I have 2 banana pi r4, in one of them it doesn’t let me in the main menu, choose any option, can someone help me why it happens, I have put 2 different uart in case that was the fault, but I still can’t choose any option.
when the installation finishes completely it doesn’t let me write anything either.
before I had no problem I used uart cp2102 and now I have FT232 FT232BL FT232RL USB 2.0 to TTL installed.
but as I have commented the boot is blocked and I can’t choose any option, I had to use this method to be able to install on the nand
Note: when you want to Update Nand device, Firstly Change boot switch to boot from SD device and insert one SD with SD boot Image, then after boot up,you need flash one nand image into nand device. Finally you change bootstrap to boot from Nand device.
Before burning image into Nand, please prepare a USB disk. Let’s take OpenWrt image (mtk-bpi-r4-NAND-20231030.img) for example, the steps are below:
Copy Nand boot OpenWrt image(mtk-bpi-r4-NAND-20231030.img) to USB disk.
Change boot switch Jumper, the board boot from SD device, then power up the board.
Plug in USB disk to the board, and mount the USB to /mnt or other directory as follows: (you can skip mounting if it is mounted automatically)
mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt
change your directory to the mounting point, here is: cd /mnt
Execute following command to erase the whole Nand flash and copy image to nand device:
and without problems the latest mtk-bpi-r4-MT76-NAND-20240202 image is installed on the nand, and it boots without problems. The screenshot is from this latest image.
Good afternoon @franco-w, I can’t write anything, but on the other banana pi with the 2 uarts I have no problem.
I can write without problems through putty, but it doesn’t respond through the com port
but it doesn’t let me select any menu option manually.
If I put the other banana I can write perfectly in the com3 and com4 ports that are enabled for each uart and they work correctly. I discard the rx of the uart that is broken…
Also through tftpd64 I write openwrt in another kind of routers that I put openwrt on, but since it is a factory image there is only this way
I meant not putty via ssh,i meant over serial but after uboot. So if your adapter including the cable works on another board (make sure you operating with 3.3v). And the same cobination does not work on this board sonething is wrong with uart rx on board. Maybe soldering is broken or the uart line on SoC.
Good morning, on the motherboard that works correctly, it lets me run through the menu and I can install on emmc, on the motherboard with the same image on the nand it doesn’t let me run through the menu.
At least I think it should stop running through the menu, I don’t know if uart influences being able to run and install on emmc.
I’m looking for this file bl2_emmc-r4.img but I can’t find it anywhere, to be able to install with this method on emmc, maybe you have it, and see if that way I can solve the problem.
the file I need is this bl2_emmc-r4.img, and with this method I can write to emmc.
Plug in USB disk to the board, and mount the USB to /mnt or other directory as follows: (you can skip mounting if it is mounted automatically)
mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt
change your directory to the mounting point, here is: cd /mnt
You should fix first uart on sdcard before trying to install something on emmc. For bl2 maybe you can try one from my uboot repo releases. Imho it should have all necessary. If you want to use openwrt you may need another which searches fip in ubifs.
Good afternoon, I have the file for this image, but I have recorded the image BPI-R4-BE1350-WIFI_MT76-20240202, inside it had bl2_emmc-r4.img, I have been able to record the emmc, but I see that even though I have a paid VPN and I use the main router with it, it gives me 3 GB less speed,
apart from that I still can’t navigate through the menu.
Good afternoon, when I said putty I was referring to com4. I have noticed that since I recorded in emmc, if I go back to nand the image has been corrupted and I have to record it again.
With con 4 it doesn’t let me do anything.
I have images of com4, and then the image has become corrupted. The nand
Now I have to re-record the NAND again, I think that once I re-record it, when I reboot it is no longer corrupted.
Hello @frank-w, I tried via sd with your build, but since it doesn’t let me do anything with com4, I couldn’t set up the network, and so I couldn’t do anything.
via ssh in openwrt with the official image mtk-bpi-r4-MT76-SD-20240202, I get this via ssh in case it gives you any clues.
If you can think of something, I’ve changed cables and uarts since I have 3 different ones and none of them let me select anything from the menu, and it also doesn’t let me write anything via com.
via ssh it does let me enter, but of course nothing comes out of the menu.
These are uart settings for minicom i guess,not ssh and there you should disable hardware flow control.but this is client side,not r4 side.it looks like you start minicom on r4 and operating on ttyS0 from there. This does not make sense…you have to connect from client via your uart (comX in windows) and configure it without flowcontrol and 115200baud 8n1
via com it doesn’t let me write anything, that’s why even though I installed your debian image, I couldn’t write anything, I couldn’t even set the network.
I tried with the 3 different types of uart, all 3 of which work well on the other banana I have and I can write via com, since they are three different uart models I don’t have a problem with any of them writing via com with the banana that works correctly.
so I rule out that it’s the uarts, I suppose it’s a board that’s in bad condition with the internal uart.
I’ll have to live with that.
using this method I can write to nand and emmc the images that I want to put there, although it’s not the solution I would want, there’s no other way to do it
Good morning, I’m sorry to tell you that that is not the problem, because as it has been tested on the main board that works, it has always gone to the secondary board that I bought after the main board that works correctly, which could not have been any of the 5v.
The 3 uarts have always been used first on the board that works, and then it has gone to the board that does not work, and there is no place to connect the 3v, to the board only to the uart and it is always in the same places in the uarts.
It’s just that my board came out of the factory wrong.
But well, I can live without doing anything with uart, then once I install the images with the resource that I mentioned above, I already work with winscp without problems and I make the modifications in openwrt.
Since I bought them to use openwrt, it is not a big problem.
To use debian and ubuntu I always have the main board and make the changes on the sd and take them to the ones that do not work, but I will only be able to work on the sd.
Independ of system without uart it is impossible to figure out whats wrong when your board is not acessible via ssh.
But if you got it broken amd your other board works you can maybe send it back to bpi/trader and get replacement or money back.
Thank you very much @franco-w, but the 90 day period has already passed, and sending them on my own would cost me almost the same as buying a new one.
As this was secondary and I can work well with the nand, emmc, sd methods, with the method I mentioned above to use openwrt, I’m happy with what I have if I like the image I test on sd and I want to use them on nand or emmc, with that method it doesn’t take long to do so.
It’s a shame that you can’t compile your own image from the official repository to your liking, since in the latest there are things that I find interesting like mesh, you still need to be able to install packages which is impossible like vpn wireguard, and even if you look for the packages yourself and install them manually, from the same opkg that is in the image, you can’t install many of them because when it asks for the kmod, it’s not in the official image and you can’t continue with other packages that the official sources say are not compatible.
there they should enable the way to install the packages from the official image itself, but I don’t know why they don’t want us to do it.
