NVMe timeout when booting from eMMC but not SD
05-03-2021, 02:08 PM
Hello, @alexeymin
I'm also currently experiencing flaky boots with the Kingston A2000 NVMe. I guess that this is most likely some U-Boot issue. When I first tried this drive, I used pcm720's U-Boot build, with great success. Note the patch that increases the timeout, to give more time to the NVMe drives to appear. I even had this U-Boot flashed to the SPI and I had the /boot partition on the NVMe. Alas, for some reason this build broke the SD Card reader - SD Cards were neither bootable, not even readable when inserted after boot.
I'm currently using the last build of mrfixit's U-Boot, with /boot partition on the eMMC and the root partition on the NVMe. It boots most of the time, and drops me at the initramfs prompt when it doesn't find the NVMe. From there, by reloading the nvme module (rmmod nvme; modprobe nvme), I'm able to continue the boot process and everything boots successfully.
I don't have much time at the moment to play around with different U-Boot builds and kernels. I'm currently using the unofficial Debian installer by Daniel Thompson, along with his 5.7 kernel. I guess that there should be some combination of U-Boot and kernel that will behave more consistently. Somebody will surely find it.
I'm also currently experiencing flaky boots with the Kingston A2000 NVMe. I guess that this is most likely some U-Boot issue. When I first tried this drive, I used pcm720's U-Boot build, with great success. Note the patch that increases the timeout, to give more time to the NVMe drives to appear. I even had this U-Boot flashed to the SPI and I had the /boot partition on the NVMe. Alas, for some reason this build broke the SD Card reader - SD Cards were neither bootable, not even readable when inserted after boot.
I'm currently using the last build of mrfixit's U-Boot, with /boot partition on the eMMC and the root partition on the NVMe. It boots most of the time, and drops me at the initramfs prompt when it doesn't find the NVMe. From there, by reloading the nvme module (rmmod nvme; modprobe nvme), I'm able to continue the boot process and everything boots successfully.
I don't have much time at the moment to play around with different U-Boot builds and kernels. I'm currently using the unofficial Debian installer by Daniel Thompson, along with his 5.7 kernel. I guess that there should be some combination of U-Boot and kernel that will behave more consistently. Somebody will surely find it.