<Armbian-Discord> <m​arcone> I got a Radxa Zero yesterday, and eventually (after I wasted hours thinking I hadn't properly erased the EMMC) discovered that the image from https://www.armbian.com/radxa-zero/ does not work. An older Armbian image from July from Radxa's github also doesn't work, so I suspect it's been broken for a while. What's the proper way/place to report this?
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> @marcone https://forum.armbian.com/forum/113-radxa-zero/ Don't forget to mention image name, kernel, board revision and where you donwloaded the images.
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> How did you go to work to test these images? Erasing the eMMC is done with a special tool. I think this one RZ_USB_Boot_Helper_V1.0.0.zip And then you need to run this file to erase fully. radxa-zero-erase-emmc.bin
<Armbian-Discord> <m​arcone> That's what I sorta got stuck on doing at first. I figured it wasn't booting from the sd because erasing the EMMC wasn't working or something. But eventually I tried Radxa's non-Armbian image and that worked fine.
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> Ok. Their image should be deleted, but they don't listen.
<Armbian-Discord> <m​arcone> (I did follow the various guides to erasing the eMMC, several times)
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> For Linux it can be a bit confusion to do. With windows it's easy with that tool.
<Armbian-Discord> <m​arcone> By "their image", you mean what exactly? Radxa has an Armbian image on their github, but note that the image from Armbian's own website doesn't work either
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> Just checked and it seems they removed their own build Armbian form download page. It was an old, not well working and not supported image. You seem to talk about another.
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> Now, that model is your board?
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> And how do you write the image?
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> I've got version 1.5V. I'll try the armbian images fom download page.
<Armbian-Discord> <m​arcone> Yes, the "radxa armbian" image I tried was from https://github.com/radxa-build/radxa-zero/releases/tag/20220801-0213 It's a 2GB Radxa Zero, says V1.5 on the board. I wrote image with Etcher (also tried the Raspberry Pi Imager, same result). What I get on boot is:
<Armbian-Discord> <m​arcone> (the board didn't come with the 40-pin header, so I don't have serial)
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> @marcone Can you test this image please? https://redirect.armbian.com/radxa-zero/Jammy_edge_xfce
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> It is booting on my RadxaZero.
<Armbian-Discord> <m​arcone> I'll give it a try (I was using the CLI image before)
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> Well, the image also doesn't work as should. But it does boot somwhat. Seems something is wrong.
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> I got this. It 'boots'. But has tons of errors.
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> Now trying another sd card to be sure that's not the problem.
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> – Connect a USB cable to the Zero’s OTG port (the USB-C plug marked USB-PWR) – Hold down the “USB BOOT” button on the Radxa Zero while connecting the USB cable to a USB port on the Linux host – sudo pip3 install pyamlboot on the host – curl -O https://dl.armbian.com/radxa-zero/loader/radxa-zero-erase-emmc.bin – sudo boot-g12.py radxa-zero-erase-emmc.bin You may have to run the sudo boot-g12.py
<Armbian-Discord> command a second time to fully clear the eMMC.
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> Try it again, it states it might not work in one time.
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> With another sd card it seems to boot normally.
<Armbian-Discord> <m​arcone> hmm, odd. I booted the xfce image, and got the "armbian / universal OS" splash screen for a bit, but then it dropped into initramfs:
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> So I might have a broken sd card. Damn, it's a 128GB one...
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> That's not normal. Try to erase your eMMC again.
<Armbian-Discord> <m​arcone> Note that that link you gave for the eraser (https://dl.armbian.com/radxa-zero/loader/radxa-zero-erase-emmc.bin) doesn't work.
<Armbian-Discord> <m​arcone> takes me to some mirror that doesn't exist
<Armbian-Discord> <m​arcone> I did download it from somewhere yesterday though
<Armbian-Discord> <m​arcone> so just to be sure I'm doing the erasing right: after I run boot-g12.py, do I have to wait for something? It seems at that point the device switches into a different mode (lsusb now shows it as "Amlogic, Inc. USB download gadget"), so I can't run boot-g12.py a second time without first restarting the device.
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> https://wiki.radxa.com/Zero/dev/maskrom
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> Instructions for Linux are here under the downloads. https://www.armbian.com/radxa-zero/
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> Mine is running fine.
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> Also try another sd card. Since those buggers can just stop working correctly
<Armbian-Discord> <m​arcone> so just to be sure we have the same image (since the download link you gave me goes through a redirect and so we may have downloaded from different mirrors), what's the md5sum of the .img.xz you downloaded?
<Armbian-Discord> <m​arcone> because for me it still drops into the initramfs shell even after erasing the eMMC multiple times, while the Radxa image works fine
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> Then there's another issue. Go to #armbian-devel for further info. I don't know what's up and I'm no dev.
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> Or better to make a bug report on the forum under amlogic -> radxa zero.
<Armbian-Discord> <r​pardini> Yeah, my Zero also has some weird behaviours, depending on SD card, but also sometimes when booting from eMMC. Lanefu had reported something similar. gotta ivnestigate
<Armbian-Discord> <m​arcone> All my sd cards are sandisk extreme, so I can't try a different brand/model, but I did try several of them, and they all work when I use Radxa's non-Armbian image. It's weird that the Armbian xfce image boot to the splash screen and then drops into an initramfs shell though. That seems to indicate that the issue isn't with eMMC not being erased, otherwise it wouldn't have gotten as far as the splash screen,
<Armbian-Discord> right?
<Armbian-Discord> <r​pardini> Nico, I've the same. A known-good 32gb card, not working on the Zero. Works on many other boards. I'm investigating
<Armbian-Discord> <m​arcone> When I try to boot the armbian xfce image on the zero it boots for a bit while showing the splash screen, and then drops into a initramfs shell complaining that it can't find the root filesystem UUID it's looking for. The root filesystem on the sd card does have the UUID it's looking for though. I also don't see the sd card device when it's in initramfs shell. So I wondered if the initramfs is broken and
<Armbian-Discord> maybe lacks a driver for the sd card or something. And indeed, with some trickery I was able to get it to boot from USB instead: - start booting from sd - wait for it to drop into initramfs shell - unplug the sd card, and plug it into an attached USB reader - exit the shell (I don't have a hub handy, so the above is slightly simplified) - once the initramfs shell exits, it again tries to find the root partition UUID, and
<Armbian-Discord> this time it finds it on USB and continues booting from there. So I think that shows there's a problem with the image that prevents it from seeing the sd card device.
<Armbian-Discord> <r​pardini> yeah it drops into busybox after failing reading/writing from the SD
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> It also was a sandisk card.
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> Second try was a samsung evo+.
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> I didn't know it could be so picky about sd-cards. Not seen that much in the past with other boards.
<Armbian-Discord> <r​pardini> Yeah I'm building uboot and kernel, juggling patches. Our patchset matches radxa's
<Armbian-Discord> <r​pardini> Do Radxa's images work?
<Armbian-Discord> <N​icoD> Marcone said they do. I'm busy now recording some music.
<Armbian-Discord> <r​pardini> No worries.
<Armbian-Discord> <r​an the commiebot> are there any known issues with the le potato build? Mine wont get past uboot
<Armbian-Discord> <r​pardini> yep, there's been trouble with lepotato, check history. suggest you post in forum with full bootlog and the exact image version/filename
<Armbian-Discord> <r​pardini> @MicroLinux (Salva) Salva what was the thing with the Radxa Zero's SD cards? SDHC vs SDXC etc? I remember I made it work but not how