Banana Pi M2U No boot

alcikoper · August 16, 2025 at 10:03 PM

I've tried booting Banana Pi M2 Ultra with LibreELEC-R40.arm-12.2.0-bananapi-m2u.img.gz on a microsd card but it stucks at very first step:

Code

U-Boot SPL 2025.07 (Aug 13 2025 - 23:32:47 +0000)
DRAM: 2048 MiB
Trying to boot from MMC1

Stock Android image on the e-mmc and stock Ubuntu image on another SD card boots fine on the same device.

alcikoper · August 16, 2025 at 10:51 PM

After this I've tried the older LibreELEC-R40.arm-12.0.2-bananapi-m2u.img.gz image and it proceeds further, shows Libreelec picture

Code

U-Boot 2024.01 (Jan 19 2025 - 21:37:00 +0000) Allwinner Technology

CPU:   Allwinner R40 (SUN8I 1701)
Model: Banana Pi BPI-M2-Ultra
DRAM:  2 GiB
Core:  59 devices, 21 uclasses, devicetree: separate
WDT:   Not starting watchdog@1c20c90
MMC:   mmc@1c0f000: 0, mmc@1c10000: 2, mmc@1c11000: 1
Loading Environment from FAT... Unable to read "uboot.env" from mmc0:1...
In:    serial@1c28000
Out:   serial@1c28000
Err:   serial@1c28000
Net:   No ethernet found.
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0
switch to partitions #0, OK
mmc0 is current device
Scanning mmc 0:1...
Found /extlinux/extlinux.conf
Retrieving file: /extlinux/extlinux.conf
1:      LibreELEC
Retrieving file: /KERNEL
append: boot=UUID=1901-3650 disk=UUID=1b00dc9a-0bd6-4bdf-a943-108ad6b52376 quiet console=ttyS0,115200 console=tty1
Retrieving file: /sun8i-r40-bananapi-m2-ultra.dtb
Kernel image @ 0x42000000 [ 0x000000 - 0x9d77d0 ]
## Flattened Device Tree blob at 43000000
   Booting using the fdt blob at 0x43000000
Working FDT set to 43000000
   Loading Device Tree to 49ff3000, end 49fff62c ... OK
Working FDT set to 49ff3000

Starting kernel ...

[    0.001943] /cpus/cpu@0 missing clock-frequency property
[    0.002014] /cpus/cpu@1 missing clock-frequency property
[    0.002051] /cpus/cpu@2 missing clock-frequency property
[    0.002087] /cpus/cpu@3 missing clock-frequency property
[    0.559168] sun4i-pinctrl 1c20800.pinctrl: request() failed for pin 198
[    0.565856] sun4i-pinctrl 1c20800.pinctrl: pin-198 (1c28c00.serial) status -517
[    0.573179] sun4i-pinctrl 1c20800.pinctrl: could not request pin 198 (PG6) from group PG6  on device 1c20800.pinctrl
[    0.583741] dw-apb-uart 1c28c00.serial: Error applying setting, reverse things back
[    1.415535] sun4i-pinctrl 1c20800.pinctrl: request() failed for pin 202
[    1.422369] sun4i-pinctrl 1c20800.pinctrl: pin-202 (1c20800.pinctrl:202) status -517
[    1.434034] sun4i-pinctrl 1c20800.pinctrl: request() failed for pin 192
[    1.440839] sun4i-pinctrl 1c20800.pinctrl: pin-192 (1c10000.mmc) status -517
[    1.448081] sun4i-pinctrl 1c20800.pinctrl: could not request pin 192 (PG0) from group PG0  on device 1c20800.pinctrl
[    1.458825] sunxi-mmc 1c10000.mmc: Error applying setting, reverse things back

..........

Display More

After that I've had other problems but that's probably unrelated to issue above

warnerk · October 12, 2025 at 3:48 PM

I had 12.0.2 running on a BananaPi-M2 Berry and tried the update procedure from within LibreElec console. Screen went black and further no boot.
So I flashed the 12.2.0 and that does not boot. So tried the 12.0.2-bananapi-m2u image and that does not boot either.
So I tried 2020-04-19-raspbian-jessie-bpi-m2u-sd-emmc.img and that does boot.

Any ideas?

**jernej** · October 12, 2025 at 4:44 PM

Post

RE: [Orange Pi PC-Plus] version 12.2.0 does not start

leoneii Issue is solved by kernel update in nightly v12.2 images.

Fix: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-sound/87…[email protected]/

jernej

October 6, 2025 at 4:44 PM

warnerk · October 12, 2025 at 8:59 PM

I flashed the LibreELEC-R40.arm-12.2-nightly-20251008-fd9623b-bananapi-m2u.img.gz but still no green led activity

warnerk · October 12, 2025 at 9:20 PM

I wonder if I am using the correct image?
Has it something to do with 32/64 bit?

**chewitt** · October 13, 2025 at 2:04 AM

If neither LE or Armbian images for the board boot, it's either bad hardware or something in common boot code that both distros share. Do you have a UART cable that can be attached to show early boot output?

warnerk · October 13, 2025 at 11:57 AM

Yes, I'll hook things up to see what happens. Strange thing is that an old respbian does boot...

warnerk · October 13, 2025 at 12:33 PM

What is the setting for the debugport, I tried 115200 8N1 but only garbage comes out

warnerk · October 13, 2025 at 1:16 PM

Tried other serial adapter. Now get the message:

U-Boot SPL 2025.07 (Oct 12 2025 - 20:27:55 +0000)
DRAM 1024 Mib
Trying to boot from MMC1

And that's the end.

When I start from the raspbian-jessie I get a different startup.
First:
[294]HELLO BPI! BOOT0 is starting!
it ends with:
[600]Jump to secend boot
then
U-Boot 2014.07 (April 19 2020 - 14:29:12) Allwinner Technology
and then continues

**jernej** · October 13, 2025 at 5:07 PM

Ok, so there is some issue with mainline U-Boot. R40 is so rare that nobody raised issue before. I guess some bisecting is in order...

warnerk · October 13, 2025 at 8:16 PM

If I can help, please say so.
The strange thing is that I had 12.0.2 running on the BPi and then I decided to update...
I shouldn't have done that.. But talking afterwards is always easy..
And I tried to install 12.0.2 and that does not start either..
puzzled...

I tried 10.0.4 and that boots and starts.

I'll try 11.0.6 next

warnerk · October 13, 2025 at 9:03 PM

I tried 11.0.6 and that works.
I tried 12.0.2 and that works too.

I was misinterpreting that the green led should show activity when the system starts, but that is not the case.
At least not with LibreElec. With Raspbian it does.

**jernej** · October 13, 2025 at 9:09 PM

I found the issue, but I'm not sure how to solve it yet. It's extremely weird. U-Boot is not built correctly, that much is obvious. However, reason why is curious. If I put .git folder into source folder, then it builds correctly. It seems that some tool require git metadata to decide something. I have to find which tool causes that.

This is second weird build bug that I'm researching in last week or so...

warnerk · October 13, 2025 at 9:59 PM

Years ago I heard someone say that with computers everything would be easier.....

Banana Pi M2U No boot

RE: [Orange Pi PC-Plus] version 12.2.0 does not start

Similar Threads

[RPi4 Netboot] When network booting, /storage is mounted read-only, causing a crash

[RPi4][LE12.0.2] No HDMI Output

[RPi5] PINN * LibreELEC 12 * Batocera