Armbian Linux 6.6 (Ubuntu 24.04 Noble) Cubox server image doesn't boot

[monetschemist]

Greetings;

 

I have downloaded this https://dl.armbian.com/cubox-i/Noble_current_server and verified that I got what I was supposed to (ASC, SHA).

 

I have used a brand new usbimager to install it on various freshly formatted (brand new SD Formatter) and verified working Samsung Evo 32GB, SanDisk Extreme Plus 16GB, Extreme Plus 32GB.

 

All the formatting, imaging and installation done on an Ubuntu 25.04 laptop.

 

After usbimager is done, if I use the Ubuntu Disks application to look at the drive, the first partion shows as free space, which seems suspicious.

 

When I insert the newly-set up SD cards in the Cubox-i4, I see the bootloader start and then do its handoff to the operating system... and then nothing.  No more signal on the HDMI cable, nothing out on ssh, nothing.  The Cubox-i4 tries to reboot every few minutes with no more successful outcome.

 

This same Cubox-i4 runs fine with the last SD card system disk I built for it using the previous Debian server image.

 

Does anyone have any ideas?

 

Thanks in advance!

[laibsch]

unfortunately, we do not have a maintainer for this board, so it gets very little testing

[Igor]

https://paste.armbian.com/ehuwawexih

v25.5.1 image (Debian Bookworm minimal) runs on my Cubox i4, but HDMI out is untested ... images were released, only because I manage to spent some time testing and as I found out that build actually works.

 

[monetschemist]

Thanks for your replies!

 

@Igor is that screen shot you've pastebinned from a connection to the usb TTY?

 

I've ordered a new card reader / writer which should be here tomorrow.  The only one I currently have is in my elderly System76 laptop and I'm not fully confident in its driver support (for example it doesn't eject or unmount, so my only recourse is to run sync a bunch of times and then shut the machine down).

 

I don't think there's much point in building new cards with the Bookworm minimal version as that's what I currently have on my Cuboxes.

 

I will report back.  Thanks again!

[Igor]

2 hours ago, monetschemist said:

is that screen shot you've pastebinned from a connection to the usb TTY?

Connected via SSH. DHCP client is automatically getting IP, so you should be able to find the device on network after few minutes ... in case HDMI output is really broken. I can't test that as device is stashed to some rack.

[monetschemist]

@Igor thanks for the reply.

 

In my case, I can't even ping the Cubox much less connect to it.  I'm pretty sure something is failing as the device reboots itself every ~ 2 minutes; each time I see the initial boot with logo on the HDMI, then the screen goes blank, then my monitor claims that HDMI signal is lost, then nothing (including no successful pings) for a couple of minutes, then around again.

 

I've ordered some new SD cards and a USB SD card reader writer which should arrive Wednesday.  Maybe things will improve after that.  If not I will try a serial connection via USB.

 

I will report back.

[Igor]

16 minutes ago, monetschemist said:

If not I will try a serial connection via USB.

That would be good. Cubox-i has standard microUSB connector for serial console, so its easy. That would give some insights on what is happening. 

[monetschemist]

@Igor well I'm not getting very far, unless I'm prepared to count failures... I have more of those.

 

The SD Card reader / writer works well; I can use it to carry out various operations on my brand-new SanDisk Extreme Pro A2, including formatting from the Ubuntu Disks application, running SDCardFormatter, using usbimager to create the Armbian 25.5.1 Noble Minimal system disk, mounting, unmounting and ejecting... When I've finally got the SD card set up, here's what the Ubuntu Disk application shows.  Note the first partition is 4.2MB of free space.

 

When I put this SD card in the Cubox and boot from it, the same thing appears to happen as previously - on the HDMI-connected monitor, the Cubox bootloader runs and hands off to the boot program, after which the monitor reports no HDMI signal and the monitor goes into sleep mode.  After approximately two minutes, the Cubox bootloader appears again on the monitor, hands off to the boot program, and... the same thing.

 

Nothing seems to be active at the IP address - I can neither ping nor ssh to it.

 

This time I have my laptop connected vi USB to the Cubox console port.  Various positive messages show up in

dmesg

finally ending in:

usb 1-6: Detected FT-X

usb 1-6: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0

 

But running either screen or minicom, they return immediately, showing no sign of having established any kind of connection, no waiting for a connection, no error message, nothing.

 

Just a reminder that this Cubox boots and runs fine on the current system SD card which is up-to-date bookworm minimal.

 

 

[Igor]

3 hours ago, monetschemist said:

When I've finally got the SD card set up, here's what the Ubuntu Disk application shows.  Note the first partition is 4.2MB of free space.

 

This looks normal. Most of those boards have bootloaders at locations prior to boot partition.

 

3 hours ago, monetschemist said:

After approximately two minutes, the Cubox bootloader appears again on the monitor, hands off to the boot program, and... the same thing.

 

Boot loop. This can be many things - i would guess kernel crash and watchdog issue restart. Why that happens? Hard to tell.

 

3 hours ago, monetschemist said:

But running either screen or minicom

 

This way?

 

sudo screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200

 

It should prompt out something.