🚨 ERROR: cannot communicate with the Proxmark (on Mac OS)

Support
1

I got :rotating_light: ERROR: cannot communicate with the Proxmark (3 easy)
I don’t know that to do, I flash it, and everything seems to be ok…
I tried almost everything, If anyone can help me…

2

ok so, context would be wonderful

  • what have you tried
  • what guide are you following
  • where in the process did this error occur

Are you using the cable that came with the device? if so, get rid of it and grab one you know works well. the ones shipped with proxmark tend to have a reputation for being shit

2 Likes
3

Thank you so much, curiously, it has been to find the solution and your message has jumped out at me.
I have used:
brew remove proxmark3
brew install --with-generic proxmark3
pm3-flash-all

Anyways, thank you so much for your time!!!

4

For the future do

pm3-flash-bootrom

then

pm3-flash-fullimage

the flash-all command can screw things up real bad sometimes.

5

I followed all the above and still getting Error cannot communicate with the Proxmark3

6

Hey man. Brew is not the way. I had more issues trying to update brew than just downloading fresh from Git. This is my own install process and it is copied very directly from Amal’s Getting Started Guide and the official OSX Guide from RFIDResearchGroup

  1. Lets install the dependencies first. In terminal run the following commands:
    brew Install Git
    brew install readline qt5 gd pkgconfig coreutils
    brew install recode
    brew install astyle
  2. Create yourself a Github Folder. I have mine in ~/github/
  3. In your folder run
    git clone https://github.com/RfidResearchGroup/proxmark3.git
  4. cd proxmark3
  5. cp Makefile.platform.sample Makefile.platform
  6. nano Makefile.platform
  7. Notice the lines;
PLATFORM=PM3RDV4
#PLATFORM=PM3GENERIC

You will want to swap the # to the top line to comment it out and remove it from the bottom line to enable.

#PLATFORM=PM3RDV4
PLATFORM=PM3GENERIC
  1. Command+X, Y, Enter to save and close Nano
  2. make clean && make -j8 all

The button Trick

With your Proxmark3 unplugged from your machine, press and hold the button on your Proxmark3 as you plug it into a USB port. You can release the button, two of the four LEDs should stay on. You’re in bootloader mode, ready for the next step. In case the two LEDs don’t stay on when you’re releasing the button, you’ve an old bootloader, start over and keep the button pressed during the whole flashing procedure.

  1. ./pm3-flash-bootrom
  2. ./pm3-flash-fullimage
  3. Run pm3
  4. Run hw tune

If these steps dont work or you see error messages along the way, screenshot and post and ill try to help you out.

3 Likes
7

In case it’s useful, thank you, @Hamspiced, for the info. I had to downgrade Python to get mine to work.

brew uninstall --ignore-dependencies python@3.12
brew reinstall python@3.11

I eventually figured that out from this thread > Unable to install latest on Mac OSX v4.18218 · Issue #39 · RfidResearchGroup/homebrew-proxmark3 · GitHub

1 Like
8

I’m glad that worked for you. Even when I downgraded it would update every time I tried to compile.

Glad you got yours running again

1 Like
9

Thanks, well for the time being, but you know what this is like :slight_smile:

2 Likes
10

@Hamspiced this make clean and make all won’t work for me…I’m not sure why. Any thoughts ? I attached a screen shot of the error…I’m pretty new to this so if it’s a stupid mistake I apologize!

Screen Shot 2024-04-05 at 12.49.18 PM
Screen Shot 2024-04-05 at 12.49.18 PM1140×186 29.4 KB

11

Can you post your Makefile.platform file?

It looks to be erroring at line 3.

looking at mine you should have a blank line there. or you copied incorrectly

PLATFORM=PM3GENERIC

and forgot to comment out the line below it

#PLATFORM=PM3RDV4
12

I’m getting this error:
image

1 Like
13

did you run

make clean && make -j8 all

1 Like
14

Yes. I even deleted the git folder and tried again, twice, just in case I missed something. I’ve checked the whole directory on git and I can’t even find the bootrom.elf file anywhere.

1 Like
15

And you got no errors during the Make Process?

16

No

image
image706×5657 512 KB

17

This .txt should be easier to read than the image.
make.txt (13.2 KB)

18

can you do an ls of the root of your PM3 directory?

19

image
image594×186 8.25 KB

20

bootrom.elf is at proxmark3/bootrom/obj/bootrom.elf for me, can you confirm it’s missing?

make[1]: arm-none-eabi-gcc: No such file or directory
[-] CC flash-reset.s
[-] CC ../../../common/bucketsort.c
make[1]: *** [obj/ram-reset.o] Error 1
make: *** [bootrom/all] Error 2

To me sort of sounds like it failed to generate the bootrom stuff, but I’m not certain

What installation instructions are you following?

2 Likes