Boot loop after auto-upgrade to 9.2.6 RPi3+ (-> broken power adapter)

  • Hi,

    After my Raspberry Pi 3+ running LibreELEC ran an auto-update to 9.2.6 and rebootet, it showed me the desktop (as usual), started to re-index my music files via NFS-share (as usual) and after probably three seconds, rebooted. This loop was going on a couple of times until I unplugged the power.

    Now I tried to put a freshly downloaded LibreELEC-RPi2.arm-9.2.6.img in the update directory (via mounting the SD card on my desktop computer). This image got installed according to the boot messages but the boot loop persists.

    I then downloaded LibreELEC-RPi2.arm-9.2.4.img.gz (because 9.2.5 was not available by just guessing the file name) and downgraded the device. Same boot loop.

    I'm not very familiar with those issues. However, since KODI is showing me the "desktop" and re-indexing starts, I guess that booting in general works. Maybe something with the re-indexing of the music archive fails or anything other running in background fails?

    The log file .kodi/temp/kodi.log does not show anything suspicious to me except one ERROR line in-between (not the last log line!) which goes like:

    Code
    ERROR: DBus error: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown - The name org.freedesktop.UPower was not provided by any .service files

    Being no pro with the internals of KODI, I don't know what to do now.

    I could guess that it's worth trying to disable the auto-indexer for the music via config files (somebody needs to point me the direction) and try again.

    I guess I could disable other background jobs that run after booting, if this is possible.

    Any help very much appreciated! :thumbup:

    Edited once, last by publicvoit (November 20, 2020 at 9:19 PM).

  • did you change anything at the config.txt compared to default LE9.2 install ?

    Otherwise I would tend to a broken SD card or a broken/borked powersupply.

    Btw its quite normal that it could work at 9.2.x but not at a other version. We experienced that already in the past. Especially overclocking tends to break randomly between the versions.

  • did you change anything at the config.txt compared to default LE9.2 install ?

    Otherwise I would tend to a broken SD card or a broken/borked powersupply.

    Btw its quite normal that it could work at 9.2.x but not at a other version. We experienced that already in the past. Especially overclocking tends to break randomly between the versions.

    I already had at least one SD card that went corrupt in my RPi over the years. This happens. Maybe it's because my RPi/OpenELEC is running 24/7 - although being idle almost all the time.
    However, the error behavior with a broken file system or broken SD card looked quite differently back then. I wasn't able to mount the file system any more and the RPi was not even able to come up with the "desktop" during the boot process.

    I agree that those are not necessary things that indicate a working or a broken SD card.

    Just for the records: I was not overclocking the CPU nor did I change any file manually. The only things I configured were accessible via the GUI of the KODI system. And I did not change anything at all between the previous manual minor upgrade on 2020-09-12 (9.2.1->9.2.4) until the system stopped working the day before yesterday. The last thing I did was watching a movie (placed on my NFS share). Afterwards, the system showed me the update notification and initialized the reboot process. I can't remember whether or not the reboot was initialized by the system or by me. I think that the system rebootet without asking me.

  • Otherwise I would tend to a broken SD card or a broken/borked powersupply.

    Anyway, a "fsck.ext4 -f -c -p -v /dev/sde2" was reporting issues.

    I fixed it with "fsck.ext4 -f -c -v /dev/sde2" and another "fsck.ext4 -f -c -p -v /dev/sde2" went fine, reporting 0 bad blocks.

    The system is still in the boot loop.

    I'm afraid, I need to purge the SD and start from scratch. If you agree: Is there a way to manually save the current settings (add-ons, configured shares, DB with information which file was played, ...) so that I don't lose that stuff?

  • I'm afraid, I need to purge the SD and start from scratch. If you agree: Is there a way to manually save the current settings (add-ons, configured shares, DB with information which file was played, ...) so that I don't lose that stuff

    Take the SDcard from the RPi and access it from your favorite Linux OS on your PC.

    Starting a live session from an Ubuntu USB stick for example should work to access the EXT4 data partition on the SDcard.

    From there you can copy files & folders as necessary.

  • From there you can copy files & folders as necessary.

    Thanks a bunch!

    Accessing the SD card is no issue to me.

    However, is there somewhere a documentation where I can learn which files are part of the backup? And which files of a brand new installation should be replaced with the backupped versions?

  • just save and restore everything at /storage/ also the invisible files like .kodi folder

    if the sd card is corrupt it might be more corrupt then just at filesystem level, maybe try a fresh one

    SanDisk Ultra is the bare minimum that works okay, better get an SanDisk Extreme that is 1-2€ more expensive but is much faster (others work too, typical cheap SD cards are known to make all kind of problems).

  • Hi everybody!

    I found the culprit: it was the power adapter all along (as mentioned above). It must have degraded over the years. I think I started to use it five years ago. Occasionally, I've seen the yellow lightning symbol. However, it was visible from day one so I thought this indicator might be a little bit picky as the RPi was doing fine for many years.

    I thought SD card corruption is more likely. However, as the new SD card showed the same symptom, I organized an alternative power adapter. My previous one was a China power adapter with 5V/2A. The replacement one is a OnePlus 5 Dash charger with 4 amps.

    Copying /storage to the new SD card brought back all data and configuration.

    Thanks a lot for your competent help in this forum thread - greetings from Graz/Austria! :)