How to Really Disable Updates?

1st Official Post

    I'm testing LibreElec 8.2.1 on a SolidRun Hummingboard2 (i.MX6). It works great, but only on the first boot. On the second boot, it auto-installs an update, which includes a different kernel and that kernel fails to boot. So, I changed the updates option in the LibreElec settings to 'manual' and even deleted the '.updates' folder, but it still updates on the second boot.

    How can I really disable updates (for at least the kernel)?

    Thanks, Clay

    • Official Post

    I'm unaware of an issue with manual update being ignored so I'd suspect a person vs. fast internet timing issue. The default is auto-update and the OS update image for iMX6 is small so if you have a fast connection the settings add-on has probably polled for updates and downloaded the update to /storage/.update by the time the first-run wizard has completed and you go into LE settings to disable updates.

    We are aware of an issue with black screens on official iMX6 releases that use a 4.4 kernel. It's never been pinned down but affects a small minority of users. It's possible to use LibreELEC-imx6.arm-8.2.1-3.14-sr.img.gz from vpeter which uses an older 3.14 kernel (which has other issues, but the black screen is not one of them.

    If you install 8.2.2 directly it will not update as there a no more 8.2 releases planned. I suspect you will still see a black screen on reboot though. It is not possible to disable 'kernel' updates as the OS is packaged as single unit of kernel and system.

    Thanks for the help chewitt!

    I found that actually the download of the update does not start until the second reboot begins, but the 'manual' setting for updates does not take effect until after the second boot is complete, so the update is applied anyway. Maybe that's a bug? But, the simple work-around is to just unplug the ethernet cable during the second boot and then reboot again with it reconnected.

    I am using vpeter's LibreELEC 8.2.1 image with the 3.14 kernel on a HummingBoard2.

    The issue I'm seeing with the official i.MX6 releases is that the 4.4 kernel does not ever boot for me. I get this kernel error every time:

    imx6q-pcie 1ffc000.pcie: phy link never came up

    I think this means that the ethernet PHY is not being setup correctly and that is probably because the device tree file is wrong, but I have tried all 3 of them for SolidRun i.MX6 quad boards. I will investigate this further.

    Can you please confirm if anyone has managed to get any 8.2 release with a 4.4 kernel running on any SolidRun i.MX6?

    Thanks, Clay