U-Boot with direct NVMe boot support for eMMC/SPI Flash

[calinb]

I'm using pcm720's U-Boot v2020.07-1. I installed it to eMMC on my Pinebook Pro, due to new problems that crept into my PBP with the latest Manjaro U-Boot.

I'm currently booting Manjaro 21 from my NVMe SSD ( /boot and /). Using the Manjaro-supplied U-Boot, sometimes it doesn't boot At other times it will go a few days with no failures. When it fails to boot, It can take several subsequent attempts to achieve boot. Sometimes unplugging the power supply seems to help. The Pine64-supplied barrel connector wall wort or a USB-C PD supply behave the same

I've had this problem since the day I unboxed my PBP but the most recent U-Boot in Manjaro proved to be even less reliable than the previous version, including displaying new status and error messages on the screen and momentary screen corruption (flashy colored lines) when transferring control from U-Boot to OS, so I installed pcm720's U-Boot on my eMMC and it is mostly functioning so far.

The one remaining problem is I must always Shut Down the machine and power it back on. Restart never works, because it always shuts down and results in a black screen and a perpetual red LED annunciation upon boot attempt.

Is anyone else seeing this Restart failure?

I'm not the only PBP user having such problems. From https://forum.manjaro.org/t/nvme-support-in-uboot-pinebookpro-2021-04-1/63774/5

Also, is anyone else having trouble booting from EMMC?

Frequently my uboot fails to find the EMMC, which has the uboot installed onto it. Weird.

I'm tempted to flash my SPI with pcm720's code and see if Reset works. If I experience any more failures to boot from cold start, I'll definitely be ready to flash the SPI!

Any suggestions are most appreciated!

[dex357]

Hi @calinb
Yes I have the same issue here.

[wdt]

I think reset is a APM 'thing', so flashing pcm uboot to SPI will not likely make any difference
You could try mrfixits uboot to see if it is better, it does have nvme0 in the list of boot_targets

[olyavi]

Hello,

I am also using manajro on my pinebookpro on NVMe SSD.
I installed the tow-boot to the SPI.

And everythinks is ok.
Just when the pbp boot I have to go to the tow-boot menu and chose to boot from NVMe.

Ivaylo

[calinb]

Hello,

I am also using manajro on my pinebookpro on NVMe SSD.
I installed the tow-boot to the SPI.

And everythinks is ok.
Just when the pbp boot I have to go to the tow-boot menu and chose to boot from NVMe.

Ivaylo

Will your PBP suspend/resume with NVMe?

[olyavi]

Hello,

I am also using manajro on my pinebookpro on NVMe SSD.
I installed the tow-boot to the SPI.

And everythinks is ok.
Just when the pbp boot I have to go to the tow-boot menu and chose to boot from NVMe.

Ivaylo

Will your PBP suspend/resume with NVMe?

When pbp boot (need to go the tow-boot menu) and I login to manajro and every thing is ok.

If I try to suspend/resume the graphical gui freeze and need to reboot.