Arnova 10b G3 custom firmware Android 4.1 JB, root, more space for apps and PIP video player [Update]

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We recently announced a series of custom Android 4.1 Jelly Bean firmwares for Arnova G3 devices. The Arnova 10b G3 tablet is the first tablet to receive a custom Android 4.1 JB firmware with root and few extra features. This firmware is based on the Oma JB, the work of OMA, a respected xda-developers.com who has produced many great firmwares so far for Rockchip tablets, thanks a lot to him for that. We have modified this firmware to make the flash process easier on the Arnova 10b G3. While this firmware is already very stable and brings some great additions to the original 10b G3 firmware, it suffers a few limitations: the battery indicator isn’t working properly and the video camera picture is mirrored horizontally.

Update 2012/11/20: The battery level issue is fixed, thanks to Morka, Oma & Exelletor.

Arnova 10b G3 Android 4.1 JB firmware feature list

  • rooted Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean with SuperSU 0.96 by ChainFire (free version)
  • full Google Play and Apps support, including Google Now
  • full ext4 file system on cache, data and system partitions
  • /system partition fully writable
  • extended space for application (/data) to 2 GB
  • Picture in Picture (PIP) video player
  • super fast tablet shutdown (about 1 second)

Picture in Picture (PIP) video player

The Picture in Picture (PIP) function is a great new feature of the Video Player that let you put the playing video in a resizable and movable window, so you can watch a movie while you continue to use the Android tablet for other things. This feature is similar to what Samsung offers on their latest Galaxy SIII and Note II with the “Pop Up Play” feature.

Install procedure

Before starting, please make sure you backup all your existing apps, data and files that are on your tablet as they will be erased during the flash process. Also make sure your device is connected to the power.

Step 1. Download

Custom OMA JB firmware download (version 0.46), updated 2012/11/20

kasty_oma-arn10bg3-41-046-2G.zip

This firmware is specific to the Arnova 10b G3 capacitive model and should not be installed on other devices.It will not work on the Dual Touch (DT) resistive model.

WE WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE TO YOUR DEVICE.

THIS FIRMWARE UPDATE IS USED AT YOUR OWN RISK.

WE RECOMMEND TO FLASH THIS FIRMWARE ONLY IF YOU ARE ABLE TO RESCUE A BRICKED DEVICE USING ROCKCHIP FLASHING TOOLS.

Download the file above and extract the custom firmware image (update.img) on your computer hard drive.

Step 2. Install and run Rockchip Flashing tool

Please follow the Rockchip Flashing tool procedure: that will explain how to download Rockchip flashing tool, unpack the archive, put your device into flashing mode and flash the custom firmware file that you have unpacked in Step 1.

Step 3. Arnova 10b G3 flashing and restart

After Rockchip flasher has transferred the custom firmware to the tablet, the device will restart and install the firmware. Finally you will be back to Arnova homescreen, there is no setup wizard with this firmware.

You will find the 3 easy steps of the installation procedure in the following video, see how to get Google Play and root to the Arnova 9 G3 in less than 10 minutes, it works on a similar way with the Arnova 10b G3.

Firmware Limitations

we have observed that the touchscreen is sometimes not working just after flashing this firmware on the Arnova 10b G3, the source of the problem isn’t clear but it may be related to an issue with the touchscreen calibration routine that isn’t present in this firmware. Luckily, the fix is quite simple, just flash the stock firmware or one of our custom firmware based on it that contains the calibration.

Let us know how it works for you in our Arnova 10b G3 forum.

Release history

2012/11/20: version 0.46, the battery level issue is fixed, thanks to Morka, Oma & Exelletor
2012/10/15: version 0.45, restored original “host” file, advertisements are not filtered anymore, please use Adfree or AdAway on Google Play Store if you need ads filtering)
2012/10/10: version 0.44, updated to OMA JB v1.2.2 + fixed the ext4 partition setup
2012/10/08: version 0.43, first release

Great thanks to OMA for his work on this Jelly Bean firmware.

