USB File Transfer (Update Mode)

Entering Update Mode

There are two ways to enter Update Mode:

From the dashboard

1. Double-tap the left brake to open the menu
2. Go to Settings → System → Update Mode…

From the CLI

lsc usb ums

To switch back to normal (network) mode:

lsc usb normal

Leaving Update Mode

Hold the left brake for 3 seconds. The dashboard shows the hold as Cancel while Update Mode is still preparing, and as Exit once the drive is live.

• While preparing: the entry is abandoned before the USB gadget switches over, so the network connection is never dropped.
• Once active: the scooter switches the USB port back to network mode and processes whatever is on the drive, exactly as it does after an eject. Eject on your computer first so the files are fully written.

No other gesture leaves Update Mode. A right brake press or a seatbox tap is ignored on purpose, so a stray input can't interrupt a transfer. lsc usb normal works too.

Transferring files

1. Connect a USB cable between the scooter's USB Mini-B port and your computer
2. A drive appears on your computer
3. Copy files into the appropriate folder (see below)
4. Safely eject the drive. The scooter processes everything on it, then reboots if a firmware update was among it

After processing, the drive is wiped apart from ums_log.txt, so the next session starts clean.

What's on the drive

The folders below are created when Update Mode starts, so an empty one is normal rather than a sign something went wrong.

Map display tiles

Copy any .mbtiles file into the maps/ folder on the drive. The scooter installs it as the offline map source.

Download pre-built tiles from Librescoot OSM Tiles releases.

Valhalla routing tiles

Copy the downloaded archive into the maps/ folder as-is. The scooter accepts any file name ending in tiles.tar or tiles.tar.zst, including release files such as valhalla_tiles_<region>.tar.zst. The compressed form reduces the download and USB transfer size and is unpacked automatically.

Download pre-built routing tiles from Librescoot Valhalla Tiles releases.

Firmware updates

Copy .mender or .delta artifacts into the system-update/ folder to install a firmware update without a SIM card. This is the only thing that triggers a reboot; everything else is applied by restarting the affected service.

Troubleshooting

• Drive doesn't appear: make sure the scooter is in Update Mode (check dashboard or run lsc usb status). Try a different USB cable.
• Files not applied after eject: check that you safely ejected (not just unplugged). The scooter needs the eject event to trigger processing.
• Scooter doesn't reboot: reconnect USB and eject again, or reboot manually with lsc power reboot. A USB update can simply be retried from the start.
• Wrong channel or map region installed: the scooter installs exactly the files you copied, and a firmware artifact from another release channel switches you to that channel. Download the artifact or tiles for the channel and region you want now and run another Update Mode session.

Under the hood (for maintainers)

Everything below is background for maintainers and administrators. Riders don't need any of it for normal use.

Update Mode is managed by ums-service on the MDB. It switches the USB port from network mode (USB Ethernet) to USB Mass Storage mode, exposing a partition on the scooter's eMMC as a removable drive. When the drive is ejected, ums-service detects the eject event and works through the drive in a fixed order: settings, WireGuard, radio-gaga, uplink-service, onboot.sh, firmware updates, maps, RPMs, scripts. Each step is independent, so one failing doesn't stop the rest, and ums_log.txt records what each one did.

Besides the two rider folders above, the drive exposes:

Round-trip means the scooter puts its current version on the drive when Update Mode starts, and reads the file back when you leave. Edit in place, don't create from scratch, and if you don't touch it nothing changes.

Configuration

Changing settings.toml or anything under wireguard/ restarts librescoot-settings. Changing radio-gaga/config.yaml restarts radio-gaga, and uplink-service/config.yaml restarts librescoot-uplink. Nothing is restarted if the file came back unchanged.

Packages and scripts

RPMs in rpms/mdb/ and rpms/dbc/ are installed on the matching board. Scripts named mdb.sh and dbc.sh under scripts/ are run once each, on the board their name says. Anything targeting the DBC is skipped if the DBC can't be reached.