Emergency Mode Boot Hotkey?

[jiacovelli]

Thanks again for you help. It would appear, however, that the procedure is no longer valid. When the eMMC switch is thrown the opposite way, the system is no longer capable of being powered on. This was tested with AC, with battery, with holding the power switch down for several seconds, etc.

It would appear that Pine is aware of this change. As opposed to the images in the Wiki, the eMMC slider is now covered by a tiny piece of clear tape, and moreover, the entire switch itself is covered by a longer, wider piece of black tape. Had I not been able to locate the general area by the older wiki photo, I wouldn't even have been able to know to lift up the tape. (I don't think I can post a picture in this forum... but will be happy to if someone points out the procedure).

Needless to say, I experimented with flipping the switch and attempting a power on a few times. It looks to me like Pine is attempting to reposition the product as less hobbyist, and more "work-a-day" than before. I don't think that will get too far with the OS configuration in the state it's in now.

I most likely have the cables necessary for a serial connection somewhere in the house (I'm retired), but I don't think it's worth the bother at this point.

I would certainly not recommend the company nor its products to anyone.

[wdt]

Well, you know the emmc is removeable, it is NOT soldered down
And there are at least 3 different adapters to plug the emmc onto
Not so many years ago, all SBC had ONLY SD which was why the interest in TV boxes
So,if you pop the emmc off, it should be able to boot whatever is on SD,
assuming "right" distro

[KC9UDX]

The eMMC switch is surely not the reason you cant boot. Stressing what wdt said, you really need the right image to make a truly bootable SD card. A lot of images rely on working U-Boot on the eMMC to transfer booting to the SD card. The DietPi image from the wiki is the one I have used successfully in this situation. But it's been a while since I tried; I don't know if that's still valid.

The power light is not a true indicator of the device being powered on. It's turned on by software. This can lead to a lot of confusion. If you tried booting from an invalid boot card, it's likely the system is hung with the power light turned off. You have to long press the power button to be sure the power is off. (What is it, 20 seconds?)

[jiacovelli]

The eMMC switch is surely not the reason you cant boot.  Stressing what wdt said, you really need the right image to make a truly bootable SD card.  A lot of images rely on working U-Boot on the eMMC to transfer booting to the SD card.  The DietPi image from the wiki is the one I have used successfully in this situation.  But it's been a while since I tried; I don't know if that's still valid.

The power light is not a true indicator of the device being powered on.  It's turned on by software.  This can lead to a lot of confusion.  If you tried booting from an invalid boot card, it's likely the system is hung with the power light turned off.  You have to long press the power button to be sure the power is off. (What is it, 20 seconds?)

Interesting as far as the power light goes. The image I used was a DebIan ARM installer.  But I shall consider the matter.

[KC9UDX]

Where did you get the image?

[wdt]

Just for general info ...
>(What is it, 20 seconds?)
that is for hard reset, when the computer gets into a confused state and because of battery retains it
OR unplug battery 1/2-1 day OR press reset button (if it works)
Put an A64 sd in (and try to boot) , you will see what I am talking about
Hard power off is 6-7 seconds
Always try hard pwr-off 1st, then hard reset (and with a KNOWN good bootable SD inserted)
With the power presses, you at least don't have to take off back
For those who like to tinker, maybe this is not an advantage
Me. I just like stuff to work
-----
And, BTW nearly ALL sd images have a uboot in the first 16M, if the 1st part starts at 32768 that is to make room for uboot
This uboot (on sd) may never be used, if the uboot on emmc is defective it will interfere with ANY boot
You could check https://github.com/pyavitz/debian-image-builder ,,, at the top of the readme.md is a link to requested images
there is a pbp image in there

[KC9UDX]

I found many (how many, I don't recall) official images that have a U-Boot that wont boot on its own.

[wdt]

You are right,, there are a LOT of defective u-boots out there
Given this, I don't know why people are so eager to flash a
uboot to SPI .... BEFORE they have THOROUGHLY tested it
and... to do this is not a trivial process

[jiacovelli]

Thanks for your message questioning whether that Debian image was uboot or not... I hadn't actually mounted it on another machine to look at it, and it turns out that it was not. I found a reasonable image here, Upon booting, I was able to delete the offending line in fstab using sed (not even vi in that image!).

Overall, thanks for your help. I'm still underwhelmed by the Pine Pro, but I shall keep it, now.

[KC9UDX]

Don't forget, this was entirely a software problem. I had the exact same problems on three PBPs, but none at all since installing NetBSD on two of them, and a different U-Boot on the Manjaru one.

Please do replace the U-Boot that's on your eMMC. Else this will happen again. You may find success installing tow-boot on the SPI ROM. I have no experience with it but others have reported great success.