Where can I get old versions for H3 (Orange Pi Plus 2E)?

AonMaster · May 7, 2021 at 5:01 PM

Hi, I'm new here.

Tried to boot from LibreELEC-H3.arm-9.95.2-orangepi-plus2e.img.gz (download link at this site). but it does not boot. Debug UART says this:

U-Boot 2021.01 (Apr 17 2021 - 04:11:24 +0200) Allwinner Technology, Build: jenkins-H3-600

CPU: Allwinner H3 (SUN8I 1680)

Model: Xunlong Orange Pi Plus 2E

DRAM: 2 GiB

MMC: mmc@1c0f000: 0, mmc@1c10000: 2, mmc@1c11000: 1

Loading Environment from FAT... Unable to use mmc 1:1... In: serial@1c28000

Out: serial@1c28000

Err: serial@1c28000

Net: No ethernet found.

starting USB...

No working controllers found

Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0

switch to partitions #0, OK

And then it all stucks, no forther loading.

I want to try older versions, like 6, 7, 8 and 9.0.

Could you share links to those images? Maybe it will boot.

**jernej** · May 7, 2021 at 5:59 PM Official Post

Quote from AonMaster

I want to try older versions, like 6, 7, 8 and 9.0.
Could you share links to those images? Maybe it will boot.

None of those versions exist for OrangePi Plus 2E. LE10 will be first official release. You can always try nightly image.

AonMaster · May 8, 2021 at 3:32 AM

Quote from jernej

None of those versions exist for OrangePi Plus 2E. LE10 will be first official release. You can always try nightly image.

Thanks for reply, but as I see the review (link in Russian is here Обзор купленного на Aliexpress одноплатного ПЭКА Orange Pi Plus 2E, созданного с учетом пожеланий сообщества Armbian и тест LibreELEC Kodi) - it shows that LE compiled on Mar 1, 2017 is on the screen. With KODI 16. That's why I guess it was older releases.

Maybe my Chenise 2E board is not the same as official one, and this is the cause of my problems? My Pi 2E is from Aliexpress.

**jernej** · May 8, 2021 at 7:00 AM Official Post

Quote from AonMaster

it shows that LE compiled on Mar 1, 2017 is on the screen. With KODI 16. That's why I guess it was older releases.

I'm aware of that - this version was made by someone outside of LE team, it is based on BSP kernel instead of mainline and it was never part of any official release.

**jernej** · May 8, 2021 at 8:23 AM Official Post

I just tested my Plus2E board with latest image and it boots normally. Remove "quiet" from extlinux/extlinux.conf file located on FAT32 partition on SD card. It should print much more info during boot.

AonMaster · May 8, 2021 at 12:07 PM

Do you have the same board as the fellow from the link above had? I mean Chinese version. There are some photos of PCB as well.

Every time I try to boot LE, I write image to my SD card by Win32DiskImager.

Now as I removed 'quiet', the output is attached as a text file (to shorten the message).

It does not seem to even resize the SD card.

When I tried older images, some of them gave some info instead of first lines 'Net: No ethernet found.' Why no Ethernet, it's strange to me.

AonMaster · May 8, 2021 at 12:50 PM

I tried to boot from armbian, it says this about Ethernet:

Net: phy interface7

eth0: ethernet@1c30000

which I think is better than LE says. Maybe different driver is in mine board, whicn is not included in your LE image.

**jernej** · May 8, 2021 at 1:00 PM Official Post

I'm not sure what you mean with Chinese version. OrangePi Plus2E board is designed and produced in China. My board version is v1.1. From first glance it seems like storage partition is not found, but I can't be completely sure since output is mangled. Did you by any chance change any of UUIDs in extlinux.conf?

BTW, ethernet is disabled in U-Boot for LE, so nothing wrong with that.

AonMaster · May 8, 2021 at 2:08 PM

No, I didn't make any corrections except for quiet in extlinux.conf.

My version is also 1.1.

Why is ethernet disabled? When I tried OpenELEC on Raspberry PI rev. B, it worked fine. Then, I thought that Orange Pi 2E is much faster and more RAM, but still I need both ethernet and Wi-fi, which are present on the board.

Could you upload an image of SD card after resizing? I mean, if there was a way for me to prepare SD card just as it should be, and see if it works, I would appreciate that.

What else can I do with my problem? Changed SD card from 2Gb to 4Gb, all is the same.

