LibreElec v11 on RPI3 won't start

    I only use SanDisk "Extreme" cards after finding some knock-offs and others unreliable. 100% reliability with these cards as long as I buy them direct from SD. Hopefully they keep their quality up and not too many "clones" start to appear. For now, all good. I also have tried this on 2 other 256gb cards I have and it's entirely repeatable every time.

    However, I've been wrong before, so I would be happy to test all these cards (and some other brands too), is there a "built" program anywhere for MacOS?

    Ok, so moving on...

    I downloaded RPI-OS 64-bit, and didn't even need to do the rpi-update, it failed without that. So, I feel pretty confident that this is a bug in the latest RPI kernel, since it doesn't show up when I install Ubuntu, Moode, LE9, LE10 or any of a number of other distros on this same card (and 2 others I have)

    RPI-OS 64-bit:

    Code
    13.0217721 mmcO: timeout waiting for hardware interrupt. 13.0254391 mmc0: error -110 whilst initialising SD card
23.261767] mmcO: timeout waiting for hardware interrupt.
23.265338] mmcO: error -110 whilst initialising SD card

    frakkin64 no, we don't publish stats, they are rather boring anyways as they didn't change too much over the years (total RPi userbase always was in the 70-80% ballpark, only a few shifts between RPi1, 2/3, 4 over time).

    And, yes, forum posts are only about issues, the users without problems are mainly silent - except for some rare "thank you"s here and there.

    OFC there's still a significant amount of RPi2/3 users on LE9 (because of HEVC) and the absolute number of RPi2/3 installations is still very large.

    And we also see still lots of other devices on older LE versions, most likely because they still "work just fine" - so no need to upgrade.

    Chip crisis prevented lots of users from upgrading to RPi4, this might change in the next half year when RPi4 production (hopefully) ramps up and shops can stock them again. So I expect to see RPi2 (which is already down to about 5%) and RPi3 installations to decline in numbers and RPi4 to increase.

    so long,

    Hias

    Quote from Meestor_X

    I also have tried this on 2 other 256gb cards I have and it's entirely repeatable every time.

    Ahh, thanks for the confirmation. So that closes that door.

    Quote from Meestor_X

    I downloaded RPI-OS 64-bit, and didn't even need to do the rpi-update, it failed without that. So, I feel pretty confident that this is a bug in the latest RPI kernel, since it doesn't show up when I install Ubuntu, Moode, LE9, LE10 or any of a number of other distros on this same card (and 2 others I have)

    Okay, so there we go. What I would do next is go over to Github and report the bug here:

    Issues · raspberrypi/linux
    Kernel source tree for Raspberry Pi-provided kernel builds. Issues unrelated to the linux kernel should be posted on the community forum at…
    github.com

    Just hit the New issue button, and see what the engineers over there can help figure out, and hopefully report back for others to learn your findings. Good luck.

    TY. I will do that. I assume there's no way to create a LE11 build that uses a slightly older kernel that perhaps doesn't have this bug?

    I do like the idea of being able to properly test an SD card, though. Wasn't really up for figuring out how to get f3 installed on my Mac so I took the lazy route: https://github.com/vrunkel/F3XSwift

    Tested my cards and they all pass. :)

    Quote from frakkin64

    Ahh, thanks for the confirmation. So that closes that door.

    Okay, so there we go. What I would do next is go over to Github and report the bug here:

    https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/issues

    Just hit the New issue button, and see what the engineers over there can help figure out, and hopefully report back for others to learn your findings. Good luck.

    As I mentioned above here’s a typical response from the RPI forum.

    Max SD card size on Raspberry Pi 4 - Raspberry Pi Forums

    The card needs to be checked for integrity as should any other high capacity cards purchased through the same channel.

    I included a link for a simple utility that will do the job. Once that’s ruled out the OP can proceed in the knowledge that he got what he purchased.

    Quote from petediscrete

    As I mentioned above here’s a typical response from the RPI forum.

    https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=244295

    The card needs to be checked for integrity as should any other high capacity cards purchased through the same channel.

    I included a link for a simple utility that will do the job. Once that’s ruled out the OP can proceed in the knowledge that he got what he purchased.

    And of the OP needs any further convincing another link on the subject from the RPI forum directly mentioning the utility f3. https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=309925

    Anyway that’s me done and good luck with the outcome.

    Edited once, last by petediscrete: Merged a post created by petediscrete into this post. (March 14, 2023 at 11:07 PM).

    Sorry, Pete, I know you mean well, and I do understand that µSD cards can be trouble, but this time I'm afraid you're barking up the wrong tree. I do appreciate your efforts in trying to help though.

    Please see:

    Post

    RE: LibreElec v11 on RPI3 won't start

    TY. I will do that. I assume there's no way to create a LE11 build that uses a slightly older kernel that perhaps doesn't have this bug?

    I do like the idea of being able to properly test an SD card, though. Wasn't really up for figuring out how to get f3 installed on my Mac so I took the lazy route: https://github.com/vrunkel/F3XSwift

    Tested my cards and they all pass. :)
    Meestor_X
    March 14, 2023 at 10:54 PM
    Quote from Meestor_X

    Sorry, Pete, I know you mean well, and I do understand that µSD cards can be trouble, but this time I'm afraid you're barking up the wrong tree. I do appreciate your efforts in trying to help though.

    Please see:

    Post

    RE: LibreElec v11 on RPI3 won't start

    TY. I will do that. I assume there's no way to create a LE11 build that uses a slightly older kernel that perhaps doesn't have this bug?

