Helios4 Support

[Carlo]

Hi,

  I have a problem with ch341 USB serial adapter, I tried to search on forum and on internet without luck.

  I'm runnig a Linux helios4 4.19.84-mvebu #19.11.3 on an helios4 board, off course.

  When I connect a CH341 device, like NodeMCU, serial adapter or an Arduino Mega Pro Mini, etc, for the first time or I boot the system with the device connected, it is enumerated correctly and I have it listed on dmesg and I give a /dev/ttyUSBx, but if I disconnect and reconnect it, the system, sometimes at the first time, sometimes after few times, give me these errors and didn't detects the usb adapter until the next boot.

What's wrong ? What can I do, other usb device, link stick, works fine.

Sotty for my english, I hope that my message is comprensible.

 

Bye, Carlo

[dom gen 12 23:28:15 2020] usb 2-1: new full-speed USB device number 7 using xhci-hcd
[dom gen 12 23:28:15 2020] usb 2-1: New USB device found, idVendor=1a86, idProduct=5523, bcdDevice= 3.04
[dom gen 12 23:28:15 2020] usb 2-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=0, SerialNumber=0
[dom gen 12 23:28:15 2020] ch341 2-1:1.0: ch341-uart converter detected
[dom gen 12 23:28:15 2020] usb 2-1: ch341-uart converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[dom gen 12 23:28:26 2020] usb 2-1: USB disconnect, device number 7
[dom gen 12 23:28:26 2020] usb 2-1: ch341_read_int_callback - usb_submit_urb failed: -19
[dom gen 12 23:28:31 2020] xhci-hcd f10f0000.usb3: xHCI host not responding to stop endpoint command.
[dom gen 12 23:28:31 2020] xhci-hcd f10f0000.usb3: xHCI host controller not responding, assume dead
[dom gen 12 23:28:31 2020] xhci-hcd f10f0000.usb3: HC died; cleaning up
[dom gen 12 23:28:31 2020] usb 2-1: failed to send control message: -19
[dom gen 12 23:28:31 2020] ch341-uart ttyUSB0: ch341-uart converter now disconnected from ttyUSB0
[dom gen 12 23:28:31 2020] ch341 2-1:1.0: device disconnected

 

[Igor]

31 minutes ago, Carlo said:

When I connect a CH341 device, like NodeMCU, serial adapter or an Arduino Mega Pro Mini, etc, for the first time or I boot the system with the device connected,

This stick works well on some similar Linux device?

[Carlo]

15 hours ago, Igor said:

This stick works well on some similar Linux device?

Hi, yes, all these sticks work fine on my desktop PC, which run Artix Linux, maybe not very similar due to it's an Arch Linux derivate without systemd.

I use very often, from more than a couple of years the desktop PC to flash, reprogram and debug them.
Could be a different ch34x sources ? Previous this distribution, on the helios4, I tried the ubuntu versione whitout the ch34x compilated and I had a lot of trouble to find a compiling myself a working .ko but I had the same problem of the no detection after the first connection. I tried with an usb hub without luck.

[Igor]

13 minutes ago, Carlo said:

Could be a different ch34x sources ?

Possible.

 

15 minutes ago, Carlo said:

it's an Arch Linux derivate

Not relevant. Kernel talks with hardware. To be able to understand, comparing driver sources at both kernels would be an simple start. If you got one for the Linux kernel that works ... if there is nothing suspicious, USB implementation needs to be inspected ... way too much work for us.

[aprayoga]

On 1/13/2020 at 5:35 AM, Carlo said:

Hi,

  I have a problem with ch341 USB serial adapter, I tried to search on forum and on internet without luck.

  I'm runnig a Linux helios4 4.19.84-mvebu #19.11.3 on an helios4 board, off course.

  When I connect a CH341 device, like NodeMCU, serial adapter or an Arduino Mega Pro Mini, etc, for the first time or I boot the system with the device connected, it is enumerated correctly and I have it listed on dmesg and I give a /dev/ttyUSBx, but if I disconnect and reconnect it, the system, sometimes at the first time, sometimes after few times, give me these errors and didn't detects the usb adapter until the next boot.

What's wrong ? What can I do, other usb device, link stick, works fine.

Sotty for my english, I hope that my message is comprensible.