I had lot of searching for BSP kernel version, but in vain

**jernej** · May 8, 2021 at 2:37 PM Official Post

Ethernet is enabled in Linux and works fine (check dwmac-sun8i 1c30000.etherne lines in kernel output). I disabled it in U-Boot to make boot procedure a little bit faster, although I don't think it matters much.

Quote from AonMaster

Could you upload an image of SD card after resizing? I mean, if there was a way for me to prepare SD card just as it should be, and see if it works, I would appreciate that.

No, because it depends on SD card you're using and that is the reason why resizing is even needed. You can however do that manually by some partition editor in Linux. Just extend partition to cover whole free space and remove ".resize_me" (or something similar) file from that partition.

Quote from AonMaster

What else can I do with my problem? Changed SD card from 2Gb to 4Gb, all is the same.

These are pretty old cards. There might be compatibility issue. Do you have any class 10 or newer card which you can test?

AonMaster · May 8, 2021 at 3:16 PM

Wow! I tried a Kingston 16G microSD card, and it booted OK!

But both releases 9.95 and 10.0-nightly don't see my Wi-fi adapter, and networks.

Wired ethernet is fine, thanks.

Could you help with Wi-fi please.

**jernej** · May 8, 2021 at 4:53 PM Official Post

Nope, read first post here: Nightly images for A64, H3, H5, H6 and R40 boards

AonMaster · May 8, 2021 at 5:33 PM

jernej,

"wifi modules without mainline driver are not and won't be supported" - you mean that our Orange Pi plus 2E does not have mainline driver for Wifi and won't be supported?

that's not a good news.

**jernej** · May 8, 2021 at 6:26 PM Official Post

Quote from AonMaster

you mean that our Orange Pi plus 2E does not have mainline driver for Wifi and won't be supported?

Exactly. It was decision made by team. Out of tree wifi drivers are not fun to update and they break often when kernel is updated. We could have at least 15 drivers at this point, if we would go this route. Anyway, in my experience, wifi module on the board is not that great. You could make your own image with added driver or just use USB wifi dongle.

AonMaster · May 9, 2021 at 3:11 AM

Another question is about HD video support. I downloaded .mkv file (1980x1050), and it plays back slowly in Libreelec (Kodi). Infact, in OpenElec also, while Android 4.4.2 native player plays it fine. Kodi under Android, however, gives bad perfomance.

**jernej** · May 9, 2021 at 6:32 AM Official Post

Which codec? Or better yet, can you provide small sample? Note that not all codecs supported in HW work. Currently supported are MPEG2, VP8, H264 and HEVC.

AonMaster · May 10, 2021 at 1:43 PM

Sorry, jernej, I'm not good in distinquishing .mkv video codecs, so I ran MediaInfo software and that's what it says:

I saw H.264 letters out there...

Code

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : High [email protected]
Format settings                          : CABAC / 16 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames        : 16 frames
Codec ID                                 : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                                 : 1 h 17 min
Nominal bit rate                         : 4 905 kb/s
Width                                    : 1 920 pixels
Height                                   : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 24.000 FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 10 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.099
Writing library                          : x264 core 129 r2245+704+35 dbbd7a1 tMod [10-bit@all X86_64]
Encoding settings                        : cabac=1 / ref=16 / deblock=1:1:1 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=11 / psy=1 / fade_compensate=0.00 / psy_rd=1.00:0.17 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=64 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=0 / chroma_qp_offset=-3 / threads=12 / lookahead_threads=2 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / fgo=0 / bframes=9 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=280 / keyint_min=20 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=0 / rc=2pass / mbtree=0 / bitrate=4905 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=1.00 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=48 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / vbv_maxrate=240000 / vbv_bufsize=240000 / nal_hrd=none / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=4:0.83
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No
Color range                              : Limited
Color primaries                          : BT.709
Transfer characteristics                 : BT.709
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.709

Display More

Tried to cut a small piece of that MKV file to show you, but seemes it did not worked for me.

Hope you can understand the issue from the above paragraph.

**jernej** · May 10, 2021 at 5:02 PM Official Post

Yeah, I can give you diagnosis - HW doesn't support 10-bit H264 (nor any other 10-bit content), so this must be SW decoded and converted to 8-bit. If you disable DRMPRIME decoding in playback settings, you'll get just that. Graceful fallback obviously isn't implemented, it's one of the rough edges. But SW decoding of 10-bit content is more demanding, so you usually won't get good experience anyway.