[NSA325] Is it dead or just sleeping?

After multiple restarts yesterday* I've tried to boot with my last working kernel (5.14.9) for the final time to get back to a working hardware state. Unfortunately all I've got was the output below. The autoboot timeout just skips. Tried a few times, with and without USB storage and nothing changed.

* Was trying to work around that the 5.17.4 and 5.15.5 kernels installation did not produce initramfs' that passed CRC check on boot. Only unset all the env variables and semi-manually set them to the defaults, taken from https://forum.doozan.com/read.php?3,12381 -> uboot.2016.05-tld-1.environment.bodhi.tar.

So just would like to check if this is known and the next step I should take is unbricking via kwboot, as described here: https://forum.doozan.com/read.php?3,51739,51919#msg-51919

Additionally is there a way to check MTD's for wear? (sans the obvious symptoms, like no devices or write errors)

U-Boot 2017.07-tld-1 (Sep 05 2017 - 00:42:03 -0700)                                                                 
ZyXEL NSA325 2-Bay Power Media Server                                                                               
                                                                                                                    
SoC:   Kirkwood 88F6282_A1                                                                                          
DRAM:  512 MiB                                                                                                      
WARNING: Caches not enabled                                                                                         
NAND:  128 MiB                                                                                                      
In:    serial                                                                                                       
Out:   serial                                                                                                       
Err:   serial                                                                                                       
Net:   egiga0
MV88E1318 PHY initialized on egiga0
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0 
NSA325> 
NSA325> 
NSA325> 
NSA325> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0
>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>
> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U
-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Bo
ot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 
2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 201
7.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>> U-Boot 2017.0>>>

The output ends with a blinking cursor, but no input is accepted nor output returned. The console starts at some moment pinging (bell) each second, but still no other output.

==== >8 ====

Edit 1

kwboot -t -B 115200 /dev/ttyUSB0 -b uboot.2017.07-tld-1.nsa325.mtd0.kwb -p
Sending boot message. Please reboot the target...-
Sending boot image...
@PCww3
       0 % [+xmodem: Operation canceled

Not having much hope.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/10/2022 12:05PM by Dźwiedziu.

Dźwiedziu,


> Only
> unset all the env variables and semi-manually set
> them to the defaults, taken from
> https://forum.doozan.com/read.php?3,12381 ->
> uboot.2016.05-tld-1.environment.bodhi.tar.

That's not a recommended approach. When you think the envs are all messed up, you can use the uEnv.txt to reload all default envs. See here:

https://forum.doozan.com/read.php?3,116134,116139#msg-116139

So do 2 things:

1. Try booting with uEnv.txt

2. Also look at the hardware. Make sure the 3 serial console wires are as far away from power source as possible (i.e. the power cord, or anything that has power, even USB cable). For example, shielded cable such as CD Audio blaster can be placed next to the power cord. But unshielded wires will get a lot of noisy magnetic interference.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

Took the thing apart and the serial console now works. But it kernel panics as doesn't seem to see the USB drive (yes the same drive the kernels boots from).

Also the console doesn't react to any keys, so I can't stop the autoboot.

[    8.598956][    T1] VFS: Cannot open root device "(null)" or unknown-block(0,0): error -6                          
[    8.607254][    T1] Please append a correct "root=" boot option; here are the available partitions:                
[    8.616413][    T1] 1f00            1024 mtdblock0                                                                 
[    8.616422][    T1]  (driver?)                                                                                     
[    8.624434][    T1] 1f01             512 mtdblock1                                                                 
[    8.624443][    T1]  (driver?)                                                                                     
[    8.632407][    T1] 1f02             512 mtdblock2                                                                 
[    8.632414][    T1]  (driver?)                                                                                     
[    8.640413][    T1] 1f03             512 mtdblock3                                                                 
[    8.640421][    T1]  (driver?)                                                                                     
[    8.648424][    T1] 1f04           10240 mtdblock4                                                                 
[    8.648432][    T1]  (driver?)                                                                                     
[    8.656473][    T1] 1f05           10240 mtdblock5 
[    8.656482][    T1]  (driver?)
[    8.664524][    T1] 1f06           48896 mtdblock6 
[    8.664533][    T1]  (driver?)
[    8.672503][    T1] 1f07           10240 mtdblock7 
[    8.672510][    T1]  (driver?)
[    8.680500][    T1] 1f08           48896 mtdblock8 
[    8.680507][    T1]  (driver?)
[    8.688519][    T1] Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)

Had to downgrade the kernel to the "stock" 5.13.6 from 5.14.9 for it to boot.

The missing input on minicom was just a broken TX wire fortunately.

Tomorrow I'll try to upgrade the kernel to see how much fun I'll have ^_^J

> [ 8.598956][ T1] VFS: Cannot open root
> device "(null)" or unknown-block(0,0): error -6

> [ 8.680507][ T1] (driver?)
> [ 8.688519][ T1] Kernel panic - not syncing:
> VFS: Unable to mount root fs on
> unknown-block(0,0)

This error is just either the root device in the bootargs is wrong, or the USB rootfs partition does not have label rootfs.

-bodhi
===========================
Forum Wiki
bodhi's corner (buy bodhi a beer)

After downgrading the kernel it boots properly (as a bare board, no network attached) without changing anything else. Also the 5.14 kernel worked for at least half a year.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2022 12:40AM by Dźwiedziu.