 

Bye, Carlo

[dom gen 12 23:28:15 2020] usb 2-1: new full-speed USB device number 7 using xhci-hcd
[dom gen 12 23:28:15 2020] usb 2-1: New USB device found, idVendor=1a86, idProduct=5523, bcdDevice= 3.04
[dom gen 12 23:28:15 2020] usb 2-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=0, SerialNumber=0
[dom gen 12 23:28:15 2020] ch341 2-1:1.0: ch341-uart converter detected
[dom gen 12 23:28:15 2020] usb 2-1: ch341-uart converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[dom gen 12 23:28:26 2020] usb 2-1: USB disconnect, device number 7
[dom gen 12 23:28:26 2020] usb 2-1: ch341_read_int_callback - usb_submit_urb failed: -19
[dom gen 12 23:28:31 2020] xhci-hcd f10f0000.usb3: xHCI host not responding to stop endpoint command.
[dom gen 12 23:28:31 2020] xhci-hcd f10f0000.usb3: xHCI host controller not responding, assume dead
[dom gen 12 23:28:31 2020] xhci-hcd f10f0000.usb3: HC died; cleaning up
[dom gen 12 23:28:31 2020] usb 2-1: failed to send control message: -19
[dom gen 12 23:28:31 2020] ch341-uart ttyUSB0: ch341-uart converter now disconnected from ttyUSB0
[dom gen 12 23:28:31 2020] ch341 2-1:1.0: device disconnected

 

 

A few months ago I enabled some USB-Serial converter driver on the kernel and test it. I used an USB hub then hotplug several USB-Serial (PL2303, FT232, FT2232, CH340G, CH341A, CP2101, CP2102), all detected correctly.
According to your log, it seems something wrong with the USB Host controller driver, could you try with other USB device? maybe USB Flash drive

[gprovost]

On 1/12/2020 at 8:04 AM, Vodalex said:

When I put the system in standby via web interface of the OMV the fans are quiet and spinning very slow.. I can wake up the system without any problem. But if I shutdown the system in the webinteface I cannot wake it up using WOL. And the NAS remains on and the fans are spinning at full volume. It is the expected way as it should work?

 

This is the expected behavior. You cannot wake-up Helios4 when is halted, only when it's suspended.

[Vodalex]

3 hours ago, gprovost said:

 

This is the expected behavior. You cannot wake-up Helios4 when is halted, only when it's suspended.

Ok,  thank you for the answer! Then it is not really WOL what I want.. Is Helios64 working the same way? Can it be started when the system is halted?

[Heisath]

I think the problem is, for WOL (Wake on LAN) the devices needs to be networking, so if it is completely halted that does not work -> no WOL. You are probably looking for something to "Boot on Lan". 

You could try to design that on your own, just get another device (which is energy efficient like ESP32 or so) to monitor for WOL request and use it to "push" the physical button on the Helios (via transistor or relay).

 

This way you can halt the Helios completely (maybe even use a relay to disconnect the power) and reboot it from extern.

[Carlo]

18 hours ago, aprayoga said:

 

A few months ago I enabled some USB-Serial converter driver on the kernel and test it. I used an USB hub then hotplug several USB-Serial (PL2303, FT232, FT2232, CH340G, CH341A, CP2101, CP2102), all detected correctly.
According to your log, it seems something wrong with the USB Host controller driver, could you try with other USB device? maybe USB Flash drive

No, usb sticks work fine, I connect and reconnect many time, without trouble.

I had investigate a little more and maybe I find a logic. I tried all my usb serial devices, CH34x, PL2303, FT232RL and I discovered that don't matter the chipset but the first device connected.

I connect the first device then on second usb I connect and reconnect all the device I want and all the times I want without troubles but when I disconnect the first device, it's crash and then, on second usb, if I reconnect the other device, after a couple of times, it crash too.

[Mangix]

On 1/10/2020 at 12:13 AM, aprayoga said:

Between middle-to end of November 2019, Armbian change the version and branch naming.

Version from something like 5.91 become something like 19.11.x, if i'm not mistaken Year.Month, like Ubuntu versioning.

Then the branch name,

• DEFAULT become LEGACY
• NEXT become CURRENT

To upgrade to new version, use armbian-config.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y upgrade
sudo armbian-config

 

Select System > Other, to switch to other kernel

 

Confirm the action

 

And after some process, you will be presented by list of kernels

 

Select linux-image-current-mvebu. The system will install the new kernel and automatically reboot.

Confirm the kernel installed correctly and Armbian changed to new branch CURRENT by executing,

uname -a
grep "BRANCH" /etc/armbian-release

 

Thank you for this answer. Makes sense.

