[RPi4B] Argon One Case Shutdown

    Hello, I've been searching multiple forums to find out how can I completely shutdown my Raspi 4b but nothing seemed to solve my issue:

    I am running LibreELEC 10.0.3 and when I hit "s" on keyboard and select "Power off system" the screen goes black, everything seems ok - but the red LED on the Raspberry blinks once and then it stays on. So when I need to turn it on again I have to hold the power button on the case about 5 seconds to completely turn it off. Is there any solution to shut it down completely from the default dialog window? I am not very experienced with Linux overall so if someone knows any solution, please keep it "step by step" ^^ .

    Thank's for any answers

  • Go to Best Answer
    Quote from Da Flex

    Use the power button of your case instead, and add dtoverlay=gpio-shutdown to config.txt.

    Ok, I tried that, it's better than holding the button for 5 seconds and waiting untill the red led turns off but is it safe to do so? Will the system poweroff gracefully without corruption of any data on the SD card? I mean - it does the same thing even when I delete the "dtoverlay=gpio-shutdown" line in config.txt - I have to keep the button pressed for about 3 seconds and then screen goes black and red led turns off.

    Well, is there any other safe way to do this without pressing the button on the case, like somehow reprogram the "Power off system" in the dialog window?

    Remove the case, and shutdown from GUI. If RPi shuts down correctly, then your case is the problem.

    If it still hangs without the case, then your microSD eventually has a corrupted file system, and I suggest to install from scratch.

    Quote from Da Flex

    Remove the case, and shutdown from GUI. If RPi shuts down correctly, then your case is the problem.

    If it still hangs without the case, then your microSD eventually has a corrupted file system, and I suggest to install from scratch.

    I tried it without the case and with clean install, but the results are still the same.

    PS: The 3 seconds (long-press) on the Argon One power button is probably the "hard power-off", which eventually corrupted your file system. I suggest not to use the long-press again on a fresh LE installation.

    Quote from myshit

    I tried it without the case and with clean install, but the results are still the same.

    Important: Now don't use the Argon One case, until we found the shutdown issue.

    Activate debug logging at GUI, and try to shutdown from GUI again.

    • If you still have SSH after that, you can use pastekodi to upload kodi.log, and post the resulting link on the forum.
    • If you don't have SSH after the shutdown attempt, remove power, remove microSD, and copy the kodi.log content from microSD to PasteBin. Then post the link.
    Quote from Da Flex

    Important: Now don't use the Argon One case, until we found the shutdown issue.

    Activate debug logging at GUI, and try to shutdown from GUI again.

    • If you still have SSH after that, you can use pastekodi to upload kodi.log, and post the resulting link on the forum.
    • If you don't have SSH after the shutdown attempt, remove power, remove microSD, and copy the kodi.log content from microSD to PasteBin. Then post the link.

    I didn't have SSH access, it shutted down completely. I couldn't find kodi.log when I've taken out the SD card (Windows PC) so I turned the Raspi back on and got the log file from SSH if that's ok.

    Here it is: http://ix.io/4C4p

    Quote from Da Flex

    That's the log of your current session, which lacks the shutdown recordings.

    Logs are at /storage/.kodi/temp. We need one with a shutdown attempt.

    I can't access the file nor with ssh or from Windows PC when I remove the SD card. How can I do that? I turned on the logging before last shutdown like that: Settings>System>Logging>Enable debug logging, shouldn't it be in the log file when I use pastekodi?

    The STORAGE partition (/storage) is an EXT4 file system, so you need a tool to view EXT4 on Windows.

    Your last session is recorded at kodi.old.log, your current session at kodi.log.

    pastekodi only uploads kodi.log. Unfortunately that's not the one with the shutdown recordings.

    Quote from Da Flex

    The STORAGE partition (/storage) is an EXT4 file system, so you need a tool to view EXT4 on Windows.

    Your last session is recorded at kodi.old.log, your current session at kodi.log.

    pastekodi only uploads kodi.log. Unfortunately that's not the one with the shutdown recordings.

    Ok, this is the contents of the kodi.old file:

    External Content pastebin.com
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.

    Quote from myshit

    I can't access the file nor with ssh or from Windows PC when I remove the SD card. How can I do that? I turned on the logging before last shutdown like that: Settings>System>Logging>Enable debug logging, shouldn't it be in the log file when I use pastekodi?

    To access files from ext4 partition: download a "live linux" like Ubuntu (or Xubuntu, is smaller), write it to a USB stick and run it from USB (without install). The easyest way is installing the "Ventoy" boot loader to a USB stick and booting the "iso" file directly (or almost any bootable iso).

    About the RPi "full shutdown", I don't know in case of RPi4, but I measured once the power consumption of my RPi3B and was around 4-5W when playing video file. So if you too using daily your RPi, I don't know if worth the effort to "shutdown" it every times. ;)

    Quote from VLouis

    To access files from ext4 partition: download a "live linux" like Ubuntu (or Xubuntu, is smaller), write it to a USB stick and run it from USB (without install). The easyest way is installing the "Ventoy" boot loader to a USB stick and booting the "iso" file directly (or almost any bootable iso).

    About the RPi "full shutdown", I don't know in case of RPi4, but I measured once the power consumption of my RPi3B and was around 4-5W when playing video file. So if you too using daily your RPi, I don't know if worth the effort to "shutdown" it every times. ;)

    I already downloaded "Linux reader" utility for Windows and accessed the ext4 partition. I measured the Rpi4 consumption too, it was very similar to Rpi3 but sometimes I don't turn it on like for a week so it's not necessary to keep it powerd on. Also every watt counts you know - some smart things, routers, standby device etc, it adds up. I am also curious what solution can resolve this, it could be useful also useful in some other future projects and I am always happy to expand my knowledge.

    Quote from myshit

    sometimes I don't turn it on like for a week so it's not necessary to keep it powerd on. Also every watt counts you know - some smart things, routers, standby device etc, it adds up.

    In this case, it's a really simple solution, I'm using too:

    Just shutdown from from the LE menu, wait few seconds, till remain only the red led on, than use the switch. If "every watt counts", switch off the power source too. And this can resolve an another question too: "How to start an RPI after full shutdown". :)

    I'm even using something like this for my PC, I seen once a PC mainboard, burned badly in stand-by, because of a faulty PSU.

    myshit ,

    You will need some additional scripts that are part of the Argon Pi addon. Since the add-on was no longer maintained after the initial commit on GitHub, I ported it myself to make it work with LibreElec 10+ two years ago. I haven't touched this since then, but it still works with LibreElec 11 and you can also configure the fan speed.

    I'd have to look up the git repo and installation package. If my newly created user allows this at all, I could make it available here.