Raspberrry pi 4: cannot boot LibreELEC anymore

veliki · December 24, 2022 at 4:08 PM

Hello,

I've been using LibreELEC for quite a while now and found it to be the best way to enjoy Kodi on my RP4b devices by far.

Yesterday I watched a movie through it, had to shut it down at one point due to some people coming over, no biggie, turned it off as usual. Went back to it in the evening, could not boot. Issue similar to this thread. Basically, after power on, I get the multicolored square (sometimes not though), and the RP just turns off, with the red light constantly on, green sometimes blinking, sometimes nothing. The screen powers down due to lack of input from HDMI.

I tried the updates from the thread which solved the issues for the OP, did not work for me though. When I switched back to my LibreELEC boot, it did not power on.

Things I tried and did not work at all:

Fresh LibreELEC mounted on a different SD card
Tested on a different RP4 (I have 2 more 8gb and 2gb models - tested on 3 different rp4)
Tested on a different SD card (also 2 more - tested on 3 different sd cards)
Tested a different OS (booted raspberry pi OS on all rp4 without any issues)
Tested even with a ~~different HDMI cable~~ and power plugs
Tested while standing upside down

As you can see, I'm fresh out of ideas.

Can anyone help? I'm absolutely flabbergasted why LibreELEC would refuse to boot.

Any help would be massively appreciated!

petediscrete · December 24, 2022 at 9:26 PM Best Answer

Sounds like a low voltage condition on your RPI4. Possibly a failing power supply that just gave up. Have you got a spare power supply you could swap in to confirm this. Ensure all peripherals are securely attached too.

In fact you could try removing everything except the power supply and the HDMI cable and boot up to see if that helps.

veliki · December 24, 2022 at 11:48 PM

Okay, after checking everything, reinstalling systems for 100th time, I finally found out what happened: it was the damned HDMI cable.

I used the raspberry branded cable ever since I got the first rp. Now, the confusing part was that I was able to boot the rp OS normally and I could get it on my screen etc. After hours of fiddling with almost anything and everything, I finally unpacked a brand new HDMI cable and...it worked. I could actually boot all my sd cards and the LibreELEC I had on them. Once booted, I can switch to the original cable and the screen would remain.

IT WOULD NOT BOOT WITH THIS CABLE

I am confused af but relieved as well. I'm off to buy new cables tomorrow.

**HiassofT** · December 25, 2022 at 12:03 AM

Test with a different HDMI cable and if you are using a case also without the case.

Argon cases have a long history of causing HDMI issues because of low manufacturing quality of their internal adapter PCB, but as I just experienced myself even cases without internal adapter boards can cause HDMI issues as they often won't let you fully plug in the HDMI connector - even half a millimeter or a millimeter can make a huge difference.

And it gets even worse if the HDMI cable is a bit worn out and starts to fall out easily.

I just had that issue here with a "full armor case" and both a new and an older HDMI cable, and also with a USB3 cable - have to say I absolutely hate the HDMI and USB connector crap, it's as bad as SCART was in the old days, non-interlocking connectors just cry for problems. Display port did it right, same goes for ethernet, VGA, DVI etc but the consumer connector crap is starting to really annoy me...

so long,

Hias

petediscrete · December 25, 2022 at 12:03 PM

Quote from veliki

Okay, after checking everything, reinstalling systems for 100th time, I finally found out what happened: it was the damned HDMI cable.
I used the raspberry branded cable ever since I got the first rp. Now, the confusing part was that I was able to boot the rp OS normally and I could get it on my screen etc. After hours of fiddling with almost anything and everything, I finally unpacked a brand new HDMI cable and...it worked. I could actually boot all my sd cards and the LibreELEC I had on them. Once booted, I can switch to the original cable and the screen would remain.
IT WOULD NOT BOOT WITH THIS CABLE
I am confused af but relieved as well. I'm off to buy new cables tomorrow.

Remember all HDMI cables are not created equally. You’ve probably got one of those cheap appliance based cables used for DVD players etc that are not fussy what is thrown at them. Whatever shortcuts you take on your system don’t take one with the HDMI cable. No doubt it shorted somewhere which caused a voltage imbalance.