiby_player
• bring back the missing UI buttons for ADB mode
• link the ADB functionality to the new buttons

I can totally deal with the binary parts, but if someone else could figure out where in the .view files (or any other UI config files) the ADB buttons are, and how to make them show up again.

[Jepl4r]

@Tartarus6 I found out how to toggle ADB on and off, no need to patch the binary.

1. Connect the device to a computer
2. Go to the About page inside the settings
3. Tap 10 times on the About text on the top left of the page
4. A dialog saying Test mode turn on will appear
5. The device will stop Mass Storage mode and enable ADB

To disable ADB tap again 10 times the About text.

[Jepl4r]

@Tartarus6 Did you try adding {"adb:1"} to the set_functions.json file that's inside /usr/resource and enabling ADB?
After adding {"adb:1"} and going into the settings a new option named Dock will appear but it is not functional.
I'm wondering if enabling ADB makes the option work.

[Tartarus6]

interesting, I've heard about that option in forums. but they removed it

so I'm not sure how it works

[Jepl4r]

me neither, maybe they didn't entirely remove the code and that's a remnant.

[noisetta]

The "easter egg" method is already a great practical solution , way simpler than anything we were planning. The set_functions.json + Dock option is an interesting lead too, even if it's not fully functional yet. Might be worth trying both together in a custom firmware to see if they're connected.

Should we document the easter egg method in the hiby_os_crack README?

[Jepl4r]

@noisetta I did test the Dock option while ADB was enabled, the button still does nothing.
All I can think is that the button is likely a remnant of some old hiby_player version.

[Jepl4r]

@Tartarus6 Did you ever figure out what Burn Mode does?

[Tartarus6]

@Jepl4r not yet
my guess is that it writes the lower level firmware that handles the updating and stuff

[noisetta]

Hey team, it looks like we have full adb access now! The issue was a conflict in the adbon script, it was trying to start ADB while the USB configfs gadget was still partially initialized from mass storage mode. A small fix to properly tear down the USB gadget before initializing ADB resolved it.

So what works right now is:
Full root shell via adb shell
File push/pull via adb push / adb pull
Triggered via the easter egg — tap "About" 10 times in Settings

The fixed adbon script will be included in the next firmware release. In the meantime it requires a custom firmware build.

A few intersting things I saw:
Device has 56MB RAM, ~12MB available while running
Music library is SQLite with a schema dating from 2018
The pinyin_charater column already strips articles like "The" correctly at the database level — confirming @Jepl4r's binary patch fixes the comparison at the right level
Userdata partition is writable via ADB — no reflashing needed for config changes

More documentation to follow. Big thanks to everyone who contributed to getting here.
For now I need some sleep and have to work tomorrow. I will try and revisit this tomorrow night.

[Jepl4r]

The device RAM is likely to be 64MB, the other 8MB that are missing are probably reserved for the hardware. I find it strange for it to have 56MB of RAM.

[Tartarus6]

yeah, in my time messing with emulation im pretty confident that the device has 64MB of ram. i use MEMORY_SIZE="64M" in the qemu scripts. It matches the ram on the Malta development board