BPI-R4 - Openwrt install impossible/or beginner

Banana Pi Router design BPI-R4/BPI-R4 Pro(MT7988)
1

Hi Community,

the whole day I tried to get openwrt updated on my fresh bpi-r4, without success. I have the modell with 8GB and the BE14 Card. I managed to flash the 8GB bl2 but I think to a different bootvolume!? But thats it, then I tried somehow to update the old 21.02 but without success.

Actual status: Switch 1,1

F0: 102B 0000
FA: 1042 0000
FA: 1042 0000 [0200]
F9: 1041 0000
F3: 1001 0000 [0200]
F3: 1001 0000
F6: 380E 5800
F5: 4801 0000
00: 1005 0000
FA: 1042 0000
FA: 1042 0000 [0200]
F9: 1041 0000
F3: 1001 0000 [0200]
F3: 1001 0000
F6: 380E 5800
01: 102A 0001
02: 1005 0000
BP: 0200 00C0 [0001]
EC: 0000 0000 [3000]
MK: 0000 0000 [0000]
T0: 0000 019A [0101]
System halt!

Switch 0, 1

NOTICE:  BL2: v2.11.0(release):
NOTICE:  BL2: Built : 11:21:00, Mar  8 2025
NOTICE:  WDT: Cold boot
NOTICE:  WDT: disabled
NOTICE:  CPU: MT7988
NOTICE:  EMI: DDR4 4BG mode
NOTICE:  EMI: Using DDR unknown settings
NOTICE:  EMI: Detected DRAM size: 8192 MB
NOTICE:  EMI: complex R/W mem test passed
WARNING: CASN page check failed
WARNING: Fail to read CASN page. Try reading parameter page
NOTICE:  SPI_NAND parses attributes from parameter page.
NOTICE:  SPI_NAND Detected ID 0xef
NOTICE:  Page size 2048, Block size 131072, size 268435456
NOTICE:  Initializing NMBM ...
NOTICE:  Signature found at block 2047 [0x0ffe0000]
NOTICE:  First info table with writecount 0 found in block 1920
NOTICE:  Second info table with writecount 0 found in block 1923
NOTICE:  NMBM has been successfully attached in read-only mode
WARNING: Firmware Image Package header check failed.
ERROR:   io_dev_init failed for FIP image id 0 (-2)
ERROR:   Image id 3 open failed with -2
WARNING: Failed to obtain reference to image id=3 (-2)
ERROR:   BL2: Failed to load image id 3 (-2)

Switch 1,0

        ( ( ( OpenWrt ) ) )  [SD card]       U-Boot 2024.10-OpenWrt-r28872-daca7c049b (Sep 19 2025 - 21:1
      1. Run default boot command.
      2. Boot system via TFTP.
      3. Boot production system from SD card.
      4. Boot recovery system from SD card.
      5. Load production system via TFTP then write to SD card.
      6. Load recovery system via TFTP then write to SD card.
      7. Install bootloader, recovery and production to NAND.
      8. Reboot.
      9. Reset all settings to factory defaults.
      0. Exit

Trying to run default boot mode brings up this here:

Card did not respond to voltage select! : -110
mmc_init: -95, time 17
Card did not respond to voltage select! : -110
mmc_init: -95, time 17
Card did not respond to voltage select! : -110
mmc_init: -95, time 17
Using ethernet@15100000 device
TFTP from server 192.168.1.254; our IP address is 192.168.1.1
Filename 'openwrt-mediatek-filogic-bananapi_bpi-r4-initramfs-recovery.itb'.
Load address: 0x50000000
Loading: *
ARP Retry count exceeded; starting again
Wrong Image Type for bootm command
ERROR -91: can't get kernel image!
Using ethernet@15100000 device
TFTP from server 192.168.1.254; our IP address is 192.168.1.1
Filename 'openwrt-mediatek-filogic-bananapi_bpi-r4-initramfs-recovery.itb'.
Load address: 0x50000000
Loading: *

