Armbian taking a really long time to power up

[aegrotatio]

I've noticed that Armbian builds are taking a really long time to power up on Orange Pi PC and Orange Pi One.

 

Is there some way I can see what's going on in the bootloader that's causing these long delays?

 

Also, if I run apt-get dist-upgrade and take the latest kernel, it never boots after that point.

 

I think something's wrong with the boot sector (or whatever it is) that is written/updated on the SDCard.  The Orange Pi power LEDs don't light up until the bootloader successfully finds an OS on the SDCard.  All of the builds over at orangepi.org work just fine but the Armbian ones aren't working right.

 

I'm using a diverse collection of very high-quality SDCards from different manufacturers.

 

Any thoughts?  Thanks in advance.

 

[wildcat_paris]

I am not expert in the Orange Pi boards.

 

Please, do you have UART trace (UART to USB cable) of the boot much like

 

 

U-Boot SPL 2016.05-armbian (May 27 2016 - 05:15:47)
DRAM: 1024 MiB
CPU: 912000000Hz, AXI/AHB/APB: 3/2/2
Trying to boot from MMC1


U-Boot 2016.05-armbian (May 27 2016 - 05:15:47 +0200) Allwinner Technology

CPU:   Allwinner A20 (SUN7I)
Model: Lamobo R1
I2C:   ready
DRAM:  1 GiB
MMC:   SUNXI SD/MMC: 0

In:    serial
Out:   serial
Err:   serial
SCSI:  Target spinup took 0 ms.
AHCI 0001.0100 32 slots 1 ports 3 Gbps 0x1 impl SATA mode
flags: ncq stag pm led clo only pmp pio slum part ccc apst
Net:   eth0: ethernet@01c50000
starting USB...
USB0:   USB EHCI 1.00
USB1:   USB OHCI 1.0
USB2:   USB EHCI 1.00
USB3:   USB OHCI 1.0
scanning bus 0 for devices... 3 USB Device(s) found
scanning bus 2 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found
scanning bus 1 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found
1 USB Device(s) found
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0
switch to partitions #0, OK
mmc0 is current device
Scanning mmc 0:1...
Found U-Boot script /boot/boot.scr
1973 bytes read in 202 ms (8.8 KiB/s)
## Executing script at 43100000
0 bytes read in 161 ms (0 Bytes/s)
29377 bytes read in 1114 ms (25.4 KiB/s)
6070560 bytes read in 651 ms (8.9 MiB/s)
Kernel image @ 0x46000000 [ 0x000000 - 0x5ca120 ]
## Flattened Device Tree blob at 49000000
   Booting using the fdt blob at 0x49000000
   Using Device Tree in place at 49000000, end 4900a2c0

Starting kernel ...

Uncompressing Linux... done, booting the kernel.

Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS bpi ttyS0

bpi login:

 

 

[tkaiser]

This will be my last answer for now since you seem to ignore answers anyway.

 

Please check your so called 'very high-quality SDCards' immediately and read through the 'SD card performance' thread I already recommended to you over there: http://forum.armbian.com/index.php/topic/1302-running-apt-get-dist-upgrade-installs-the-new-kernel-but-takes-the-orange-pi-pc-a-really-long-time/

 

Regarding led behaviour it's that easy. All the OS images over at orangepi forums use Allwinner's oudated u-boot 2011.09 (where the led will be powered on immediately) while we use mainline u-boot where the led gets activated later (the time span already increased a lot since most recent mainline u-boot version scans all USB busses for peripherals).

 

Anyway: if Armbian boots slow then your SD card is most probably the culprit. And no, after doing some very extensive testing I don't believe in any marketing claims any more. Counterfeit cards exist, most SD cards used are slow as hell when it's about random IO. Again: Read from here on: http://forum.armbian.com/index.php/topic/954-sd-card-performance/

Edited May 31, 2016 by wildcat_paris
removed a typo

[RagnerBG]

I have similar issue with slow booting from powering to loading kernel. Maybe it's related to this case. I don't know what is the reason but i notice, it's somehow related to SD card capacity. If i use smaller - <16Gb, kernel load fast enough, but >16Gb (i have some 32Gb microsdhc and one 64Gb), loading kernel takes very long time, after kernel loads the rest of booting process is with normal speed and even faster, because my bigger sd cards are faster. For some reason the delay is proportional to capacity - the bigger, the longer it takes to load kernel. This behavior i see on my Lamobo R1, on my H3-s i can't tell for sure, because there is no output through hdmi until kernel loads, but it's seems there is the same.

Of course i don't except my sdcards to be the issue, because i use some cheap chinese brands, but they are new, fast and show no problems so far.

[Andrew DD]

In my case, if I disconnect ethernet cable from my OPi PC Plus, it really takes long(over 1 minute) looking for the ethernet connection. Which is quite annoying. When I connect it to the ethernet, it is very quick. I wish there is a way to fix this.

[martinayotte]

if you comment out the eth0 entry in /etc/network/interface, it should boot quickly.

[shahidali55]

Or add the below line above the iface line for eth0 in /etc/network/interfaces:

allow-hotplug eth0

This is how my /etc/network/interfaces file looks like:

# Wired adapter #1
allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp
#       hwaddress ether # if you want to set MAC manually
#       pre-up /sbin/ifconfig eth0 mtu 3838 # setting MTU for DHCP, static just: mtu 3838

# Wired adapter #2
#allow-hotplug eth1
#iface eth1 inet dhcp
#       hwaddress ether # if you want to set MAC manually
#       pre-up /sbin/ifconfig eth0 mtu 3838 # setting MTU for DHCP, static just: mtu 3838

# Wireless adapter #1
#allow-hotplug wlan0
#iface wlan0 inet dhcp
#       wpa-ssid SSID
#       wpa-psk xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
# to generate proper encrypted key: wpa_passphrase yourSSID yourpassword
auto wlan0
        iface wlan0 inet dhcp
        wpa-ssid sharksInThePool
        wpa-psk xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

# Local loopback
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

 

if you comment out the eth0 entry in /etc/network/interface, it should boot quickly.