Similar articles:

ARCHOS 97 Carbon custom firmware with root and 2 Gb space for apps, works with Arnova 9 G3 too !
Cube U30GT-H Android 4.1 Jelly Bean firmware with root and PIP (Picture in Picture) video player
Arnova 8 G3 custom firmware with Google Play, Apps and root
Arnova 10 G2 improved custom firmware Kasty v2 update (ext4, Android Market, full root, increased app storage space)

121 COMMENTS

  1. Hello, Help me someone please. I use the Arnova 10b G3, OMA JB Custom Firmware (version 0:46) The problem is that google maps and other android apps in my current location is automatically determined in Luxembourg. I am already 6 months in Vilnius, Lithuania. Maybe I should change anything on my Android? The changes that did not affect the modem. What can I do? The previous version of Android ICS managed to set real my location. What do I do? Are there some sort of changes to the Android system to correct the error? Many thanks for all the answers and advice. Valdas from Lithuania

  5. Hi there, I did the update and the tablet seems to work fine when the power is plugged in, the problem is that when you unplug the power lead, the screen freezes and its stuck on Arnova screen, its only goes away when you plug in the power.

    How can you fix this issue?

  9. Hi. I am Agustin from Argentina. Got one in spain earlier this year. Was able to get the GApps Package with Google Market with no ROM change.
    I am actually looking forwards to some custom jellybeans firmware so i could get chrome running, plus some nice features (included in the ones availble here with PIP!

    The thing is, since the tablets battery aint that good i want to be able to turn it on on-the-go with no need of charger.

    so, in the meanwhile
    http://www.arctablet.com/blog/forum/archos-arnova-general/enabling-wifi-adhoc-mode-with-wpa_supplicant-file-tethering/
    ill need to have root acces to stock firmware android 4.0.3 in orther to either edit “/data/misc/wifi/wpa_supplicant.conf” or change name of “sys/bin/wpa_supplicant” and get “wpa_supplicant_xoom_wifi_adhoc-1.zip” working
    (found here: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.arctablet.com%2Fblog%2Fwp-content%2Fforum-file-uploads%2Fadmin%2F2012%2F06%2Fwpa_supplicant_xoom_wifi_adhoc-1.zip).

    Might adb help me from Windows PC to get access to these protected area and replace what i need to?
    Is the only way to root the tablet?
    Is there anyway to do this without changing its ROM?
    In my case, ive got rockchip so i guess i can make an image of my actual firmware and flash it back if needed (?)

    Hope my questions help others too
    Thank you!

    • If you are just getting the Arnova screen at start up and nothing else, follow the instructions below.
      ARNOVA 10bG3 To access to the recovery mode: 1. Hold down the volume button + and press the ON/OFF button. 2. Once the boot logo ARNOVA is displayed, release the volume button +. The ANDROID green robot is displayed. 3. Once the ANDROID green robot is displayed, press simultaneously the volume button + and the ON/OFF button. The Android system recovery screen is displayed. a. Use the volume buttons to navigate b. Use the ON/OFF button to select an option To restore the default parameters of your tablet: 1. In the Android system recovery, select Wipe data/factory reset; 2. Select Yes -delete all user data. 3. Select Reboot system now. Your tablet reboots. Redefine your parameters through the wizard. Your tablet is restored to its default settings.

