Having trouble booting my Pi Zero [solved]

[Jon123]

Hi all,

I have been having trouble with my Pi Zero and tried following this YouTube tutorial with no luck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJDIgS8nres&t=299s

I have formatted my SD card using the recommended formatter and copied all the files across, but the Pi just displays a blank screen. The green light on the Pi is not flashing (not sure if it should be).

Any advice going forward would be great!

Thanks

[mahjongg]

That movie is old, please read the boot problem sticky.

[fruitoftheloom]

Hi all,

I have been having trouble with my Pi Zero and tried following this YouTube tutorial with no luck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJDIgS8nres&t=299s

I have formatted my SD card using the recommended formatter and copied all the files across, but the Pi just displays a blank screen. The green light on the Pi is not flashing (not sure if it should be).

Any advice going forward would be great!

Thanks

Every known issue is covered as above stated by the Boot Sticky and in future use information which is well under 12 months old:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... 28&t=58151

[Jon123]

Thanks,

I have used the latest version of Noobs and reformatted the card multiple times.

I have used the specific rpi power adapter and tried other operating systems but nothing seems to change.

[LTolledo]

My prime suspect is the microSD card.

What is the brand name and model of the microSD card that you are using?
what is the software name of the "recommended formatter" you are using to format your microSD card, and to what format type?
Have you tried other microSD card?
Have you tried flashing the other microSD card with Raspbian Stretch with Desktop image using Etcher?

Second suspect is the "rpi specific power adaptor".

can you post a picture of this "rpi specific power adaptor"?
while your at it, why not include the microSD card in the picture.

[Jon123]

The SD card I ordered is this one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01D4TW25Y/ ... 41_TE_dp_1

The power adapter is this one: https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/rasp ... 9UQAvD_BwE

I tried to install Raspbian stretch from here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/
As well as Noobs from here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/noobs/

Thinking about it more, I am wondering if I should have put the lite version on the pi?

I used this SD card formatter: https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

I used Etcher to put the image on the Pi.

I have yet to try a different SD card, as I do not have one, but if I can rule out other issues, then I will have to buy another to try.

I cannot post an image of the pi until later I am afraid, as I am out of the house.

[drgeoff]

The SD card you ordered should have contained an OS. Did you try using that with the Zero before overwriting it? If yes, did it boot?

The LED on the Zero should flash randomly as the Zero boots.

What card reader are you using to put NOOBS or Raspbian on the card?

[Jon123]

Unfortunately that was my first mistake. I wanted to put Motioneye on the raspberry pi and didn't think to check the SD card before formatting it.

The card reader I have is https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/301705796531 ... i&mail=sys

The green light does not flash, but instead stays constant throughout, so it looks to not be reading the card properly but I have no other way of checking it.

[LTolledo]

For use with MotionEye, you should have used Raspberry Pi Zero W (the one with WiFi) because you will need to control MotionEye via a webapp.
There is a pre-built image of MotionEye (I think its still based on Jessie)

I have one in my room tucked-in inconspicuously as my "security camera" of sorts.


"Green LED stays constant throughout" means constantly ON? or constantly OFF?

[Jon123]

Sorry, I meant I have the Pi Zero W: https://thepihut.com/products/adafruit- ... es-pi-zero

I tried installing the MotionEye image for the Pi from here but that was where all this started unfortunately
https://github.com/ccrisan/motioneyeos/releases

There is a solid green light when starting up the pi.

Do you have a good tutorial I can try for MotionEye? Maybe if I follow that exactly, we can determine the problem. I have tried a few tutorials but if there is one that is familiar to everyone, it may be easier to debug.

[LTolledo]

I followed the instruction provided in this link.

https://github.com/ccrisan/motioneyeos/ ... stallation

if the green LED is lit, most likely its already booted and waiting for setup instructions via motioeye's web app. Use IP scanning app to scan the IP address of the RPiZW.

[Jon123]

Thanks, I will try that.

I did try an IP scan the last time with no luck and am wondering if something bigger is the problem since other operating systems are not showing a display.

I did not use an ethernet cable the last time because I added a WIFI conf file based on this post, but this may not have worked:
https://www.techcoil.com/blog/how-i-set ... etch-lite/

[LTolledo]

Ok why dont we try booting the RPiZW using raspbian stretch with desktop to see if the board really is not the cause of the problem.

download the latest raspbian stretch image and flash it to your microSD card using etcher.

once that is done, plug it to the RPiZW, attach a monitor to the HDMI port and keyboard/mouse combo to the microUSB OTG port. power it up using proper PSU.
If RPiZW is not in a case make sure you dont accidentally short any of the components in the board when you power it up

if you can boot it using raspbian stretch with desktop with a display output on the monitor then we know your RPiZW does boot up properly.
next try to get it to connect to your WiFi router.
while you're at it, and if you can, better set your WiFi router to give a specific IP address to your RPiZW. You will need that IP address later on.

once that is a success then we can move on to re-installing MotionEye.

If that is not a success then try again using a different microSD. or different PSU.
if even doing that you're not able to get it to boot in raspbian then you have become a lucky owner of a failed RPiZW board.

[Jon123]

Thanks for the instructions.

I can confirm that the pi looks to be OK, as I successfully installed raspbian stretch lite on it.

I then decided to try motioneye again but this time, not add the conf file to the partition for the wifi. I just wanted to see something on the screen so flashed the image and booted the pi. The image is for rpi 1.

After seeing the green light flicker a lot, it eventually ended up staying on and nothing appeared on the screen. The pi is not connected to the internet, as I have yet to find an ethernet cable. Would this be an issue on boot?

I have tried booting the pi with the camera connected as well as disconnected.

[LTolledo]

Ok as I remember I used Raspbian Stretch Desktop on this RPi3B+ to install the motioneye OS to the microSD card.
using the windows-etcher method gave me troubles as I cannot set the installation to connect to the WiFi router.

below is the command that I used:

Code: Select all

./writeimage.sh -d /dev/sdb -i "/home/pi/Downloads/motioneyeos-raspberry-20180627" -n '[snip SSID of WiFi router]:[snip WiFi password]'

/dev/sdb is the microSD card in my setup, it may be different from yours. check it via

Code: Select all

lsblk

remember to enter the SSID and the WiFi password in the square braces, and remove the square braces as well
so if your SSID is GetYourOwnWiFiNOW and password is MyInvisibleWiFe18Yr and the location of the image is at /home/pi you should enter the command:

Code: Select all

./writeimage.sh -d /dev/sdb -i "/home/pi/motioneyeos-raspberry-20180627" -n "GetYourOwnWiFiNOW:MyInvisibleWiFe18Yr'

wait for about 3 to 4 minutes, then check the IP address of the motioneye-RPiZW, using any IP scanner of your choice. (ex RPiZW acquired IP is 192.168.250.26). You may have to wait a little bit more then re-check again.

then just enter the IP address to your favorite browser to access motioneye's web app.

[Jon123]

I have given this a try and get the following after running the command:

* writing disk image to sdcard
220+0 records in
220+0 records out
230686720 bytes transferred in 61.213340 secs (3768569 bytes/sec)
* mounting sdcard
Unmount of all volumes on disk2 was successful
mount_msdos: /dev/disk2s1s1: No such file or directory

Then when connecting the card to the computer again, I cannot read it. Did you get this behaviour at all?

The pi also has trouble booting with it.

[Jon123]

Never mind! I went back to the Etcher way and created that wifi conf file with nano this time and it works!

Thanks so much for all your advice!