I tried now to use this tutorial with flashing emmc, but its not working as switch 1,1 gets system halt: Banana Pi BPI-R4: OpenWrt Quickstart – Interfacing Linux

So i tried to flash it with Switch 1, 0 to install bootloader, recovery and production to nand. But here is the question what exactly to have on the sd card? I put on the snapshot from the sd-card image, gets me this feedback, and after rebooting, nothing else:

spi-nand0' is now active device
* spi-nand0
  - device: spi_nand@0
  - parent: spi@1100a000
  - driver: spi_nand
  - type: NAND flash
  - block size:        0x20000 bytes
  - page size:         0x800 bytes
  - OOB size:          128 bytes
  - OOB available:     56 bytes
  - 0x000000000000-0x000010000000 : "spi-nand0"
          - 0x000000000000-0x000000200000 : "bl2"
          - 0x000000200000-0x000008000000 : "ubi"
Erasing 0x00000000 ... 0x07dfffff (1008 eraseblock(s))
ubi0: default fastmap pool size: 50
ubi0: default fastmap WL pool size: 25
ubi0: attaching mtd2
ubi0: scanning is finished
ubi0: empty MTD device detected
ubi0: attached mtd2 (name "ubi", size 126 MiB)
ubi0: PEB size: 131072 bytes (128 KiB), LEB size: 126976 bytes
ubi0: min./max. I/O unit sizes: 2048/2048, sub-page size 2048
ubi0: VID header offset: 2048 (aligned 2048), data offset: 4096
ubi0: good PEBs: 1008, bad PEBs: 0, corrupted PEBs: 0
ubi0: user volume: 0, internal volumes: 1, max. volumes count: 128
ubi0: max/mean erase counter: 0/0, WL threshold: 4096, image sequence number: 0
ubi0: available PEBs: 962, total reserved PEBs: 46, PEBs reserved for bad PEB handling: 40
Card did not respond to voltage select! : -110
mmc_init: -95, time 17
Press ENTER to return to menu

Problem for me is in advance to catch the right Files for updates - what is it all, why does an emmc image not exist? https://firmware-selector.openwrt.org/?version=SNAPSHOT&target=mediatek%2Ffilogic&id=bananapi_bpi-r4 I was stuck sometimes to have a wrong image, when I tried using this: Banana Pi BPI-R4 | BananaPi Docs

So right now iam completely lost with the pi and I hope you can help a total beginner with the install. I wrote the whole day with KI to get to a solution tried so many things - right now, iam at the end of the road and need your help please.

2

As a beginner, start with SD card.

3

I do have bad experience with sd-cards. Killed some of them in raspis, because of to many read/writes and therefore I wanted to use the emmc. Would be very kind when you can help me out here.

4

Openwrt is very different then a rasp-pi running Raspbian. Openwrt can even be installed on nand, which is even a lot worse, concerning wear, then a sd card.

And, I only suggested as a to begin with. It is also a very good platform, from where you can write to Nand, from which then you write to emmc. This is a common route to take, specially now emmc and Nand won’t boot anymore.

5

As usual with such devices, you must boot from sdcard at first time. You got already access to console and you have sent a screenshot from u-boot menu. In this menu you can choose option 7 (transfer from sdcard to nand). Then you can switch from sdcard boot to nand boot and in the same boot menu you will find the option “transfer to emmc”. A complex procedure, I agree, but emmc and sdcard are not working at the same time.

Which image to use? Goto https://firmware-selector.openwrt.org/, enter bananapi r4 as device and choose the sdcard image from the buttons below. Unpack it (its a gz archive) and use the imager of your choice for transferring to sdcard. Please note as the former content of sdcard will be deleted.

Good luck Go

6

Hi Gotthard,

thank you so much. Did now everything it in 20 Minutes. Issue was to only copy the img to the sd card/flash directly… Now did image the sd card and start from there - works flawlessly. Copied to nand and bootet from there after set the switches - works flawlessly. Here I could copy to emmc - which also works flawlessly now.

Thank you so much for directing the right way. That did it.