  12. SR. ADMIN I NEED HELP … INSTALL THE FIRMWARE AND NOT INSTALL AND ALL OK … REBOOT WHEN SCREEN AND BECAME STUCK “ARNOVA” AND THAT ACER AND PROBE WITH CONNECT USB CABLE AND CONNECT THE CHARGER AND NOTHING WILL NOT START SCREEN IS STUCK AYUDDA NEED PLEASE … THANK YOU …

  14. salut a tous tout nouveau par ici l’ambiance à l’air bien sumpa
    j’ai un gros problème ma tablette ne démarre pas comme sité plus haut au dexième arnova je branche mais rien ne ce passe! quand rebanche au port usb mon pc ne reconnais pas le périphérique est-il possible de revenir en arrière pour reprendre la version précédente du firmware? et sachant que même le programme rock chip ne reconnais pas non plus la tablette! aïe aïe je craint que les réponse ne soient pas celle que j’attend merci par avance

    hello to all new atmosphere here to look good sumpa
    I have a big problem my tablet does not start as high diversity arnova I connect to in the second but nothing is happening! when rebanche port usb my pc does not recognize the device is it possible to go back and resume the previous firmware version? and knowing that even rock chip program does not recognize either the tablet! ouch ouch I fear that the answer will not be the one I expected thank you in advance
    sorry if my english is not good

  15. Merci Sra93, désoler mais je ne parle pas anglais =/

    je voudrais savoir comment on accède a la racine de la tablette quand je branche je vois juste ma carte sd et la mémoire de 500 mo =/

    ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

    Thank you Sra93, to sadden but I do not speak English =/

    I would want to know how we accede has the root of the tablet when I branch I just see my card(map) sd and the 500 Mb memory =/

  20. hi i have flashed my arnova 10b g3 eventually and found it to be working sound apart from same issue with boot up procedure but can anyone explain this as i an a bit of a noob …….full ext4 file system on cache, data and system partitions
    /system partition fully writable …..extended space for application (/data) to 2 GB and is this meant to be 2 gb of ram ?

  21. hi all, having a nightmare here, tried putting the firmware in the root menu, restarted my 10b 3g, look like it was all good gave me a message update found, clicked yes, now its just stuck on the arnova screen, ive tried pressing the vol + while pin in reset but never seems to work, ive also tried hnolding power and vol +, can get a dead drion on screen but nothing else, when i try to connect to pc i get mtp error, is there any advice you guys can offer? only had the thing a couple days really annoying

      • If you are just getting the Arnova screen at start up and nothing else, follow the instructions below.

        ARNOVA 10bG3 To access to the recovery mode:

        1. Hold down the volume button + and press the ON/OFF button.
        2. Once the boot logo ARNOVA is displayed, release the volume button +. The ANDROID green robot is displayed.
        3. Once the ANDROID green robot is displayed, press simultaneously the volume button + and the ON/OFF button.

        The Android system recovery screen is displayed.
        a. Use the volume buttons to navigate
        b. Use the ON/OFF button to select an option

        To restore the default parameters of your tablet:
        1. In the Android system recovery, select Wipe data/factory reset;
        2. Select Yes -delete all user data.
        3. Select Reboot system now.
        Yo

  24. Admin man!
    Thank you wery much for your time, great job and support!
    Me had to go back to fully working kasty 0.42 firmware. Just does the job.
    Any chance to us to get nice and clean working JB firmware? Latest custom one still does not do anything without charger plugged in…. unfortunately.
    But… the hope dies last anyway
    🙂

  26. hi i have done this to two arnova 10bg3 tablets and they work great but have noticed games like angry birds and some others will let you download on google play but they wont open when you try to play them and another big question about these tablets why is ther a anti ailising option that improves graphics on this tab in the settings but you cant select it try playing top gear on your tablet it cant handle it maybe this option can help if it were unlocked on the settings give for a better gameing experience just a question

  27. guys please help ?!
    i have broke my usb plug 🙁
    and now without any usb connection :((
    can i upgrade my software to the one with battery indicator is correct ??
    i have the one with no battery indicator
    any help ?
    the qustion is can i upgrade without a usb connection ?

  28. Hi
    have the 10b g3 and i tried every reset trick described, but it stays on the “Arnova” screen -power cable in/out, usb in/out…. the rockchip doesn’t find the MTP device in Xp so i am at wits end….any hints to flash it somehow? Thanks !

