[RPi3A+] Can't get LibreELEC working

    Forgive me, as I am very new to this. But I have followed the instructions/videos on this to a tee and cannot get it to work.

    I have a Raspberry Pi 3A, a microSD, and the LibreELEC SD Creator.

    I tried writing the 12.0.2 OS to the SD card right out of the box. It finished, I placed the sd card into the pi3, plugged in the power, and it started booting. I got the LibreELEC logo, something about partitioning files, then the logo flashes and I get a huge wall of error messages.

    I thought maybe the size of the SD card might be the problem, since it's 256gb it is originally exFAT. So I also tried formatting it as FAT32, THEN writing the OS image. No luck either. I then used Disk Manager to wipe the SD card completely, leaving at as a big unallocated partition, then writing the OS. That didn't work either.

    I'm on Windows, and I don't know anything about Linux or Raspberry Pi, so please explain it to me like I'm a moron lol.

  • Go to Best Answer
    Quote from Da Flex

    Sorry, wrong hardware. 1GB of RAM is the minimum to make it work on RPi.

    So, just to be clear, LibreELEC will not work on Rpi 3A at all? Will the model 3b work? Seems like it has 1gb RAM. My goal here was native analog composite signal, so I don't wanna buy an Rpi 4 or 5

    Quote from Gary_Oak

    So, just to be clear, LibreELEC will not work on Rpi 3A at all? Will the model 3b work? Seems like it has 1gb RAM. My goal here was native analog composite signal, so I don't wanna buy an Rpi 4 or 5

    3B and 3B+ work. Before you buy another RPi, try this little trick:

    Post

    RE: LibreElec v11 on RPI3 won't start

    […]

    add dtoverlay=cma,cma-256 to /flash/config.txt - otherwise devices with 512MB RAM won't boot.

    so long,

    Hias
    HiassofT
    June 5, 2023 at 11:03 PM

    If you have no plans to run powerful add-ons on it, it might be stable enough.

    Quote from smp

    Old versions eg. LE 9.2.8 should work.

    Trying this version, flashed with Libre tool as well as Etcher, but now I get no video signal at all. Flashing green and red on the Pi but just a big [NO SIGNAL] on the monitor.

    Tried the config edit posted above as well

    • Best Answer
    Quote from Gary_Oak

    Trying this version, flashed with Libre tool as well as Etcher, but now I get no video signal at all. Flashing green and red on the Pi but just a big [NO SIGNAL] on the monitor.

    Tried the config edit posted above as well

    You did it right. There is a chance that you have a hardware revision, which wasn't supported by LE 9.2.8 firmware (firmware is part of the LE image). So you can still try LE 10 and 11 (newer firmware).

    Quote from Da Flex

    You did it right. There is a chance that you have a hardware revision, which wasn't supported by LE 9.2.8 firmware (firmware is part of the LE image).

    If it is this, you can install latest LE, copy firmware (bootcode.bin, start.elf, fixup.dat) somewhere safe.

    Install LE 9.2.8, then copy the newer firmware back on.

    Quote from Da Flex

    You did it right. There is a chance that you have a hardware revision, which wasn't supported by LE 9.2.8 firmware (firmware is part of the LE image). So you can still try LE 10 and 11 (newer firmware).

    This worked! Using the latest version now with the config edit you mentioned! Thank you so much.

    Now to figure out how to enable composite signal haha