[tekrantz]

Hi,

my helios4 was not running when I cam in this morning.  When I cycle power all I get is :

 

 

BootROM - 1.73

Booting from MMC
Card did not respond to voltage select!
Error initializing MMC - FFFFFFEF

Trying Uart

and nothing else.  I tried leaving it powered off for an hour and tried again and I get the same thing.

 

Any suggestions?

 

Thanks,

 

Tim Krantz

 

 

UPDATE!

I finally got the idea to eject and re-insert the micro-sd card and now all is well.

 

Have I mentioned how much I love this little machine?

 

[tuxd3v]

Hello,

Sumething nasty hapenned this night on my Helios4, that left the OS crippled..

I have been analysing the logs, and I find no reason for that, what I know is that ssh server received a SIGHUP( maybe a peak in the network grid.. ).

 

In this process I am analysing logs, and checking the system..

I have lots of entries in '/var/log/syslog' related with fancontrol..

root@helios4:~# tail -n 2 /var/log/syslog 
Jan 24 21:48:25 localhost fancontrol[906]: /usr/sbin/fancontrol: line 477: let: mint=*1000: syntax error: operand expected (error token is "*1000")
Jan 24 21:48:36 localhost fancontrol[906]: /usr/sbin/fancontrol: line 477: let: mint=*1000: syntax error: operand expected (error token is "*1000")

Which means, by some reason, and in some situations '${AFCMINTEMP[$fcvcount]}' ir null :

root@helios4:~# grep -ni "let mint" /usr/sbin/fancontrol
477:		let mint="${AFCMINTEMP[$fcvcount]}*1000"

 

[gprovost]

On 1/25/2020 at 5:57 AM, tuxd3v said:

Sumething nasty hapenned this night on my Helios4, that left the OS crippled..

 

What do you mean exactly by crippled ? Can you share some logs (armbianmonitor -u)

 

I need to look why you end up with the fancontrol issue, but at first glance looks like something is wrong with config file. Can you double check that /etc/fancontrol file is there and contains the line MINTEMP

[alchemist]

Hi!

 

Is there a kernel patch for the dual PWM fan (mvebu.c) for kernel 5.5?

 

Kind regards,

Xavier.

[iNTiGOD]

Has anyone used the Helios for any media transcoding?
I use plex and have researched that it doesn’t support arm based transcoding.
I have read that emby does support it.
I’m not looking for a whole lot of horsepower but hoping I can transcode 1080p vids for remote viewing.
Any pointers would be great....

[lanefu]

Has anyone used the Helios for any media transcoding?
I use plex and have researched that it doesn’t support arm based transcoding.
I have read that emby does support it.
I’m not looking for a whole lot of horsepower but hoping I can transcode 1080p vids for remote viewing.
Any pointers would be great....

Unfortunately no. You'll want to transcode ahead of time and use direct play if you want to use helios as plex server

[iNTiGOD]

Unfortunately no. You'll want to transcode ahead of time and use direct play if you want to use helios as plex server

Yes that’s what I’m afraid of. When sharing my plex library with friends and family I’m finding direct play is difficult due to the different media players they have (some just use the smart tv).

I was hoping to be able to transcode on the fly and was wondering if emby supports this on the Helios platform...

[lanefu]

It wont have the horsepower for transcoding with emby.  Best bet is to store your media on helios and mount from nfs or smb to a more appropriate plex host. 

 

For perspective..The 4 core atom on my synology can barely keep up with transcoding on the fly 

[Heisath]

10 hours ago, alchemist said:

Hi!

 

Is there a kernel patch for the dual PWM fan (mvebu.c) for kernel 5.5?

 

Kind regards,

Xavier.

 

Hi Xavier,

 

Kernel 5.5 is currently not supported by us. Our current kernel 4.19 has complete hardware support, dev kernel (5.4; which you need to compile yourself with https://github.com/armbian/build) should also have working PWM. 

If you need to use Kernel 5.5 you are on your own, you can try to use the patches from 5.4 (https://github.com/armbian/build) to get PWM working...

 

Cheers,

count-doku

[NickS]

11 hours ago, lanefu said:

13 hours ago, iNTiGOD said:

Has anyone used the Helios for any media transcoding?
I use plex and have researched that it doesn’t support arm based transcoding.
I have read that emby does support it.
I’m not looking for a whole lot of horsepower but hoping I can transcode 1080p vids for remote viewing.
Any pointers would be great....
 