  29. hey guys ??
    i have a 10bg3 tablet but unfortunately i broke my USB cable plug on the device
    and i got on it the custom rom
    kasty_oma-arn10bg3-41-042-2G.zip
    and have some issue with battry level and touch screen !!
    so i want to flash the stock rom but with no usb cable connection
    how can i do that??
    and it is ok if i flash the new one over here ??
    but the main problem no usb connection
    so any answers ??

  31. Didn’t get much smoothness and responsiveness at all. Took to flash couple of hours (the instruction wasn’t clear enough). Standard explorer application crashes upon start. The tablet does not start without charger plugged in.

    Waiting for solution. 😉

    Arnova 10b G3 8Gb.

  34. P.s: Admin, you should thank charliedflea for saving my tablet. Sorry for the comment but I think you should improve your instructions for flashing a tablet.

    Everyone, read charliedflea’s comment on top of admins instructions to get a successful flash 🙂

  36. Hi guys, please help!

    After updating the firmware (I did it via microSD, which now seems to have been a bad idea) I’ve got the stuck on boot problem. I haven’t been able to boot at all since despite trying the waiting to plug in power thing at all different intervals and since I can’t actually get into the OS I can’t downgrade or change the firmware. Very concerned it might be bricked, is there any other advice to help me at least boot up?

  38. I had nothing but problems to flash my 10b G3 using the Rockchip Flasher tool because the USB drivers were never recognized or installable on my Windows 7 Pro 64bits.
    I’ve tried all the suggestions found on the forum, e.g. install XP 32bits driver, etc… with no results.
    So I tried to put the update.img file from kasty_oma-arn10bg3-41-046-2G.zip directly on my SD card and, when I plugged the SD card on the tablet, I get the surprising message “We detected a new update on SD card, do you want to apply the update from /mnt/sd_external/update.img” !
    I just clicked YES and after a reboot and 10 minutes of upgrade, I got my tablet with Android 4.1 JB, Google Play, Chrome, more space for apps and PIP video player !!!
    So if you have a SD card, the easiest way to root your tablet is by doing a copy/paste, plug the card and select YES to upgrade 😉
    Cheers.

  41. It doesn’t work on my arnova 10B G3 capacitive model. I could install the ICS version without problem but this one gets stuck in the loading screen (arnova logo). I tried doing upgrade, restore but same result. I reinstalled many times. Please fix this !!

      • I managed to install the jellybean firmware everything is great apart from this issue of not starting unless plugged in does anybody know if this is being worked on by anyone,it’s just that I move around a lot day to day and have to keep the charger with me otherwise its brilliant thanks to whoever done this hopefully a fix soon

      • DAS HAB ICH GEMERKT DAS IST DOCH BESCHEUERT WENN man sein Gerät
        irgendwo mit hin nimmt :(((((( minusss

        DAS GERÄT BENÖTIGT 20 Minuten zum Starten wird heiß und schließlich flackert der Bildschirm und das gerät wird heiß hab jetzt ICS installiert das ist wenigsten zuverlässig und ich kann es mit zur schule nehmen

  43. hey guys ok here is the correct way to enter flash mode on arnova 10b g3 i have 8gb version it works 100% every time for me.

    1. plug in power chord both ends. plug in usb, to pc and tablet,
    2. with the tablet on (or were ever it crashes at if it crashes….poke in the reset button first keep it held in then a second later press and hold vol + button keep these both help in for 15 seconds. DO NOT RELEASE YET
    3 Release the reset button ONLY do NOT release volume!!!
    4. keep volume button pressed in till it finishes installing driver or till it gives you driver install error (i was on win 7 32 bit eddition) *you are not in flash/ recovary mode
    5 upon error or even upon succesfull install of driver go to device manager and reinstall the driver that came with the rockchip flasher!
    6. if all done succsessfull in the flasher software you should see ya device in dreen saying 1 you are now ready to flash.

