My PBP starts up like a 1977 Chevy Nova

[rotwang]

Hello everybody.

My PBP has this aggravating problem where on a cold boot it will randomly crash. It goes like this: I push the start button, I get the boot light, and then it often boots all the way to the Manjaro login screen. Sometimes I can log in. Then it freezes up. Sometimes the screen turns black.

And sometimes it doesn't make it that far. Sometimes it freezes and goes black in the first few seconds. When that happens, sometimes the boot light blinks green and orange.

The only solution is to hold down power until it is fully off and try again.

Now, here's where it reminds me of my Dad's rusty old Nova he had when I was a kid: If I do this a few times eventually it will stay on and run fine. For hours even. It has all the feeling of that old Nova turning over, turning over, coughing, sputtering, starting, stalling, starting, and then once it's going and warmed up, running like a champ. (My dad kept driving that car well into the late 1990s.)

This is only with power connected. It seems worse trying to start on battery. And booting off the emmc.

Before you ask me to try a different OS and boot from SD, I'll tell ya that the SD reader hasn't worked since the Pine folks replaced the keyboard. (See this thread: https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=14232).

And also I'm being lazy about re-flashing the emmc, because this feels, once again, like a hardware problem to me, not Manjaro.

I can't help but feel like I kinda got a lemon of a PBP. Though maybe I'm just not giving credit, and like Dad's Nova, it will keep running poorly longer than most machines run at all.

Totally open to trying any suggestions though.

Thanks!

[wdt]

Try booting from usb??
Do try BOTH usb sockets, also different usb keys
(for example, I have q4os on a key, won't boot in usb3, will boot in usb2)

[KC9UDX]

The trick is to put something heavy in the passenger seat and put the seat belt on.

I feel like I've suggested this before, but your problems don't sound like hardware to me at all, and sound exactly like what Manjaro can be like.

[rotwang]

Try booting from usb??
Do try BOTH usb sockets, also different usb keys
(for example, I have q4os on a key, won't boot in usb3, will boot in usb2)

I was told in the other thread that this machine won't boot from USB. But thanks!

---

The trick is to put something heavy in the passenger seat and put the seat belt on.

I feel like I've suggested this before, but your problems don't sound like hardware to me at all, and sound exactly like what Manjaro can be like.

Alrighty. If you think it's software, I'll flash the emmc again.

Did I mention the SD card didn't work under Arch either? lsblk is just showing nothing in either OS. 

The card _is_ there if I put it in a mini-SB->USB reader and put the USB in. ...but I can't boot the machine from USB. I only drag this point up from my other thread because it would be soooo nice to be able to boot the SD and test another OS with this crashing problem without having to go through the hassle of opening the machine up to flash the emmc directly, and creating a backup image of my current pleasingly-configured Manjaro OS.

I'll be the first to admit that I'd like the lazy solution if I can get it!

Thanks again. I'll let you know how the emmc flash goes.

[KC9UDX]

Well, I don't doubt that your micro-SD card slot doesn't work. But, the other problem, intermittent booting, sure sounds like a software problem.

[wdt]

>but I can't boot the machine from USB.
Well, it partly depend on what uboot version you have
I mostly use a bsp uboot (mrfixit v2.0)
None of the normal uboots will boot a sd card in a carrier (adapter) ,,
however tow-boot WILL (not every distro, about 3/4)
you do have to change extlinux changing mmcblkX to sda,
unless it is using LABEL or uuid
I suggest you try installing a distro to a usb stick, and try booting that
--
I think one of the problems with uboot is poor handling of multiple usb connections,
pbp keyboard is usb and it gets priority perhaps

[rotwang]

Welp,
I flashed the emmc with postmarket/plasma. And for the first few boots it looked fine.

I was literally just logging in to the forum here to thank you guys for pushing me past my lazy grumpiness to flash another OS to the emmc when I thought "let's give this one last boot, just to make sure everything is cool." 

And (you are probably already guessing the end to this tale of woe) now the PBP is showing exactly the same kind of random-freezing behavior as described above when it was running Manjaro.

(Also: no SD card showing up in lsblk under Postmarket when it booted either.)

Any thoughts on what else I could try?
Thanks so much!

---

>but I can't boot the machine from USB.
Well, it partly depend on what uboot version you have
I mostly use a bsp uboot (mrfixit v2.0)
None of the normal uboots will boot a sd card in a carrier (adapter) ,,
however tow-boot WILL (not every distro, about 3/4)
you do have to change extlinux changing mmcblkX to sda,
unless it is using LABEL or uuid
I suggest you try installing a distro to a usb stick, and try booting that
--
I think one of the problems with uboot is poor handling of multiple usb connections,
pbp keyboard is usb and it gets priority perhaps

In my previous thread where I was asking about booting USB I ended up with the conclusion that USB is not a viable option. I believe because of this section of the troubleshooting guide:
https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/Pinebook_Pro#Boot_devices
Where it says "The boot order of the hard-coded ROM of its RK3399 SoC is: SPI NOR, eMMC, SD, USB OTG"

I believe that means to even have a chance of booting USB I have to remove the emmc, which basically defeats the part where I wanted to avoid opening up the machine. Though now I think of it, maybe I came to that conclusion at the point where my emmc didn't have a functioning uboot at all, and my SD card reader wasn't (still isn't) working. I ended up buying the USB-emmc mounter dohickey (opening up the machine of course) and flashing the emmc with a new OS.

You're saying with a working emmc/uboot, I might be able to get a USB flashed with an OS to boot now?

[wdt]

Uboot will ONLY be found on SPI or emmc or SD
(the boot on usb, from bootrom, is ONLY to write code to SPI, all media MUST be removed or disabled to get this boot)
Once uboot loads from one of those 3 places, then uboot is in charge of the boot
It (uboot) can and does change the boot order and can ALSO boot from network as well as usb
-----
strings uboot.img |grep -i _target
boot_targets=mmc1 nvme0 usb0 mmc0 pxe dhcp
-------
Unless you are using tow-boot uboot version, you will not get a boot with a SD card in an adapter
Try writing to a usb stick, do try BOTH sockets, I have seen it nearly always ignore one and boot from other

[TRS-80]

Maybe try Armbian.

[rotwang]

OK, gave Armbian a shot on the emmc. 

Same result: Sometimes boots fine. Sometimes freezes still showing the desktop after boot. Sometimes freezes with a black screen after boot. Sometimes goes to a frozen orange and green blinking power light as soon as I press the start button. No solution to any of them but cold restart.

So... how many more operating systems do I have to try before we're convinced this isn't a software problem?

Thanks guys!