webOS 2.2.3/2.2.4 for HP Veer

Ok. Some things first.

Thanks to NB for all the support and thanks to the original donators of the backup files for 2.2.3/2.2.4, you know who you are! Thanks to all the people at webOS Internals and PreCentral for their continued support of webOS and their sharing of knowledge and tools. Consider donating to them in order to support the good cause and all the great tools they provide to the community!

In the process of getting this tested and out to you guys I managed to brick 2 HP Veers and so far these haven’t been revived yet. I would really appreciate a small donation for all the hard work and to get the Veers revived again.

Most of the text is copied from NB, so credits to him, I was too lazy to write this myself. And why invent the wheel twice?

This is Unsupported, I won’t help you if this bricks your Veer, although you can most likely use a command to restore it so you can use your original webOS Doctor to recover it. I won’t help you to put it in your Veer, and no one else will help you, not here or on the forums. YOU MUST KNOW YOUR DEVICE TO SOME EXTENT. YOU MUST KNOW AT LEAST SOME TYPE OF UNIX/UNIX LIKE COMMAND LINE STUFF AND WHAT A MAKEFILE IS.

The files are NOT mine, they’re from some guys who had 2.2.3/2.2.4 on their eBay-bought Veer.

I won’t give you an URL to download the backup file, you’ll have to look for it, it was uploaded to some accessible place. At any moment HP may come, look and this post, and ask me to delete it, and I’ll gladly comply.  They may even go to the site that hosts the file and ask to delete it, and they’ll surely comply.

The 2.2.3 backup file is called:  x3pr26l62eidatoyc246.rar, it was uploaded to a quite number of popular file hosting sites. It might still take a while before Google and search engines pick up the file! The ID of the file is 3QPJQG8R, 1FDHU0FU, 0QJFKWJR or 1KBXTECM on CreateMirror.com. Look at the links below for the scripts, replace the ID of the script files with one of the 4 listed before and you know what to do

The 2.2.4 backup file is called: bd2g1xp1wbex1wcaisb8.rar, it was uploaded to a number of popular file hosting sites. It might still take a while before Google and search engines pick up the file! The ID of the file is 0715L0AV, 1MYKKRJK, 17WT9NX8 or 1IHSQKTM on CreateMirror.com. Look at the links below for the scripts, replace the ID of the script files with one of the 4 listed before and you know what to do

Now, the instructions.

I did a little script that wipes most things from your Veer. It mounts everything in place, uncompresses the image, and reboots your Veer into Novaterm for manual updating of the various firmwares (Touchpanel (required) and Modem (optional)).

Before you do anything else, PLEASE, BACKUP YOUR DATA. Use save/restore from Preware and then backup everything inside your USB partition.

You currently have the following options to run this script:

• Windows, MacOS, Linux scripts:Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Mirror 3

You need to have novacomd and novacom installed. They come with the webOS SDK that can be downloaded from developer.palm.com. If you don’t install this, you won’t be able to do anything.

Download the .rar to a directory on your computer and unrar it to a folder, for example, c:\Veer

Copy your veer22xupdater.bat or Makefile, mdmupdate.sh and tpupdate.sh to the same directory

You should have the following structure in your director:

DIRECTORY\nova-cust-image-broadway.boot.tar.gz
DIRECTORY\nova-cust-image-broadway.filecache.enc.gz
DIRECTORY\nova-cust-image-broadway.media.tar.gz
DIRECTORY\nova-cust-image-broadway.mojodb.enc.gz
DIRECTORY\nova-cust-image-broadway.rootfs.tar.gz
DIRECTORY\nova-cust-image-broadway.update.tar.gz
DIRECTORY\nova-cust-image-broadway.varfs.tar.gz
DIRECTORY\tpupdate.sh
DIRECTORY\mdmupdate.sh
DIRECTORY\nova-installer-image-broadway.uImage

