Odroid m1 Won't boot on recent images in armbian download section

[Mickynuts]

Hello, sorry for the tag (no odroid m1 tag) and if I'm in the wrong place.

 

I downloaded the image Armbian_24.8.3_ordoidm1_jammy_current_6.6.51_kde-neon-kisak-desktop

The image does not start without pressing rcy, so far normal. After flashing the mtd with armbian-installer and copying to SSD. The image still does not start. No display.

 

After trying several things and without success, I decided to try an old image:

Armbian_24.2.1_ordoidm1_jammy_current_6.6.16_xfce_desktop.

 

I here rcy boot, install, copy to SSD, flash mtd and reboot. And it works. So I tried image 6.6.51 kde Again. But without flashing the mtd. And there it boots without problems and no need for rcy.

So it seems that the last image and also the 24.2. 4 that I tried. We have a probably corrupted uboot.

I have the odroid m1 8gb.

 

I hope this will allow others not to waste hours trying because of a corrupted uboot. (This was my first attempt with armbian on this card. Before I had petitboot.)

 

Sorry for my bad English. I used Google translate.

 

PS: I tried to make a bug report form. But you have to provide an armbianmonitor -u output or something like that. And that doesn't match the fact. The card doesn't even boot.

Edited October 1, 2024 by Mickynuts

[Werner]

moved

[usual user]

6 hours ago, Mickynuts said:

I tried to make a bug report form. But you have to provide an armbianmonitor -u output or something like that. And that doesn't match the fact. The card doesn't even boot.

To get help, you have to provide proper logs. In case of boot problems, these are serial console logs. https://debug.armbian.de

[Mickynuts]

29 minutes ago, usual user said:

To get help, you have to provide proper logs. In case of boot problems, these are serial console logs.

I don't need help anymore. As said. I used the uboot present in an earlier version. I didn't try the serial, because there weren't even any screens (I thought there wouldn't be a serial either). The card seemed to just do a reboot Every 5 seconds (depending on the LEDs on the network card and the LEDs on the SSD which flash 1x. I'm not going to try again now that I have a working installation. I just wanted to share with you Other beginners who are not used to this kind of tools and not have the serial cable.

[usual user]

On 10/1/2024 at 9:06 PM, Mickynuts said:

I don't need help anymore. As said. I used the uboot present in an earlier version.

Ok, then no further action needs to be taken and your solution can be used by others in the future.
I also don't need any other firmware because my current one works according to my needs.
And for an update, I know how to build and debug it if necessary.

 

In the meantime, I've moved to 2025.01 with HDMI support enabled, so I no longer need the serial console to interact with the firmware.
And boot menus easily allow the free choice of which option should currently be booted.

Edited January 19 by usual user

[iav]

 

I did kind of manual bisect by commits to config/boards/odroidm1.conf

 

U-Boot 2024.04-armbian (Jan 29 2025 - 02:13:41 +0000)
commit 3215bf9f3699c2ee4bc741efe82065315e4ff46f
linux-u-boot-odroidm1-edge_24.8.0-trunk_arm64__2024.04-S2504-P3b44-Haddb-V73be-B4f92-R448a.deb is GOOD,

 

U-Boot 2024.07-armbian-2024.07-S3f77-P7e9c-Hfb3e-V8f4f-Bb66d-R448a (Jan 29 2025 - 02:30:21 +0000)
commit 268c2e85960978c90025bc18cf7d5f8e5cfbdab6
linux-u-boot-odroidm1-edge_24.8.0-trunk_arm64__2024.07-S3f77-P7e9c-Hfb3e-V8f4f-Bb66d-R448a.deb

is BAD

 

then I fix my Odroid M1 by doing

 

sudo apt install ./linux-u-boot-odroidm1-edge_24.8.0-trunk_arm64__2024.04-S2504-P3b44-Haddb-V73be-B4f92-R448a.deb

 

then

armbian-install → Install/Update the bootloader on MTD Flash

 

[usual user]

Ok, judging by your information, the regression takes place during the transition from U-Boot 2024.04 to 2024.07.
Since mainline U-Boot works perfect for me up to until 2025.01, it must be because of how it's built or what additional patches are applied.
Since it cannot be ruled out that it is due to a incompatible bootflow, it may be interesting to try it with my build.
If this also fails, it is possible to get more information from the HDMI output, even if access to the serial console is not available.
For the test it is perfectly sufficient to start the firmware from a prepared microSD card via RCY button.
The existing setup can stay completely unchanged.