    now about this software if admin could help me id appriciate it…

    first off i have flashed my device a couple of times with same result all succsessfull flash but… upon load it appears to crash/freeze at the initial loadup were ARNOVA appears in white accross the screen (seeming like a bad flash) with the power chord plugged in if you wait a little while *still on this screen and hold the standby/power button it actually jumps into the software and says would you like to shut down if you chose cancel you can continue using software/ device as normal. however upon reboot it still does the same thing again and freezes and you need to repeat the process. the problem with this is if you tyy this shutdown mrthod to access device with out the power chord it just does not work! and stays frozen on arnova screen,

    also it maybe worth noting that initially i did not have an sd card installed.
    and the hdd although its 8 gb was showing as only 1.6 free and for somreason when you used an exporer on the device the folder labled sd was actually internal memory not the actual micro sd when i bought one.

    i hope this is usfull to the admins or anyone else if i can’t be help.

    p.s i also went from stock firmware straight to this one.

  44. Hello.
    Recovery mode is not easy to obtain follow this instruction exactly :
    You first need to push the reset, holding it for a few seconds then press the VOL+ button while holding the reset for a few seconds, then release the VOL+ button and the reset.

    Appuyer d’abord RESET et maintenir quelque secondes, puis Vol+ pendant le maintient de Reset quelque secondes, puis relacher VOL+ et Reset.
    Best Regards

    • I had the problem of thinking that my tablet was in recovery mode once the android and exclamation mark was showing on screen. The way I did it was to do the button combo to boot into recovery mode, nothing will show on screen to let you know if it booted into recovery mode successfully.
      For some reason, my tablet wouldn’t boot into recovery with the power plug or USB plugged in. It did stay in recovery after I plugged USB and power plug back in though. Also. make sure that you are using the rockchip drivers that are in the folder. It will install as an RK29 device.

    • Hi, I’m quite new to this, however i experienced the same problem with windows 7, it was trying to install the drivers for N10BG, however kept failing (MTP?). I was able to get around this by holding the reset button in whilst connected to the usb cable for 5-10 seconds, until a message appear saying the device connected had failed or malfunctioned. I was then able to install the drivers from the rockchip driver folder (1.5) I believe and was then able to flash the device. Until i did this, the rockchip device would not recognise that the arnova 10b g3 was connected.

      Good Luck!

      Hope this helps

  47. This seems to be the problem many people facing, If you shutdown and start your tablet on battery, it gets stuck on the ARNOVA screen for very long time, maybe indefinitely, solution is to plug in the power adapter and it starts fine.

    Surely someone will come out with a solution soon for this, Thanks for all your hard work!

  48. Only problem after testing the new firmware is with restarting the tablet on accu:
    It seems that you can only shutdown your tablet while connected to the poweradapter.
    Otherwise the tablet won’t restart when you hit the power-on button (it will stick on the “ARNOVA” screen). Powerindicator& other content of the firmware seems to be flawless and is working now! Good work!
    Still it would be nice to have the possiblity to shutdown/restart your tablet while on accujuice…Hope you’ll find a way to fix this problem. Keep up the good works folks!

    • Hello.
      The new firmware correct battery indicator, but now we have less memory to Run application. Startup depend power supply plug.

      Then I decide to back to the previously firmware.
      You can test with the game “Contact Killer 2” available on GooglePlay.
      best Regards

  54. Hi, I have a Arnova 10B G3, and I tried pressing the vol+ and reset together for like 10 times so far but my tablet is not going to flashing mode. After removing the pin, it just reboots normally. Because of this I don’t receive this ” the computer should now show it has found a new USB device and prompt for a device driver. ” in the steps mentioned to flash the image file following article “Flashing your Arnova G2, Arnova G3, Rockchip RK29xx/RK30xx based tablet with Rockchip flashing tool”. Basically I can’t flash it because Rockchip flashing tool won’t see it as connected device. Any help most appreciated! cheers!-N

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