Proxmark3 Flashing errors

When I try to flash my new pm3 i get this error. I tried everything it says and nothing has worked and I have no clue on how to update the bootloader.

[!!] :police_car_light: ====================== OBS ! ===========================================
[!!] :police_car_light: Note: Your bootloader does not understand the new CMD_BL_VERSION command
[!!] :police_car_light: It is recommended that you first update your bootloader alone,
[!!] :police_car_light: reboot the Proxmark3 then only update the main firmware

[!!] :police_car_light: ------------- Follow these steps -------------------

[!!] :police_car_light: 1) ./pm3-flash-bootrom
[!!] :police_car_light: 2) ./pm3-flash-fullimage
[!!] :police_car_light: 3) ./pm3

[=] ---------------------------------------------------

[=] Available memory on this board: UNKNOWN

[!!] :police_car_light: ====================== OBS ! ======================================
[!!] :police_car_light: Note: Your bootloader does not understand the new CHIP_INFO command
[=] Permitted flash range: 0x00100000-0x00140000
[!!] :police_car_light: ====================== OBS ! ========================================
[!!] :police_car_light: Note: Your bootloader does not understand the new START_FLASH command
[+] Loading usable ELF segments:
[+] 0: V 0x00100000 P 0x00100000 (0x00000200->0x00000200) [R X] @0x94
[+] 1: V 0x00200000 P 0x00100200 (0x000014c8->0x000014c8) [R X] @0x298

[+] Flashing…
[+] Writing segments for file: /home/oluedtke/proxmark3/client/../bootrom/obj/bootrom.elf

+\] 0x00100000..0x001001ff \[0x200 / 1 blocks
+

[!] :warning: Communicating with Proxmark3 device failed

[!!] :police_car_light: Error: Unexpected reply 0x0000 (expected ACK)
[!!] :police_car_light: Error writing block 0 of 1
[!] :warning: The flashing procedure failed, follow the suggested steps!
[+] All done

[=] Have a nice day!

Thank you for the help!

So you tried.

./pm3-flash-bootrom

Other things to try.

  • Use sudo
  • specify device ./pm3-flash-bootrom /dev/ttyACM0
  • Use a different USB cable

Just tried it again with a different cable. No luck. Same message

I updated the comment, are you using sudo to run the command? Also you can try explicitly selecting the device.

Does

lsusb

show the proxmark?

Tried all the ideas same error code. when i tried lsusb I got this

~/proxmark3$ lsusb
unable to initialize libusb: -99

Can you provide the output for
dmesg | tail -50

Good news is I don’t think there’s an issue with the proxmark.

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[ 0.023335] Microsoft 4.4.0-22621.5415-Microsoft 4.4.35

yeah probably right. This is my first time using wsl so I probably messed something up

Ah! WSL okay that makes sense now. USB passthrough on WSL does not work well.

What I would do is setup a VM with USB passthrough and use it in that.

Windows has a native client too. I’ve just never used it.

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i think im using the windows native client. and tbh I have no clue how to set up the usb passthrough

Also anytime i try to update or install things I get this error

Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree… Done
Reading state information… Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
libsnappy1v5 libwiredtiger0
The following NEW packages will be installed:
libsnappy1v5 libwiredtiger0 wiredtiger
0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
5 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 706 kB of archives.
After this operation, 2254 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
Get:1 Index of /ubuntu noble/main amd64 libsnappy1v5 amd64 1.1.10-1build1 [28.6 kB]
Get:2 Index of /ubuntu noble/universe amd64 libwiredtiger0 amd64 3.2.1-1ubuntu1 [645 kB]
Get:3 Index of /ubuntu noble/universe amd64 wiredtiger amd64 3.2.1-1ubuntu1 [33.1 kB]
Fetched 706 kB in 0s (1548 kB/s)
Selecting previously unselected package libsnappy1v5:amd64.
(Reading database … 51411 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack …/libsnappy1v5_1.1.10-1build1_amd64.deb …
Unpacking libsnappy1v5:amd64 (1.1.10-1build1) …
Selecting previously unselected package libwiredtiger0.
Preparing to unpack …/libwiredtiger0_3.2.1-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb …
Unpacking libwiredtiger0 (3.2.1-1ubuntu1) …
Selecting previously unselected package wiredtiger.
Preparing to unpack …/wiredtiger_3.2.1-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb …
Unpacking wiredtiger (3.2.1-1ubuntu1) …
Setting up libsnappy1v5:amd64 (1.1.10-1build1) …
Setting up polkitd (124-2ubuntu1.24.04.3) …
Failed to take /etc/passwd lock: Invalid argument
dpkg: error processing package polkitd (–configure):
installed polkitd package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1
Setting up libwiredtiger0 (3.2.1-1ubuntu1) …
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of packagekit:
packagekit depends on polkitd; however:
Package polkitd is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing package packagekit (–configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Setting up wiredtiger (3.2.1-1ubuntu1) …
No apport report written because the error message indicates its a followup error from a previous failure.
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of packagekit-tools:
packagekit-tools depends on packagekit (= 1.2.8-2ubuntu1.5); however:
Package packagekit is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing package packagekit-tools (–configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of software-properties-common:
software-properties-common depends on packagekit; however:
Package packagekit is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing package software-properties-common (–configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of ubuntu-wsl:
ubuntu-wsl depends on software-properties-common; however:No apport report written because the error message indicates its a followup error from a previous failure.
No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already

Package software-properties-common is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing package ubuntu-wsl (–configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already
Processing triggers for man-db (2.12.0-4build2) …
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.39-0ubuntu8.7) …
Errors were encountered while processing:
polkitd
packagekit
packagekit-tools
software-properties-common
ubuntu-wsl
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Can you post the output of

wsl -l -v
wsl --version

I have a suspicion.

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Unknown command: -l
WSL
Wsman Shell commandLine, version 0.2.1

USAGE: wsl COMMAND [PARAMS…]

COMMANDS:
identify - WS-Identify
enum - WS-Enumerate
get - WS-Get
put - WS-Put
invoke - WS-Invoke
xclean - Delete all files generated by this tool set
xcred - Create or display credential file
xcert - Get server certificate (saved to .crt)

PARAMS specification is specific to a COMMAND.

Output will be saved to ./response.xml. If you want to run parallel
executions in the same directory, define RTFILEPREFIX in the environment.
Doing so may significantly increase files generated.

Requires: curl, xmllint, GNU core utilities.
Optional: xsltproc for output formatting, gpg for encrypted credential.
Optional: wget as alternate for curl when not available.

It says the problem right here. How old is your proxmark? Where did you get it? Is it a 256k or 512k memory size version?

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You will probably need to do the button trick.

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Run it in powershell instead of the linux terminal.

I think you’re running WSL1 instead of WSL2. Look up how to install WSL2