[antatarmbian]

I installed v2025.2.2 on sdcard and then performed armbian-install boot from spi + system on nvme. Without any error-messages system could afterwards not be booted without sdcard inserted. I assume I could remedy the situation with the 

linux-u-boot-odroidm1-edge_24.8.0-trunk_arm64__2024.04-S2504-P3b44-Haddb-V73be-B4f92-R448a.deb

mentioned above and wonder, if anybody could provide that.

[Mickynuts]

11 hours ago, antatarmbian said:

if anybody could provide that

I searched without finding. Did you try to do as I did. By flashing a uboot of a previous version via an old image? 

[antatarmbian]

if I look into the archive for older Versions

https://armbian.atomonetworks.com/archive/odroidm1/archive/

then the oldest Version is 24.8.1, which to my knowledge is too new

[Werner]

There is also oldarchive: https://fi.mirror.armbian.de/oldarchive/odroidm1/archive/

[antatarmbian]

Hmm..

after Werner's hint I used

Armbian_24.2.1_Odroidm1_jammy_current_6.6.16.img.xz from oldarchive

but after armbian-install → Install/Update the bootloader on MTD Flash

no change of behavior, i.e. system does not boot without sd-card inserted.

I did not perform Boot from MTD flash - system on Sata ...

again, since the desired system is already on nvme.  

 

Just for clarification: is my expectation correct, that system should boot without sd-card inserted (since bootloader is in MTD-flash), or is the effect of flashing MTD merely, that the system can use the bootloader of the sd-card without pressing RCY button?

 

Although I ordered a usb-serial adapter in order to be able to debug the situation, I would very much appreciate if the bootmenu could appear on hdmi Console - I wonder how this could be achieved - what build does Usual User refer to with "my build"?

Edited Friday at 01:28 PM by antatarmbian

[Mickynuts]

 

58 minutes ago, antatarmbian said:

clarification

Yes no need to rcy normally. 

I took out the info from my m1 and a copy with cat of the mtd partitions. Maybe it will be useful to you (at your own risk) 

Maybe wait for a confirmation if the command I made is functional. I made a backup of the partitions with cat /dev/mtd*  > name.bin (once for each partition) 

In info you will find what I have as version and kernel. If it can help you. 

Moderator, the 16mb overall is too heavy to insert directly (error uploading). I hope the cloud link is not a problem here. (valid for 48 hours)

https://quickshare.samsungcloud.com/cu9Cj7XDCZwy

Edited Friday at 02:10 PM by Mickynuts

[Werner]

1 hour ago, antatarmbian said:

bootmenu could appear on hdmi Console

Having HDMI or video output work in U-Boot is more an exception rather than standard. While I don't know the reason I guess it is just too much effort to port such drivers into U-Boot while using the debug serial console is dirt cheap and always works.

[usual user]

5 hours ago, antatarmbian said:

what build does Usual User refer to with "my build"?

This one.

[antatarmbian]

Thanks - now I get the booloader menu from SPI on hdmi Console.

I wanted to experiment with efi-grub boot and installed the following image on sd

https://dl.armbian.com/uefi-arm64/Bookworm_current_cinnamon-backported-mesa

and it boots without problem, showing the grub-menu. I then did armbian-install -> nvme01 Install UEFI system with grub

to transfer system + /boot/efi to nvme. But still I cannot boot the system after removing the sd-card. the bootloader says sth like

nvme 0 no img found. So as workaround I performed an update-grub, so that at least the option to boot the system on nvme appears (and works) in sdcard grub-menu.

Any hint how I can render the nvme directly bootable from spi bootloader menu without the sdcard?

Edited Saturday at 10:58 PM by antatarmbian

[usual user]

8 hours ago, antatarmbian said:

But still I cannot boot the system after removing the sd-card.

EXIT to the U-Boot console and report the output of the following command:

bootflow scan -l nvme

 

8 hours ago, antatarmbian said:

I then did armbian-install -> nvme01 Install UEFI system

I don't know what the armbian-install does, but does it make a difference if you dd the same unmodified image to the NVME as you do to the microSD?

[antatarmbian]

via dd img->nvme did the trick. One slight problem is the identical uuids of sdcard and nvme but it  does not make much sense anyway to use identical images on 2 devices plugged in at the same time. 

Next step now will be populating the nvme with additional images

 

so thanks a lot for your helping hands