Unfortunately no. You'll want to transcode ahead of time and use direct play if you want to use helios as plex server

I do, and although I try to rerender content manually, occasionally I just let the software carry the load.

I use serviio as my DLNA server on the Helios4. It has the capacity to set up different render profiles for a plethora of target 

devices so you can present full quality and bitrate to say a TV but less so for a tablet.

 

For remote viewing you'll have to pay the small subscription, but there is a 30day full free test.

 

I'm not sure the Helios4 has the horespower to do more than one render at a time. A bit like someone flushing the toilet 

when their partner is in the shower!

 

Installation instructions attached.

serviio.txt

[tuxd3v]

On 1/27/2020 at 6:43 AM, gprovost said:

 

What do you mean exactly by crippled ? Can you share some logs (armbianmonitor -u)

 

I need to look why you end up with the fancontrol issue, but at first glance looks like something is wrong with config file. Can you double check that /etc/fancontrol file is there and contains the line MINTEMP

hello, I run 'armbianmonitor -u'

http://ix.io/28AC

 

I rebooted the OS and maybe apparently everything is nice..I thing,

It just hanged some days ago around 5AM, maybe a peak on power grid or something..

 

Fancontrol has MINTEMP like this:

root@helios4:~# grep MINTEMP /etc/fancontrol
MINTEMP=/dev/fan-j10/pwm1=60 /dev/fan-j17/pwm=70

 

 

 

 

[alchemist]

15 hours ago, count-doku said:

 

Hi Xavier,

 

Kernel 5.5 is currently not supported by us. Our current kernel 4.19 has complete hardware support, dev kernel (5.4; which you need to compile yourself with https://github.com/armbian/build) should also have working PWM. 

If you need to use Kernel 5.5 you are on your own, you can try to use the patches from 5.4 (https://github.com/armbian/build) to get PWM working...

 

Cheers,

count-doku

Hi! @count-doku,

 

I can compile myself, Gentoo is running on my helios4

I have patches to 5.3, will search the one for 5.4.

 

EDIT: got it, compiling... running

 

local             | * Starting local ...
local             | [ ok ]

                                           .
     .vir.                                d$b
  .d$$$$$$b.    .cd$$b.     .d$$b.   d$$$$$$$$$$$b  .d$$b.      .d$$b.
  $$$$( )$$$b d$$$()$$$.   d$$$$$$$b Q$$$$$$$P$$$P.$$$$$$$b.  .$$$$$$$b.
  Q$$$$$$$$$$B$$$$$$$$P"  d$$$PQ$$$$b.   $$$$.   .$$$P' `$$$ .$$$P' `$$$
    "$$$$$$$P Q$$$$$$$b  d$$$P   Q$$$$b  $$$$b   $$$$b..d$$$ $$$$b..d$$$
   d$$$$$$P"   "$$$$$$$$ Q$$$     Q$$$$  $$$$$   `Q$$$$$$$P  `Q$$$$$$$P
  $$$$$$$P       `"""""   ""        ""   Q$$$P     "Q$$$P"     "Q$$$P"
  `Q$$P"                                  """


This is *** (Linux armv7l 5.4.15-gentoo) 22:29:02

*** login: 

 

Kr,

Xavier

[gprovost]

12 hours ago, tuxd3v said:

hello, I run 'armbianmonitor -u'

http://ix.io/28AC

 

I rebooted the OS and maybe apparently everything is nice..I thing,

It just hanged some days ago around 5AM, maybe a peak on power grid or something..

 

Nothing strange in the log. Next time the glitch happen, run the same command before you reboot. Thanks.

[FredK]

On 1/10/2020 at 9:13 AM, aprayoga said:

Between middle-to end of November 2019, Armbian change the version and branch naming.

Version from something like 5.91 become something like 19.11.x, if i'm not mistaken Year.Month, like Ubuntu versioning.

Then the branch name,

• DEFAULT become LEGACY
• NEXT become CURRENT

To upgrade to new version, use armbian-config.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y upgrade
sudo armbian-config

....

I upgraded my Helios4 from OMV4/Armbian4.14 to OMV5 yesterday. After sorting out some minor glitches the system was operable.

Today I used armbian-config to switch the kernel to 4.19. Everything seemd o.k. until I tried to inspect my docker containers and I detect a problem with docker-ce which couldn't be started neither re-installed. I had to go back to 4.14. Now I'm rather reluctant to try out one of dev dev-kernels (5.4.x).

