Odroid N2 with Armbian Bookworm; emmc boot fail

[hjheins]

Hello all,
I am using an Odroid N2 with a 16Gb emmc and Armbian Bookworm. However as this got a bit small, I installed Armbian Bookworm to a new 64Gb emmc (Armbian is installed on an SD and can then be copied/installed to emmc).
This seemed to work fine, and I had a running system.
However, on the 3rd or 4th reboot, I got the error that the file "boot.scr" wasn't readable. With that, the emmc was not bootable anymore.
I reinstalled multiple times, and each time, the emmc would work for a 2-5 boots, but no more. Each time, i got the error as above, or the error as below (partition could not be found)

I never had this issue with the 16Gb emmc?

Does anyone know this behaviour, or better: does anyone know what is causing this and how to solve it?

thanks,

[usual user]

8 hours ago, hjheins said:

Does anyone know this behaviour

Something like this has happened in the past. The firmware is flaky to some eMMC variants. If you search the forum, you will find relevant posts. Some users have used my firmware build and been successful, but I don't think the true cause has really been figured out.

[hjheins]

Hi @usual user,

 

when you say "flaky firmware" do you mean the spi boot/petitboot on teh Odroid N2?

or do you mean flaky on the emmc module?

The module I have is indeed of an older variety, so maybe that could have something to do with it?

How can I find more info on your firmware build please?

 

thanks

[usual user]

1 hour ago, hjheins said:

do you mean the spi boot/petitboot on teh Odroid N2?

The device firmware is the only truly device-specific code that initializes the SoC and loads the OS. In the x86 architecture world, this is called BIOS. It often uses U-Boot as payload, but there are other ones as well. With its proprietary implementation, Petitboot can't even use the most common standard bootflows and will be therefore usually replaced by mainline firmware versions.

 

1 hour ago, hjheins said:

How can I find more info on your firmware build please?

Mainline firmware for ODROID-N2/N2+

[hjheins]

that looks really interesting.

I'll dive into it.

thanks a lot @usual user!

[hjheins]

As a small update:

I did an update of petitboot (apparently I never did that since I owned the N2), and installed Debian bookworm over the petitboot net installer.

This worked and for some reason seems to be rock solid; no issues with loosing or corrupting boot files whatsoever.

I have no clue what is diffent between the Armbian image and the netboot one to make such a big difference in behaviour. (well, I see some differences, but they seem to be minor and not obviously related to the issue at hand)

I' ll keep an eye on this, and see if I can find out more of the reasons behind the differences.

[umiddelb]

X-Ref: 

 

[hjheins]

thank you @umiddelb,

 

That looks definitely similar, but not the same; it might have the same origin though (the firmware).

It seems also the emmc card itself play a role here:

as I mentioned I also have a 16GB emmc with armbian that works flawlessly every time on the same N2 with the same microcode (==the old one from 2019)

The difference between the 2 emmc cards is this:

the working one is orange, the failing one is red:

https://wiki.odroid.com/accessory/emmc/reference_chart

 

I am not even sure why this makes a difference, but apparently it does.

I guess I will get curious enough a couple of days and try if with the updated microcode on the N2, the red one will behave, and can hold it's armbian.

But that day is not today 🙂

 

[umiddelb]

There is an implicit timeout built into uboot which triggers this error messages. I suppose that the newer firmware will circumvent this timeout.

[HansD]

Yes, I'have the same problem with my OdroidN2+ and 128GB emmc card. Bookworm variants don't boot at the second en consecutive restarts. Nothing found at mmc1, mmc2 not found and peculiar failed voltage test (-110?!).

 

Ubuntu Bookworm minimal (and other variants) does boot at restarts, so I switched for the time being.

Edited May 5 by HansD

[usual user]

14 minutes ago, HansD said:

Nothing found at mmc1, mmc2 not found and peculiar failed voltage test (-110?!).

Does it make a difference if you drop in this firmware?

[HansD]

I'm not into bootmenu editing nor firmaware building. So I cannot and have not checked those suggestions.

 

I just need a reliable host for Homeassistant.

 

By the way: the card is OK:

• It does work allright with Ubuntu Bookworm
• It does work with Armbian when using the TF-card slot with the TF-emmc-adapter (but much slower).

Edited May 5 by HansD

[usual user]

1 hour ago, HansD said:

I'm not into bootmenu editing nor firmaware building. So I cannot and have not checked those suggestions.

 

I just need a reliable host for Homeassistant.

I guess with such an attitude you certainly can't motivate anyone to find an immediate solution to your problem. Maybe you'll be lucky and it will work with a future release, but until then all you can do is keep trying and waiting.
You got what you paid for. The currency here is to contribute to the project (Armbian) and help with problem analysis. The project is community driven and you are a member of the community.

[HansD]

The Armbian project will solve the problem in time, someday. Untill then I will use something else, no problem in my particular case.

 

I'm not a technician who can talk firmware, install/partition- and bootprocesses. I cannot contribute, the analysis I give is the max I can contribute. I'm sorry, I just use stuff like Homeassistant.

[Igor]

On 3/19/2024 at 8:54 AM, hjheins said:

However, on the 3rd or 4th reboot, I got the error that the file "boot.scr" wasn't readable. With that, the emmc was not bootable anymore.

https://armbian.atlassian.net/browse/AR-2192
Fixed in latest release.

[HansD]

Looks like new release fixes this problem. Three restarts, three flawless reboots.