script Fail to recognize armbian root and on boot Bullseye CLI Nov 30, 2022

[SoSie]

Hello,

 

I have tried Bullseye CLI image 30nov from  https://www.armbian.com/bananapi-m5/

flashed with etcher to ensure integrity on sdcard sandisk A1 64G
It appears that it loops in /scripts/local-block giving up to mount armbian root

 

even with correct UUID
why does it loop like this?

[SteeMan]

moved post to correct forum

[Igor]

2 hours ago, SoSie said:

sandisk A1 64G

Use different SD card. Standard Amlogic issue. It can't init SD card properly. Try test images if they are better ... fix coming soon. Hopefully.

[Dominic LoBue]

@Igor I am running into this problem as well. I've tried several different SD cards, and tried both the supported bullseye CLI image from Nov 30, and the rolling release kinetic CLI image from Dec 25th. I get the same error as the OP. I did some poking around from the initramfs shell that I was dropped into, and the SD card isn't being detected properly. I see the emmc block device and its partitions on `mmcblk1` (ex: `/dev/mmcblk1boot0`, and `/dev/mmcblk1boot1`). What's strange, now that I think about it, is that when I use the "official" 2021-06-21 Debian buster image from banana pi wiki (found here: https://wiki.banana-pi.org/Banana_Pi_BPI-M5 ), the emmc storage shows up as the `mmcblk0` device, as the wiki says it would. See https://wiki.banana-pi.org/Getting_Started_with_M5/M2Pro#Prepare

Quote

4. In Android SDcard is mmc0, emmc is mmc1, but in Linux SDcard is mmc1, emmc is mmc0.

 

Could the armbian boot scripts be fighting with something over block assignments, and that's the reason why the SD card isn't showing up?

I have a usb-serial cable arriving today, hopefully I can get a better look into what's going on when that arrives.

 

In the meantime, is there anything else I can try? Is there a way for me to boot using the manufacturer-provided images, and then flash the emmc to armbian?

(also, any idea where those pre-existing emmc partitions came from, and what they are for? they don't show up when I run `fdisk -l` against the root block device.

 

 

Thanks!

[NoFr1ends]

@Dominic LoBue I had the same issues, booting Armbian from SD Card didn't worked but flashing the image on the internal eMMC works like a charm.

You can flash images on the eMMC using the factory linux image using the following command:
 

sudo dd if=Armbian_22.11.1_Bananapim5_bullseye_edge_6.0.10.img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=10M status=progress

 

[SoSie]

Well, it is not an sdcard issue @igor, I have tried previous Armbian_22.05.0-trunk_Bananapi-m5_bullseye_edge_5.17.5_minimal.img.xz
with the first partition U-BOOT of Ubuntu 2022-09-06 release Ubuntu Mate Desktop 20.04 with Kernel 4.9 given by BPI 

Baidu Cloud: https://pan.baidu.com/s/1XE2K_KlVwP0hvjv_AChVgg?pwd=38vx (pincode: 38vx)

Google drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OGNaEylMR-VlfY6ynRkGQNuljLcvxoqe/view?usp=sharing

MD5: 4b0528065ddcf634e9a43b6b7a6363b1

AND REPLACING U-ROOT content with the content of Armbian 22.05 using inside BPI-ROOT. Here are the ugly steps..
 

1) Clean-up and prepare

 

#we assume USER match current user (USER=`whoami`)
cd /media/$USER/BPI-ROOT
rm -r *
sudo mkdir /mnt/arm-root

 

2) Mount the  decompacted Armbian root from Armbian_22.05.0-trunk_Bananapi-m5_bullseye_edge_5.17.5_minimal.img  with

 

#from xz-utils
sudo xz -d Armbian_22.05.0-trunk_Bananapi-m5_bullseye_edge_5.17.5_minimal.img.xz
sudo kpartx -ar Armbian_22.05.0-trunk_Bananapi-m5_bullseye_edge_5.17.5_minimal.img

I have a look which loop device has been created with lsblk as losetup -f is not reliable at all., for me it was /dev/loop6

 

sudo mount /dev/mapper/loop6p1 /mnt/arm-root

 

3)  copied the arm-root content with

 

sudo cp -a /mnt/arm-root/*  /media/$USER/BPI-ROOT/

4) Put the sdcard in the bananapi M5 and ladies ands gentlemens, it boots and I can even ssh to make a nice bunnyfied screenshot!

 

Note the keyboard is American my bunny,  can't we do an azerty jump for frenchies in the installation process since the first step just before entering password?
 

sudo apt-get install keyboard-configuration locales console-setup-linux
sudo dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration
sudo service keyboard-setup restart

 

CONCLUSION:
 

u-boot is a nightmare to make it work (I loose weeks trying to boot on different images that are not bootable in fact directly on sdcard)
 there should be a match with the kernel. I don't have the compatibility table to compile from u-boot github.

I just saw Chewitt , main forum helper from Libreelec recommending to update u-boot.
 

#USB/SD and eMMC images can be created with the same u-boot and instructions as any mainline u-boot using 
#Amlogic GXBB/GXL/GXM/G12A/G12B/SM1 board/device:
#with https://chewitt.libreelec.tv/testing/u-boot/u-boot.bin.sd.bin-bananapi-m5
#see https://github.com/chewitt/u-boot/commits/amlogic-2021.07
dd if="/path/to/u-boot.bin.sd.bin" of="/dev/mmcblkX" conv=fsync,notrunc bs=1 count=444
dd if="/path/to/u-boot.bin.sd.bin" of="/dev/mmcblkX" conv=fsync,notrunc bs=512 skip=1 seek=1

It's nice, but with which file u-boot.bin is really compatible, this one?, with which modules and kernel, I did not manage to boot in the nighly build for now..
I guess you have to compile it from the sources..but which are compatible with BPI M5.? All stuff from BPI seems stalled to 4.9.
documentation really lacks..Armbian declares using kernel 5.17.5 in /boot/ but i booted with 4.9.312-BPI-M5 thanks to Ubuntu team!
However I prefer lightweight debian , debian 10 buster works with the same u-boot version so will test armbian now deeply which seems to have
a nicer environment. It is the version jungle for 2023 in the bananapi kernel sources world !! Happy new Year!

Edited January 1, 2023 by SoSie
typo

[R.]

So to clarify none of the M5 images on the Armbian website will work burnt as is on an SD card?