Trying to boot LibreELEC 11.0.6 on Beelink GT1 (S912)

    Hi,

    I'm trying to run LibreELEC 11.0.6 on a Beelink GT1 box, which was previously running CoreELEC 9.2.8 (from microSD card). I have installed the box image "LibreELEC-AMLGX.arm-11.0.6-box.img.gz" to a 8GB microSD card, and have edited the first line in uEnv.ini to "dtb_name=/dtb/meson-gxm-gt1.dtb".

    Initial boot goes well, with LibreELEC going succesfully through the partition resizing phase and rebooting. However, the final boot doesn't go well at all. It either hangs immediately (showing nothing except "LibreELEC (official): 11.0.6"), or it starts showing errors such as

    [FAILED] Failed to start avahi-defaults.service

    and/or

    [FAILED] Failed to start ethmactool-config.service


    Is this fixable? If yes, could someone help me on my way? Thanks very much!!

    It's hard to comment without seeing the boot log, but failure of ethmactool-config.service suggests the Ethernet NIC isn't working and thus you won't be able to SSH into the box to share that easily. Although: if you remove "quiet" from boot params in uEnv.ini there will be verbose output on screen and you can take/share some pics or a slow-motion video of boot (upload them to a file sharing site somewhere). You can also add "textmode" and it will (or might, depending on the issue) boot to a text console instead of Kodi, allowing you to connect a USB keyboard and poke around to see what's up.

    For kicks you can also try the box image from https://chewitt.libreelec.tv/testing which has newer kernel/drivers/everything. It's unlikely to resolve anything though.

    Hi Chewitt,

    Thanks for your reply!

    The strange thing is that the failure isn't perfectly repeatable. I've seen the boot process hang at different points on successive boots. I've removed "quiet" from the boot parameters and then did several attempts. The first time, it hung after

    [OK] Reached target network.target

    As an experiment, I then pulled out the network cable and rebooted. This time it continued further, but was not able to start nmbd.service. I then put back the network cable and rebooted, but it still continued past the point where it hung last time the network cable was inserted.

    Depending on the attempt, I see the boot hang when trying to start systemd-hostnamed.service, pulseaudio.service, wait-time-sync.service, comman.service, smbd.service and/or nmbd.service. I also sometimes see it fail to start ethmactool-config.service, but not always.

    I've also tried another SD card btw, but that doesn't seem to make much difference.

    I've tried adding the "textmode" parameter, but unfortunately the boot always hangs before it can reach a console.

    I've flashed the image "LibreELEC-AMLGX.aarch64-11.80.0-box.img.gz" from the directory you linked to, but the .dtb file for GT1 non-ultimate appears to be missing? I only see a .dtb for GT1 Ultimate.

    Alright I tried the test image with the GT1-ultimate .dtb file. It booted without issues!

    So then I got curious of course... did it boot OK because I used the test image, or because of the different .dtb file? So I tried the official "LibreELEC-AMLGX.arm-11.0.6-box.img.gz" box image again, but this time with the GT1-ultimate .dtb file. And it booted fine as well!

    So, for some reason, the .dtb file that is supposed to be correct for my Beelink GT1 doesn't work properly, whereas the one for GT1-Ultimate does at least boot fine. Although I guess I may run into problems with Bluetooth and Wifi later?

    Please provide a full debug log.

    How to post a log (wiki)

    1. Enable debugging in Settings>System Settings>Logging
    2. Restart Kodi
    3. Replicate the problem
    4. Generate a log URL (do not post/upload logs to the forum)

    use "Settings > LibreELEC > System > Paste system logs" or run "pastekodi" over SSH, then post the URL link

    Thanks again for your help.

    Do you mean I should:

    1. Enable debugging while system is using GT1-ultimate .dtb
    2. Shut down Kodi, then edit uEnv.ini to use regular GT1 .dtb
    3. Boot Kodi (which will again freeze half-way)
    4. Change back to Gt1-ultimate .dtb
    5. Retrieve logs?

    Alright, here's a link to the contents of kodi.log after a reboot with debugging enabled, using the GT1 Ultimate .dtb file:

    External Content pastebin.com
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    Code
    2024-02-05 22:57:56.439 T:970      info <general>: Running on Amlogic Meson GXM (S912) Beelink GT1 Ultimate with LibreELEC (official): 11.0.6, kernel: Linux ARM 64-bit version 6.1.38

    ^ That's not the LE12 image from my share. To share blame I'm also guilty of saying "debug log" when I meant "pastekodi" (or show the dmesg log) as I need to see the system boot data not Kodi things. Sorry..

    No worries, thanks for your patience.

    I did not bother with the LE12 image from your share anymore after I discovered that the actual thing stopping my device from booting was not the image itself, but rather the GT1 (non-ultimate) .dtb file that I configured (which was not even present in the LE12 image from your share). Once I started to use the GT1-ultimate .dtb file (on either the official LE11 image or the LE12 image from your share), everything worked fairly well...

    Are you saying it's better to use the LE12 image from your share than the official stable LE11 image? If so, please let me know. Meanwhile, here's the output of the pastekodi command from the official LE11 image:

    https://paste.libreelec.tv/funky-adder.log

    The LE12 image in my share has some additional fixes for playback things, but nothing earth-shatteringly important. I need to bump the kernel for LE12 sometime soon.

    Cool. So, but, using the GT1-Ultimate .dtb file, Bluetooth and Wifi do actually seem to function on my GT1 non-Ultimate, although I haven't tested it extensively. So, do I actually still have a problem? Shall I just keep using it with the Ultimate .dtb file, and be done with it?

    Thank you chewitt and vlix for this thread... I had the exact same issue vlix did, and switching the dtb over to the beelink GT1 Ultimate version worked. my ethernet doesn't appear to work, but the wifi is working just fine.

    My main goal for the old little GT1 was to participate in a docker swarm in my home hobby lab... for the life of me I could not get an Armbian build to boot. LibreElec is working great. Once I got Kodi working, configured networking, and then installed network / system tools, and then added the docker service. Since I no long need to use Kodi, will add ssh and textmode as a bootarg and system is good to go.

    Again, thank you and LibreElec teams... your work on this project is very much appreciated.