TL;DR: fsck /dev/sdb1 Looks like something corrupted the drive filesystem. I was able fsck repair the drive, and re-apply the image via armbian-imager. The fact that armbian-imager 'validated' the flashed contents multiple times is where things went sideways. Once i tried to manually delete the contents of the drive, and that failed, it became apparent that the drive had been corrupted. I'm not sure what the 'validation' that armbian-imager does is, though.

@Ducdanh Nguyen probably a real H313 SOC. You know this! You were on the other thread.

Have you mounted the image to verify that the problem isn't with the image? (You assume that the issue is with imager but you should first verify that the issue isn't with the image that imager is copying to the storage media.

Armbian-imager is just.. not doing anything useful... I manually deleted the 'kernel' on the device... which was really an apt packages list somehow... rebuilt & 'flashed'... 14:03:51 ● custom_image: Board detection completed successfully 14:03:51 ● frontend::app: Detected board from filename: Espressobin (espressobin) 14:03:52 ● board_queries: Device(s) added: ["/dev/sda", "/dev/sdb", "/dev/nvme0n1"] 14:03:55 ● operations: Requesting write authorization for device: /dev/sdb 14:03:55 ● flash::linux::privileges: Authorization will be requested via polkit when accessing: /dev/sdb 14:03:55 ● operations: Authorization granted for /dev/sdb 14:03:55 ● custom_image: Check decompression for /srv/development/espressobin-ultra/armbian-build/build/output/images/Armbian-unofficial_26.05.0-trunk_Espressobin_trixie_edge_6.18.21.img: false 14:03:55 ● operations: Starting flash: /srv/development/espressobin-ultra/armbian-build/build/output/images/Armbian-unofficial_26.05.0-trunk_Espressobin_trixie_edge_6.18.21.img -> /dev/sdb (verify: true) 14:03:55 ● flash::linux::writer: Starting flash: /srv/development/espressobin-ultra/armbian-build/build/output/images/Armbian-unofficial_26.05.0-trunk_Espressobin_trixie_edge_6.18.21.img -> /dev/sdb 14:03:55 ● flash::linux::writer: Image size: 2139095040 bytes (1.99 GB) 14:03:55 ● flash::linux::writer: Unmounting device partitions... 14:03:55 ● flash::linux::writer: Writing image... 14:04:01 ● flash::linux::writer: Write complete: 2040.0 MB in 5.5s (avg 373.2 MB/s) 14:04:01 ● flash::linux::writer: Starting verification... 14:04:01 ● flash::verify: Starting verification of 2139095040 bytes (1.99 GB) 14:04:05 ● flash::verify: Verify complete: 2040.0 MB in 4.6s (avg 441.9 MB/s) 14:04:05 ● flash::linux::writer: Flash complete! 14:04:05 ● operations: Flash completed successfully 14:04:05 ● custom_image: Deleting decompressed custom image: /srv/development/espressobin-ultra/armbian-build/build/output/images/Armbian-unofficial_26.05.0-trunk_Espressobin_trixie_edge_6.18.21.img 14:04:05 ● custom_image: Attempted to delete file outside custom-decompress cache: /srv/development/espressobin-ultra/armbian-build/build/output/images/Armbian-unofficial_26.05.0-trunk_Espressobin_trixie_edge_6.18.21.img > sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/ > ls /mnt bin boot/ dev/ etc/ home/ initrd.img initrd.img.old lib lost+found/ media/ mnt/ opt/ proc/ root/ run/ sbin selinux/ srv/ sys/ tmp/ usr/ var/ vmlinuz vmlinuz.old > ls -ltr /mnt/ total 80 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Mar 2 16:50 sys/ lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 Mar 2 16:50 sbin -> usr/sbin/ drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Mar 2 16:50 proc/ lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Mar 2 16:50 lib -> usr/lib/ drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Mar 2 16:50 home/ drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Mar 2 16:50 dev/ lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Mar 2 16:50 bin -> usr/bin/ drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Mar 31 22:57 mnt/ drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Mar 31 22:57 srv/ drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Mar 31 22:57 opt/ drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Mar 31 22:57 media/ drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Mar 31 22:57 usr/ drwxrwxrwt 2 root root 4096 Mar 31 22:57 tmp/ drwxr-xr-x 12 root root 4096 Apr 7 16:47 var/ drwxrwxr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 7 16:47 selinux/ lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 33 Apr 7 16:48 vmlinuz.old -> boot/vmlinux-6.18.21-edge-mvebu64 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 33 Apr 7 16:48 vmlinuz -> boot/vmlinux-6.18.21-edge-mvebu64 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 36 Apr 7 16:48 initrd.img.old -> boot/initrd.img-6.18.21-edge-mvebu64 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 36 Apr 7 16:48 initrd.img -> boot/initrd.img-6.18.21-edge-mvebu64 drwx------ 3 root root 4096 Apr 7 16:48 root/ drwx------ 2 root root 16384 Apr 7 16:49 lost+found/ drwxr-xr-x 91 root root 4096 Apr 7 16:49 etc/ drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Apr 7 16:49 run/ drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Apr 8 13:35 boot/ > ls -ltr /mnt/boot/ total 59328 -rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 1592 Apr 3 18:14 boot.cmd -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5318624 Apr 3 18:36 System.map-6.18.21-edge-mvebu64 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 224205 Apr 3 18:36 config-6.18.21-edge-mvebu64 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 Apr 7 16:48 Image -> vmlinux-6.18.21-edge-mvebu64 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Apr 7 16:48 dtb-6.18.21-edge-mvebu64/ lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 24 Apr 7 16:48 dtb -> dtb-6.18.21-edge-mvebu64/ -rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 38518 Apr 7 16:48 boot.bmp -rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 95 Apr 7 16:49 armbianEnv.txt -rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 1664 Apr 7 16:49 boot.scr -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 18372350 Apr 7 16:49 initrd.img-6.18.21-edge-mvebu64 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 18372414 Apr 7 16:49 uInitrd-6.18.21-edge-mvebu64 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 Apr 7 16:49 uInitrd -> uInitrd-6.18.21-edge-mvebu64 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 18398788 Apr 7 16:49 espressobin.itb > ls -ltr /srv/development/espressobin-ultra/armbian-build/build/output/images/Armbian-unofficial_26.05.0-trunk_Espressobin_trixie_edge_6.18.21.img -rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 2139095040 Apr 8 14:02 /srv/development/espressobin-ultra/armbian-build/build/output/images/Armbian-unofficial_26.05.0-trunk_Espressobin_trixie_edge_6.18.21.img > > ls -ltr /mnt/boot/Image lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 Apr 7 16:48 /mnt/boot/Image -> vmlinux-6.18.21-edge-mvebu64 > ls -ltr /mnt/boot/vmlinux-6.18.21-edge-mvebu64 ls: cannot access '/mnt/boot/vmlinux-6.18.21-edge-mvebu64': No such file or directory > so... why is armbian-imager not pushing the kernel files from a custom image?