    I do like the idea of being able to properly test an SD card, though. Wasn't really up for figuring out how to get f3 installed on my Mac so I took the lazy route: https://github.com/vrunkel/F3XSwift

    Tested my cards and they all pass. :)
    Meestor_X
    March 14, 2023 at 10:54 PM

    I’m barking up nobody’s tree. Just trying to assist. I suggested doing that early on in this topic but got a distinct impression you weren’t interested.

    There’s no empiric data to suggest that large capacity SD cards are any less suitable than their smaller capacity counterparts with LE11. No shortage of supposition though. Of course it is early days in the cycle.

    As I said good luck with finding a solution.

    Quote from Meestor_X

    Before I post a bug report on GitHub, can you tell me what kernel LE11 uses and is it 32 or 64-bit?

    Linux 6.1.y built from the upstream Raspbeery Pi Foundation sources (that we contribute to). The kernel is 64-bit, but userspace is 32-bit.

    On RPi2/3 the kernel is 32bit, the official LE11.0.0 release uses kernel 6.1 (currently it's 6.1.19 on latest nightly).

    LE10 uses kernel 5.10 (5.10.110 on latest LE10 build).

    The earliest LE11 nightly build, 20220618, uses kernel 5.15.45.

    You can look up the exact state the nightly was build from via the githash at the end of the image (eg b78941a for the 20220618-b78941a image) and feeding that into github. eg:

    LibreELEC.tv/package.mk at b78941aa4a4795fdc3c3dbcadd6216ce4a102dba · LibreELEC/LibreELEC.tv
    Just enough OS for KODI. Contribute to LibreELEC/LibreELEC.tv development by creating an account on GitHub.
    github.com
    Code
      raspberrypi)
    PKG_VERSION="6b945e6f05d5cb0a299dbbb9bdd285aff330a204" # 5.15.45

    so long,

    Hias

    Should I try rpi-update in case my firmware is out of date on this RPI3?

    Seems when I ssh into LE, the usual commands don't work (apt update/upgrade, sudo, rpi-update)

    Quote from Meestor_X

    Should I try rpi-update in case my firmware is out of date on this RPI3?

    Seems when I ssh into LE, the usual commands don't work (apt update/upgrade, sudo, rpi-update)

    No. LE always supplies the needed firmware version during installation.

    Ok, TY.

    Well, I don't see a single person reporting the same issue I'm having, here or on the RPI forums, so it might be premature for me to report it as a bug. Could be something specific to my RPI3 or the SanDisk cards or LE11 or ??

    I would think others will have tried larger µSD cards and if there were a widespread problem, there's be other reports of it. So, I'm a bit confused as to what the actual problem could be...

    As you say one single issue or a combination of issues, both hardware and software could be at the root of the problem. Here’s a typical example of an experience one user had on an RPI4 with an SD card with an unrelated application. You can see the outcome.

    Raspberry Pi 4 Model B Rev 1.5 - error -5 whilst initialising SD card
    Hello, i did some more testing with core 172 and 173 not working anymore when booting from SD Card - You get an Error: USB XHCI 1.00 scanning bus xhci_pci…
    community.ipfire.org

    Personally I wouldn’t waste any further time pursuing this. If you really do need a large capacity drive for LE go the SSD route. A much more reliable bet. You could of course use a smaller capacity proven to work SD card and off load media files (recordings, videos, music etc.) to external attached storage.

    I don’t see a solution to your problem large capacity SD card coming down the line anytime soon. I’d rather just sit back and enjoy LE than spending countless hours playing around with the installation.

    Quote from Meestor_X

    Well, I don't see a single person reporting the same issue I'm having, here or on the RPI forums, so it might be premature for me to report it as a bug. Could be something specific to my RPI3 or the SanDisk cards or LE11 or ??

    Yep, your situation is pretty unusual (works on 5.10, not anything later). It's not LE11 specific, you more or less proved that. But you said earlier you have used Ubuntu and other OSes, have you taken inventory what version of the Linux kernel was running on those? Considering this issue has been there since at least 5.15, and no one else reported it, seems to suggest a fairly unique to you problem.

    The easiest solution is to probably to re-evaluate whether you really need a large SD card (256GB is quite large for a media center, but not sure what other stuff your doing there) and perhaps downsize/buy a different class/brand/something. There is quite the possibility that the engineers over at Raspberry Pi may not spend a lot of effort on it, considering there isn't widespread reports -- although they dug into the CPU problem (not all cores were coming up sporadically) that I had and I was the only one reporting it.

    Quote from frakkin64

    Yep, your situation is pretty unusual (works on 5.10, not anything later). It's not LE11 specific, you more or less proved that. But you said earlier you have used Ubuntu and other OSes, have you taken inventory what version of the Linux kernel was running on those? Considering this issue has been there since at least 5.15, and no one else reported it, seems to suggest a fairly unique to you problem.

    The easiest solution is to probably to re-evaluate whether you really need a large SD card (256GB is quite large for a media center, but not sure what other stuff your doing there) and perhaps downsize/buy a different class/brand/something. There is quite the possibility that the engineers over at Raspberry Pi may not spend a lot of effort on it, considering there isn't widespread reports -- although they dug into the CPU problem (not all cores were coming up sporadically) that I had and I was the only one reporting it.

    I’m all for fault finding. Probably the best education you’ll get on the platform you’re working on. It’s knowing the right time to quit. That’s the best lesson learnt.

    Personally I find the RPI over priced, over hyped and under engineered. The quality of the boards has definitely slipped since its first incarnation. It could well be some fault in the hardware or firmware causing the problem but without some form of batch testing in a controlled environment it’s just a crap shoot fault finding this problem and one sure way of turning you off the platform for life.