Armory Mk 1 - uboot fails to start. Debian base image release 20210730

[iam-TJ]

Earlier today I installed the usbarmory-mark-one-usd-debian_buster-base_image-20210730 image to micro-SD card and found the Armory Mark 1 failed to boot. No sign of life, host PC doesn't see the CDC device, no heartbeat LED. Thinking I'd done something wrong I hacked about with checking SHA sums, including comparing the .raw image hash with the bytes on the micro-SD - all matched. Eventually I thought to try an older image and found that usbarmory-mark-one-usd-debian_buster-base_image-20210108 boots correctly. This seems to suggest the boot-loader on the 20210730 image is broken.

[iam-TJ]

I copied just the bootloader from the 20210108 image (the first 10240 sectors) to the micro-SD card with the 20210730 release and that boots, so the issue is in the bootloader.

One data-point - when it was failing the Armory was getting very hot very quickly, including the micro-SD card, which might suggest it was in a loop re-reading the card.

[andrejro]

Recently U-Boot enforced the use of their "driver model" drivers. As a consequence the SD card configuration is taken from the devicetree file in arch/arm/dts/imx53-usbarmory.dts. Such file is missing the card detect (CD) pin configuration, and therefore the card is not detected by the bootloader.

The following patch will be submitted to U-Boot to fix this issue:

diff --git a/arch/arm/dts/imx53-usbarmory.dts b/arch/arm/dts/imx53-usbarmory.dts
index f34993a490..433b62e736 100644
--- a/arch/arm/dts/imx53-usbarmory.dts
+++ b/arch/arm/dts/imx53-usbarmory.dts
@@ -91,6 +91,7 @@
 &esdhc1 {
        pinctrl-names = "default";
        pinctrl-0 = <&pinctrl_esdhc1>;
+ broken-cd;
        status = "okay";
 };

[digitalentropy]

Ran into the same issue today, and it took a while to debug because I thought I had a corrupt image somehow.

Any guidance on when the next pre-compiled release will be available? In the meantime, it seems it would be prudent to pull the last Mk 1 release since it is in effect defective.

[andrejro]

The 20210907 release has just been published. This one correctly boots on Mk I devices.