Kodi on Raspberry PI Zero W wont boot

kendev · August 30, 2018 at 8:39 PM

Hi, I installed ARM 8.2.5.img.gz on micro sd and the PI zero w wont boot up, despite leaving it for 1 hour I only see a rainbow type screen. Anyone have any advice to resolve issue please. Also as a newbie if you could give detailed solution Id be grateful.

Kenny

**Klojum** · August 30, 2018 at 10:12 PM Official Post

I understand the rpi Zero is slow, but there should be some 'movement' within a single minute of booting. Otherwise, there is a problem.

You know you cannot just copy an img.gz file directly on a SD card? You can use our LibreELEC USB/SD Creator tool, and write the correct image on your SD card.

kendev · August 31, 2018 at 12:11 AM

Hi Klojum, Sorry i meant that I'd used the "LibreELEC USB-SD Creator" app using ARM 8.2.5.img.gz as the source from the Librelec download page. Also what I forgot to metion is that I installed the software on to 2 different SD cards as in both cases there was an error reported towards the end of the operation but because It occurred both times to different SD cards I ignored it thinking it was normal. So I suppose 1 question I have is can I use a more recent build such as 8.90.003 or would that be incompatible?

Regards

Kenny

**Klojum** · August 31, 2018 at 7:55 AM Official Post

Okay, that is a bit weird. Just to be sure, I take it those SD cards have sufficient storage space? Or maybe, a bit too much... SD cards between 4 and 16 GB should be fine. Which exact cars are you using?

Of course you can try to install the 8.90.00. You can also try to install an earlier version 8.2.4/3/2.. and then manually upgrade to 8.2.5 or 8.90.003. Just as long as the booting works, there are options.

Which OS are you using to run the USB/SD Creator? Can you also be more specific about which error pops up? If you are on a Linux or Apple machine, you could also use the 'dd' command to transfer the .img file. (not the img.gz file)

kendev · August 31, 2018 at 9:27 AM

Morning Klojum,

I'm using a 32Gb Adata micro SD card so I'll have to consider an 8 or 16, the OS is Windows 10, I cant remember the specific error as I was originally trying to set this up a couple of months ago but I'll watch out for it this time, round later today, and let you know.

Thanks

Kenny

**Klojum** · August 31, 2018 at 9:45 AM Official Post

There were some vague reports in the past of 32GB cards being allergic to LibreELEC's installation, so if you could try a 8-16GB card, that'd be great.

**chewitt** · August 31, 2018 at 10:23 AM Official Post

Rainbow screen normally means "wrong arch" .. i.e. using an RPi2 image on older RPi (and zero) hardware or vice versa. So check that you're using the correct image on the SD card.

kendev · September 2, 2018 at 10:45 AM

Thanks guys, got the loading sorted by switching to an 8GB card.

Kenny

**Klojum** · September 2, 2018 at 12:54 PM Official Post

vpeter

Could you perhaps take another look into this? Something is odd for larger sized SD cards (and usb sticks?).

**vpeter** · September 2, 2018 at 1:30 PM

I'm using 32GB sd cards and didn't have such problems.

To eliminate app error one other option is to unpack img.gz file and write it with some other tool. Like Win32DiskImager, Rufus, ...