Well, continuing the saga of weird behavior, here are some additional oddities! First and foremost, using the 15.11 series of files does result in a working board, so, I am able to recover from any bad flashes.
Here is the series of steps performed on a 15.11 flash:
- hisi.py l-loader (15.11 version)
- board will automatically reboot to fastboot mode
- fastboot flash ptable, fastboot, nvme, boot, rootfs (all 15.11 versions)
Attempting the same steps on the “latest” version of all files from the Stretch folder, however, presents some issues immediately with the hisi.py l-loader. The output from the command line does state the command executed successfuly, resulting in “Done”, just like the 15.11 version does. However, the board does not automatically reboot to fastboot mode to then continue on with the next steps.
Because I do have the SEEED UART adapter, I can compare the difference in behavior on the console:
The 15.11 hisi.py l-loader results in this on the console:
NOTICE: Booting Trusted Firmware
NOTICE: BL1: v1.1(release):e9b4909
NOTICE: BL1: Built : 10:50:16, Nov 28 2015
NOTICE: syspll frequency:1190494208Hz
NOTICE: succeed to init lpddr3 rank0 dram phy
INFO: lpddr3_freq_init, set ddrc 533mhz
INFO: init ddr3 rank0
INFO: ddr3 rank1 init pass
INFO: lpddr3_freq_init, set ddrc 800mhz
INFO: init ddr3 rank0
INFO: ddr3 rank1 init pass
INFO: Samsung DDR
NOTICE: Enter fastboot mode...
The Stretch version of l-loader from the “latest” folder results in this:
NOTICE: Booting Trusted Firmware
NOTICE: BL1: v1.4(release):42f4d89
NOTICE: BL1: Built : 07:32:31, Mar 9 2018
NOTICE: BL1-FWU: *******FWU Process Started*******
…And just hangs there indefinitely.
A simple comparison of the two l-loader files shows they are significantly different file sizes, roughly 17k for the “latest” and 45k for the 15.11 version.
So, naturally, I figured I would attempt to mix and match, and use the 15.11 l-loader, and the board will then automatically enter fastboot, and then continue on with all of the rest of the files from the “latest” folder. Not terribly surprising, that did not result in a booting board either, ha. That got me so far as to a partially booting board that hangs at the kernel load, initrd load, and then hangs right where my journey began, with:
EFI stub: Exiting boot services and installing virtual address map...
Any last ideas, or, am I stuck with Jessie for eternity?