On *nix/Mac: DIRECTORY\Makefile

On Windows: DIRECTORY\veer22xupdater.bat

The usage is easy:

Windows:

• Connect your Veer to the USB cable and put it in the “Just Charge” mode. Make sure that your phone is in Developer Mode (#*3386633#) before starting this procedure!
• Open a command prompt. Start->Run->cmd (ENTER) or Windows+R->Cmd (ENTER)
• Change yourself to the directory (c: cd\veer)
• Run the program with: veer22xupdater.bat install (or “Veer22xupdater.bat install-from-recovery” when you have you put your phone in recovery mode already).
• Follow the instructions on screen and be VERY PATIENT, this whole process takes 15-20 minutes.

*Nix/Mac:

• Connect your Veer to the USB cable and put it in “just charge”-mode.
• Open a terminal
• change yourself to the directory ( cd/tmp/veer)
• Run the program with: make install
• Follow the instructions on screen and be VERY PATIENT, this whole process takes 15-20 minutes.

Generic part for both Windows and *nix/Mac:

• Wait until it reboots the Veer automatically into recovery mode again.
• It will now prepare the firmware update scripts and start Novaterm.
• Connect to the Veer with Novaterm. When Novaterm doesn’t work, you can use the webOS Quick Installer’s “command line”
• Touchpanel update (required, otherwise your screen won’t register your touches):
• Enter: cd /tmp/media
• Then enter: sh tpupdate.sh
• Wait for the Touchpanel f/w update to complete.
• Do: start hidd
• This will start the Touchpanel to work again after the update was performed.

Activation:

• Option 1 (you have a working data connection already):
• Do a full erase (or secure full erase) from Device Info.
  
• After the reboot you should be able to login to your profile or create a new one.

• Option 2 (you DON’T have a working data connection (due to incorrect settings in carrierdb.json or your provider not being available in carrierdb.json)), in this case we do the activation via WiFi instead :
• Install Impostah using webOS QuickInstaller
• Make sure WiFi is setup properly!
• Activate
• Under accounts: Delete “Dr. Skipped Firstuse”
• Under Palm Profile: Reset and reboot
• After reboot you can login to profile again and everything should work.If it doesn’t work still: Do a full erase (or secure full erase) from Device Info and repeat above steps!
• Modem Update:
  !!!!Below steps are optional, only do them when you need them, because they might brick your Veer!!!!
• For updating modem firmware (only required when your data connection doesn’t work  or when you have problems with your modem firmware, otherwise don’t bother because it’s risky!!) Most people WILL require this update!
• Enter: sh mdmupdate.sh
• This will take anywhere between 3 and 10 minutes and will give you some feedback during the process! Make sure not to interrupt or you might end up having a bricked Veer! When successful it will tell you so. In some cases it will automatically reboot your veer, but sometimes also not.
• When it fails to complete the update NEVER REBOOT YOUR VEER, OR IT WILL BE BRICKED. In case it doesn’t complete see the instructions at the end of the post!
• Reboot your phone only when you successfully updated the modem firmware! You can reboot by entering the following in Novaterm: tellbootie
  
• Enjoy Skype and other new features and bug fixes!

If for some reason you want to go to another webOS version, you may Doctor with whichever version you like.

To retry failed modem update (ONLY USE THIS WHEN THE MODEM UPDATE DID NOT COMPLETE SUCCESSFULLY):

• Start Novaterm and connect to the Veer
  
• cd /usr/bin
• PmModemUpdater < /tmp/media/broadwayumts.tar -f

Wait patiently until it completes. When it fails to complete the update NEVER REBOOT YOUR VEER, OR IT WILL BE BRICKED

Videos:

Main video: Restore backup

Update TouchPanel Firmware:

Update Modem Firmware:

Update A6 Firmware:

If you are still looking for a HP Veer, you can get a good deal at PhoneAlley (I got 2 Veers from them myself and they are working perfectly!)

http://www.phonealley.com