After upgrading to latest Syncloud (Ubuntu 24...) my Odroid HC4 is stuck on Petitboot

Devices Odroid
1

Hi Boris,
after upgrading my Odroid HC4 to the latest Syncloud distribution (Ubuntu 24… vs the previous Debian 10 buster) I got stuck on Petitboot. I can only press the physical button on the device to skip Petitboot to make it run successfully. This prevent me to make a restart remotely or to be sure that, in case of a temporary electric failure, the system reboot successfully.
I have forced Petitboot to boot the right partition (instructions here ) but nothing changes.
To verify that nothing is wrong with Petitboot itself, I have tried the old SD card with Debian 10 and it works fine. I have found several workarounds (example: fw_setenv skip_spiboot true within Petitboot prompt), I have also tried to totally remove Petitboot without success because the shell tha is offered does not contain the required commands (erase_flash, if I well remember).
Any suggestion? Thanks a lot.

Simone

2

Sorry did the upgrade without proper testing on my device, let me check if I can fix the image

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3

Actually this seems to be affecting only older devices, but the workaround is to boot using a button at the bottom (hold while booting).

Added an instruction here Odroid HC4 · syncloud/platform Wiki · GitHub

Could you try and let me know.

4

hi Boris,
this make me a little upset. I usually manage my device remotely and I cannot press the button everytime. Another thing: the command “fw_setenv skip_spiboot true” does not change anything, the boot sequence remains stuck at the same point regardless of that.
It seems like Petitboot can be completely removed from the internal flash but the instructions that can be found are incomplete.
Could you please make available the latest image that didn’t suffer this problem? I want to restore it because it seems like there is no alternative. Thanks in advance

5

Sure I understand the frustration I do not like it myself.

We have a few options:

  1. Use previous image which contains older kernel but new Syncloud OS (based on bookworm), I updated the above doc with the link. No different from any other latest Syncloud image at this point.
  2. Buy new hc4 device which works with latest kernel either from Syncloud or from manufacturer of you want.
  3. Debug ourselves as the manufacturer of the board does not support it themselves on the old board and my old board I have does not even support keyboards on their latest image I cannot really do it myself. We could continue but you will have to send me screenshots of every command response so I can think of a next step. (not a pleasant process)

It is a little bit like with old phones, manufacturers stop maintaining latest Linux kernels at some point.

Unfortunately Syncloud does not maintain Linux kernels (or boot tools) for the hardware, it is pure hardware manufacturers business.

6

I have added a legacy hc4 image which uses older Linux kernel to boot properly but latest Syncloud OS like the rest of the images.
You can try some time if you want.

7

Hi Boris,
I apologize for the inconvenience: I am already using that image. It works fine, thanks

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