 

Any clue?

 

Edit:

Quote

update-alternatives --set iptables /usr/sbin/iptables-legacy

as proposed by Koen solved the docker problem.

Edited January 30, 2020 by FredK
Problem solved

[Dread_Lensman]

**Update**

 

I have discovered that the RAID is intact and the helios4 seems fine. The power brick however is only outputting 8v instead of 12v. Does anyone know where I could purchase a replacement?

 

 

Hello,

I recently had my Helios4 NAS crash and had to reinstall Armbian and OMV. My pre-existing RAID array does not show up and after reading through the forums I discovered that all four sata links are down.

 

Spoiler

 

root@Tartarus:~# cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [raid0] [raid1] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [raid10]
unused devices: <none>


root@Tartarus:~# blkid
/dev/mmcblk0p1: UUID="ae133275-b674-4f03-bed3-1f9bcdbb6508" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="caa0df2d-01"
/dev/zram0: LABEL="log2ram" UUID="ee603709-5a6c-4229-9b26-09621f57b696" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/mmcblk0: PTUUID="caa0df2d" PTTYPE="dos"
/dev/zram1: UUID="40d0f076-3afb-4efc-b0a0-b9c574773f9e" TYPE="swap"


root@Tartarus:~# fdisk -l | grep "Disk "
Disk /dev/mmcblk0: 29.8 GiB, 32010928128 bytes, 62521344 sectors
Disk identifier: 0xcaa0df2d
Disk /dev/zram0: 50 MiB, 52428800 bytes, 12800 sectors
Disk /dev/zram1: 1008 MiB, 1056894976 bytes, 258031 sectors


root@Tartarus:~# cat /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf
# mdadm.conf
#
# Please refer to mdadm.conf(5) for information about this file.
#

# by default, scan all partitions (/proc/partitions) for MD superblocks.
# alternatively, specify devices to scan, using wildcards if desired.
# Note, if no DEVICE line is present, then "DEVICE partitions" is assumed.
# To avoid the auto-assembly of RAID devices a pattern that CAN'T match is
# used if no RAID devices are configured.
DEVICE partitions

# auto-create devices with Debian standard permissions
CREATE owner=root group=disk mode=0660 auto=yes

# automatically tag new arrays as belonging to the local system
HOMEHOST <system>

# definitions of existing MD arrays
ARRAY <ignore> devices=*
# Trigger Fault Led script when an event is detected
PROGRAM /usr/sbin/mdadm-fault-led.sh


root@Tartarus:~# dmesg
[  287.775306] ata1: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[  288.087304] ata4: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[  288.399307] ata2: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)
[  288.711312] ata3: SATA link down (SStatus 0 SControl 300)

 

 

 

 

I only posted the end of dmesg as the full output was over the message size limit

I tried using omv-extras as suggested here: [SOLVED]2 of the hard disks are not dectected, but that didn't help.

I re-seated all of the connectors and ran quick SMART tests on all four WD RED 8TB drives, which they passed.

OMV 4.1.32-1 (Arrakis)
Debian Stretch with Armbian Linux 4.19.63-mvebu

Thanks

[gprovost]

@Dread_Lensman Please send us an email to support@kobol.io with your order ID, then we will see how we can help you to replace your faulty PSU.

[DocViper]

Hello,

 

I am about to finally put my helios4 in operation. For the moment a two drive mirror setup is planned.

The drive limitation given in the wiki is still valid?

 

Max Raw Capacity: 48 TB (12 TB drive x 4) 

Is there  a hard- or software limit for 12 TB or could I use 2 x 16 TB drives (like the Seagate Exos X X16) ?

 

Thanks

Br,

Joe

[Igor]

1 hour ago, DocViper said:

hard

Architecture limit, max. 16TB for logical volume. In case your hard disks or their setups (raid, lvm) are bigger you only need to split them into more logical volumes. For 2 x 16TB in raid 1 you don't need to do anything.

 

Current max. raw capacity needs small update to 64TB. 4 x 16TB drive, soon 4 x 20TB.

[DocViper]

Hi Igor,

 

Thanks a lot. Good to know. 

For future expansion I would go for a second pair of HDD also in mirror. 

 

BR

Joe

 

[gprovost]

@Igor Thanks for pinpointing outdated info, I just updated our wiki

 

@DocViper Yes as Igor explained, max volume / partition size on 32bit arch is 16TB. So to use more than 16TB of storage space you will have to break it down into more then one volume.