Stuck on "Starting kernel..."

[Wilson Wilson]

Hello,

 

Installed some updates recently on OrangePi PC Plus and after reboot I'm stuck on boot screen with message "Starting kernel...".

Would this be logged somewhere? Any way to recover from this or should I start from scratch?

 

boot error

 

 

Edited June 1 by Wilson Wilson
Title edited

[Werner]

https://debug.armbian.de

[mikhailai]

I have a similar issue on "Banana PI M1", so I can provide more details. Basically, what I've found out is the linux kernel contained in the latest "linux-image-legacy-sunxi" (version 24.5.1) package appears to broken to the point of locking-up right from the start. It prints "Starting kernel...", and no more messages appear even with "verbosity=6" setting in the "armbianEnv.txt".

 

*  "linux-image-current-sunxi" version 24.5.1 with 6.6.31 kernel: boots fine.

*  "linux-image-legacy-sunxi" version 24.2.1 with "6.1.77" kernel: boots fine.

*  "linux-image-legacy-sunxi" version 24.5.1 with "6.1.92" kernel: broken as described above.

 

In the "boots fine" cases, the kernel prints multiple other messages, before starting the OS boot.

 

Here are the steps to reproduce. I've done it for "Banana PI M1", but I think any board with Allwinner "Cortex-A7"-based SOC should work.

1. Download and write the Armbian image to a MicroSD card.

2. Connect the serial console, boot the board, finish setup, do all the upgrades: assume everything works fine at this point. Double-check that "linux-image-current-sunxi" is what's being used.

3. Set "verbosity=6" in the "armbianEnv.txt", reboot and observe the kernel messages. 

4. Install "armbian-config" and use it to switch to the legacy kernel.

 

After step (4) reboots, observe the boot process gets stuck at "Starting kernel..." message.

 

What I'm guessing could've happened is something went wrong during the build process for that specific target (e.g. data corruption, wrong architecture being used).

[Werner]

5 hours ago, mikhailai said:

verbosity=6

Should be 7

[mikhailai]

Tried the verbosity=7, the same effect.

 

With 6.1.77 kernel:

Working FDT set to 49630000

Starting kernel ...

[    0.000000] Booting Linux on physical CPU 0x0
[    0.000000] Linux version 6.1.77-legacy-sunxi (armbian@next) (arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc (Ubuntu 11.4.0-1ubuntu1~
22.04) 11.4.0, GNU ld (GNU Binutils for Ubuntu) 2.38) #1 SMP Fri Feb 23 08:12:53 UTC 2024
[    0.000000] CPU: ARMv7 Processor [410fc074] revision 4 (ARMv7), cr=50c5387d
[    0.000000] CPU: div instructions available: patching division code
[    0.000000] CPU: PIPT / VIPT nonaliasing data cache, VIPT aliasing instruction cache
[    0.000000] OF: fdt: Machine model: LeMaker Banana Pi
......

 

With 6.1.92 kernel from  "linux-image-legacy-sunxi" version 24.5.1

Working FDT set to 49630000

Starting kernel ...

 

I tried the Device Trees from both "linux-dtb-legacy-sunxi" and "linux-dtb-current-sunxi": makes no difference.

 

This again points to the "linux-image-legacy-sunxi" version 24.5.1 being broken. I wonder if someone with more authority can try running the kernel from that package on any Allwinner A20 board, or any Allwinner H3 Board (e.g. Orange Pi One, Orange Pi PC Plus), and confirm or disprove my claim.

[TRay]

I can add that Orange Pi Zero 3 users have similar problems, i.e. after turning on the power or, for example, after reboot. This is not a cyclical phenomenon. So when it happens that you need to reboot remotely, it may turn out that Orange Pi Zero 3 requires physical intervention by turning the power on and off.