Re: Unable to boot Pi 3b+ UPDATED

On Aug 17, 2023, at 11:08, Peter G <list-freebsd-arm@box559.com> wrote:

> Apologies for top posting, but now that I understand the problem better, most of the stuff below is not relevant. Here's the whole issue:
> 
> Late last year there was a new hardware release of the Raspberry Pi 3B+ board. The PMIC chip was changed; more information is here:
> https://pip.raspberrypi.com/categories/797-pcn/documents/RP-003337-PC/Pi3B-Revision-9-PCN.pdf
> The new board is Rev. 1.4, a.k.a. a020d4.
> 
> The FreeBSD image at
> http://ftp3.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/ISO-IMAGES/13.2/FreeBSD-13.2-RELEASE-arm64-aarch64-RPI.img.xz
> boots fine on the old Rev. 1.3 version of the board but it fails to boot on the Rev 1.4 version. I have tried it on more than one example of each version of the board. 1.3 boards boot fine, 1.4 boards fail to boot and flash the green LED in 4 long - 7 short pattern.
> 
> Not sure what to do about this. Is it a known problem? Should I file a bug report?

From the *.pdf document that you referenced:

QUOTE
Software/Firmware Changes Required
This new product revision is supported in firmware versions from September 2021 onwards.
The firmware version . . . It can also be found for an image by running
 strings /boot/start.elf | grep VC_BUILD
END QUOTE

(The /boot/ path is not from FreeBSD, so replace
with a FreeBSD path. Also, start4.elf is of more
direct interest here.)

Until the recent change in systuil/rpi-firmware ,
FreeBSD simply used too old of an RPI* firmware
version (over 2 years old) to work for the RPi3B+
Rev 1.4 (or later) parts.

I'm not aware of FreeBSD re-releasing the likes of
a releng/X.Y with just updated RPi* firmware (or an
updated U-Boot since such is also available now).

Any solution must involve replacing the older
firmware with newer firmware. But the port to
package builder is not done yet --and once it
is there is also distribution time after that
before the update will be available.

One way to do that replacement now is to get the
material from the msdosfs for one of the snapshot
builds that I referenced:

http://ftp3.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/snapshots/ISO-IMAGES/14.0/FreeBSD-14.0-ALPHA1-arm64-aarch64-RPI-20230811-136fc495615f-264678.img.xz

or, possibly one that I've not validated that
it has the new RPi* firmware and U-Boot:

http://ftp3.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/snapshots/ISO-IMAGES/13.2/FreeBSD-13.2-STABLE-arm64-aarch64-RPI-20230810-5abba9619cbb-256019.img.xz

There is a newer stable/13 one today:

http://ftp3.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/snapshots/ISO-IMAGES/13.2/FreeBSD-13.2-STABLE-arm64-aarch64-RPI-20230817-31d385e78eba-256060.img.xz

The main snapshot build had its own
systuil/rpi-firmware build that was used.
The stable/13 ones may have as well.


