Latest Armbian - 25.5.0-trunk.185 no longer booting on Rock 4b

[Gwolf2u]

Hello guys

Been using Armbian on my RockPi 4b as a media server for few months now and took every update up until the latest 25.5.0-trunk.185

Now this was made with apt upgrade command and after I reboot, system no longer boots at all, freezing on initial boot stage.

No HDMI sign at all also.

If I plug an old armbian that I have on sdcard, I see U-Boot screen for few seconds, then reboots (basically bootloop).

OS was installed to internal eMMC.

Downgraded back to Armbian_community_25.5.0-trunk.131_Rockpi-4b_bookworm_current_6.12.16_minimal from github and all is running fine, but again after upgrade command, same thing happens.

Not that skilled to debug this further.

What I remember is that I saw in the upgrade log that kernel was updated, so thinking it might be that.

[Torgar]

The same thing happened with rockpi-4cplus. This happened after upgrading from kernel 6.12.17 to 6.12.18. After reboot no response and fail to boot. Only uses the eMMC chip.

[Gwolf2u]

@Torgar had the chance to check 6.12.19 ?

 

possible change fix ?

https://web.git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?h=linux-6.12.y&id=39e4a0b613bd4d577321b207bb333f6213e8af6b

 

sudo apt show linux-image-current-rockchip64
Package: linux-image-current-rockchip64
Version: 25.5.0-trunk.230
Priority: optional
Section: kernel
Source: linux-6.12.19
Maintainer: Armbian Linux <info@armbian.com>
Installed-Size: 277 MB
Provides: linux-image, linux-image-armbian, armbian-current
Armbian-Kernel-Version: 6.12.19
Armbian-Kernel-Version-Family: 6.12.19-current-rockchip64
Armbian-Original-Hash: 6.12.19-Se9cc-Da873-Pfa20-C1f18H02eb-HK01ba-Vc222-B9bbb-R448a
Download-Size: 48.6 MB
APT-Sources: https://beta.armbian.com bookworm/main arm64 Packages
Description: Armbian Linux current kernel image 6.12.19-current-rockchip64
 This package contains the Linux kernel, modules and corresponding other files.
 version "6.12.19" git revision "e9cc806c0152fa9993f817cebf42989a3e2530bb" codename "Baby Opossum Posse" drivers hash "a873450a_3865dc87" patches hash "fa2093d7b29c5de9" .config hash "1f18a394d4cddb05" .config hook hash "02eb6b2bfb4dca2a" variables hash "c22207b66dc5dd57157df2cd7b9c20559b2ed8ac44b9c3c3b9704002c06b8921" framework bash hash "9bbbd4b74c282bc5"

 

Edited March 15 by Gabriel Nicolae Lup

[陈少举]

Sorry for my English.

This issue is same happen on NanoPi R2S,After write Armbian_community_25.5.0-trunk.185_Nanopi-r2s_bookworm_current_6.12.17_minimal.img to SD card, The R2S can't boot.

Rollback to Armbian_community_24.11.0-trunk.202_Nanopi-r2s_bookworm_current_6.6.53_minimal.img , Everything is performing well.

[Gwolf2u]

for now I've stopped kernel upgrades

sudo apt-mark hold linux-image-current-rockchip64 linux-dtb-current-rockchip64 linux-u-boot-rockpi-4b-current

can resume with

sudo apt-mark unhold linux-image-current-rockchip64 linux-dtb-current-rockchip64 linux-u-boot-rockpi-4b-current

 

did this since the option to disable armbian kernel upgrades in armbian-config is not working in my case for some reason

Edited March 16 by Gabriel Nicolae Lup

[陈少举]

This issue has been fixed in 25.5.0-trunk.256 or after version.

[Torte]

This could be a similar problem that I have had with the mks-klipad50 board (also a rockchip64).

In case of the bootloop, do the u-boot messages show "efi_free_pool" messages, directly followed by a "Synchronous Abort", like this? (The hex numbers can vary and there are a lot more registers dumped, this is just the start):

Starting kernel ...

efi_free_pool: illegal free 0x000000003cf21040
"Synchronous Abort" handler, esr 0x96000004

In that case, it is rather caused by the bootloader (u-boot) and the kernel version change had just a very indirect effect which triggered that problem.

[Gwolf2u]

In my case, armbian 25.5.0-trunk.256 still no go

same thing happens

not able to boot - rock pi 4b

Edited March 20 by Gwolf2u

[Torte]

@Gwolf2u (or anyone else): Are you able to provide a log from the bootloader when it goes into bootloop?

[Gwolf2u]

Personally not skilled enough to do it, but if no additional hardware needed for it, and let me know how to do it, I'll do it

[Torte]

With a usb-serial-adapter it would be easier, but well, it is how it is

 

Can you try pressing the spacebar when the device is bootlooping (keeping it pressed for a while)?
This should interrupt the bootloader - and with a bit of luck, the interesting lines are still visible on the screen, then you could simply take a photo and post it here (if the lines are readable).

[Gwolf2u]

Nothing happens on holding or taping space bar while booting

At least nothing on screen

Unfortunately don't have a adapter to check thing on serial

[imnlfn]

On 3/16/2025 at 2:49 AM, Gwolf2u said:

did this since the option to disable armbian kernel upgrades in armbian-config is not working in my case for some reason

 

I can't tell you how aggravating it is to read this, since this is the second time in three months that my Rock 4A has stopped booting after a kernel upgrade. I disabled kernel upgrades in armbian-config the last time it happened, but clearly that wasn't sufficient.

 

What's especially annoying is that in order to fix this, I have to take apart my whole device and disconnect my NVMe connection in order to boot from an SD card instead of the onboard eMMC.

 

I appreciate you pointing out how to stay on a specific kernel version using apt instead of relying on Armbian, since the latter is obviously unreliable. I'm likely to move to an x86 device in the not-too-distant future though, given occurrences like this, plus the lackluster support from the board vendor.