> Mark Millard wrote on 2023-08-16 06:45:
>> On Aug 16, 2023, at 01:49, Peter G <list-freebsd-arm@box559.com> wrote:
>>> Mark Millard wrote on 2023-08-15 20:25:
>>>> On Aug 15, 2023, at 19:17, Peter G <list-freebsd-arm@box559.com> wrote:
>>>>> I am unable to get FreeBSD-13.2-RELEASE-arm64-aarch64 to boot on either of two brand new Raspberry Pi 3B+ boards. (Just as a diagnostic, I checked that both work perfectly well with Raspberry Pi OS.)  I have tried several different brands and sizes of SD card (which all boot fine with Raspberry Pi OS). I have redone the image downloads multiple times and verified the checksums. I burn images to the SD card on another machine using dd with bs=1M. If I mount the prepared SD cards on that other machine, I can confirm the files are readable.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I have tried both
>>>>> /ftp/releases/arm64/aarch64/ISO-IMAGES/13.2/FreeBSD-13.2-RELEASE-arm64-aarch64-RPI.img
>>>> It may not be likely to be the issue, but you did not mention
>>>> it explicitly, so . . .
>>>> I instead see:
>>>> http://ftp3.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/ISO-IMAGES/13.2/FreeBSD-13.2-RELEASE-arm64-aarch64-RPI.img.xz
>>> 
>>> Yes, this is what I used. Sorry to not have been more explicit; I used unxz -k to extract the .img file before dd'ing it to the SD card.
>>> 
>>>> Note the *.xz naming. I do not see a: FreeBSD-13.2-RELEASE-arm64-aarch64-RPI.img
>>>> to download
>>>> After downloading FreeBSD-13.2-RELEASE-arm64-aarch64-RPI.img.xz ,
>>>> using:
>>>> # unxz FreeBSD-13.2-RELEASE-arm64-aarch64-RPI.img.xz
>>>> would produce a:
>>>> FreeBSD-13.2-RELEASE-arm64-aarch64-RPI.img
>>>> That, in turn, would be dd'd to the microsd card.
>>>>> and
>>>>> /ftp/releases/arm64/aarch64/ISO-IMAGES/13.2/FreeBSD-13.2-RELEASE-arm64-aarch64-disc1.iso.
>>>> Definitely the wrong media: no RPi* firmware, no U-Boot for the
>>>> aarch64 RPi* , and so on.
>>> 
>>> Lack of a boot loader would explain why I get no green LED at all with the disc1.iso
>>> 
>>> The other image, the RPI.img one, at least tries to boot, as evidenced by the 4 long and 7 short blinks of the green LED. As a further diagnostic, I took that same SD card that blinks the LED and fails to boot in the 3B+ and put it in a Pi 4, where it boots fine.
>>> 
>>> So the RPI.img, the one you suggested above, is booting and working well in the Pi 4 but the exact same SD card fails to boot in the Pi 3B+. Since my two Pi 3B+s both work fine with other (non-FreeBSD) images, it seems that there must be a problem with that FreeBSD image on the PI 3B+. Are there any known issues with the boot loader on the Pi 3B+?
>>> 
>>> Again, perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't know what else to try. Suggestions most welcome.
>> https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=259438 comment #4 indicates 13.2 booting
>> an example (older) RPi3B+ for someone that has one. (I do not have access to any vintage
>> of RPi3B+ .)
>> This, with your finding that your media does boot a RPi4B, suggests that modern RPi*3B+'s
>> have some sort of technical change that requires newer RPi* firmware than releng/13.2
>> contains. (I do not expect that U-Boot would do the blinking activity, for example.)
>> You could try a microsd card made from a modern snapshot. If that works, you
>> could replace appropriate msdosfs material on the releng/13.2 media with
>> materials from the modern snapshot and then see if that boots.
>> I've used:
>> http://ftp3.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/snapshots/ISO-IMAGES/14.0/FreeBSD-14.0-ALPHA1-arm64-aarch64-RPI-20230811-136fc495615f-264678.img.xz
>> and know it has the modern RPi* firmware. Likely the following would as well,
>> but I've done nothing that would confirm or deny that:
>> http://ftp3.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/snapshots/ISO-IMAGES/13.2/FreeBSD-13.2-STABLE-arm64-aarch64-RPI-20230810-5abba9619cbb-256019.img.xz
>> Do you have a serial console environment for the RPi3B+'s? It is hard to get
>> evidence from early problems without such. Capturing and reporting the serial
>> console output (if any) would be relevant evidence. For example, it would
>> likely be obvious if it reached the U-Boot stage or not.
>>>>> Neither boots.
>>>>> The first image gives green LED blinks: slow four and then fast seven. The second never blinks.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Any advice on what I'm missing would be appreciated.
>>> 
> 


===
Mark Millard
marklmi at yahoo.com