Raspbian "Pisces" Image hangs on reboot

[paaland]

I've switched from Debian to Raspbian and I'm now running a copy of the pisces image. It's running headless and only has ethernet and the SD card connected. Everything seems to work fine except one thing. Everytime i try to reboot (sudo reboot or sudo shutdown -r now) it never comes back up. I need to unplug the power to get it to boot properly.

As I said it's running headless, so I don't know what it's stuck at. It stops responding to ping, but the ethernet light on the swith is flashing. All leds on the raspi is also lit.

Any ideas? I'll attach a screen and try a reboot this weekend.

[bob_binz]

Think you need a screen, not a lot to go on without. I'm running headless but with Hexxeh R3, reboots fine.

[plugwash]

I haven't used that particular image myself but can you check if "kexec-tools" is installed and if so remove it?

[paaland]

Attached a screen today and the last thing I see is something like "System halted. Rebooting" then the screen goes black. Nothing further happens before I pull the power and reinsert it again. Then it always boots fine.

Did a "dpkg --get-selections|grep kexec" and it does not return anything.

[Davespice]

Might be worth it to check if you can ssh in after this hang has occured. I've had something similar with the Debian 'Squeeze' image. It seems the Pi does reboot, but the display fails to come back up afterwards.

[paaland]

No ssh, no ping and only black screen. As I said in the first post the link led on the switch does blink from time to time indicating something happening.

I did not have this issue with Debian squeeze. So I think it's something software.

[mpthompson]

No ssh, no ping and only black screen. As I said in the first post the link led on the switch does blink from time to time indicating something happening.

I did not have this issue with Debian squeeze. So I think it's something software.

paaland, I'm sorry you're having these problems. The pisces image has many more services started than what is on the more minimal hexxeh image. I suspect one of the services is hanging when the system attempts to shut it down.

Below is a photo (and link) of my screen when I issue a reboot command on the pisces image from a remote ssh session. Your output should appear nearly identical. If there are differences, that should hopefully be a clue to what may be wrong with your reboot sequence.



http://home.comcast.net/~michael.p.thom ... reboot.jpg

[paaland]

I have neither a HDMI screen nor a RCA video screen, so I have the raspi hooked up to a USB tv capture device on another computer. Then I use amcap as my "screen" if I'm doing stuff I cannot do via ssh or vnc.

This arrangement came in handy since I could easily capture a shutdown sequence:

http://youtu.be/uVK3WnZutls

As you can see the shutdown seems to be by the book except that it does not start again.

[mpthompson]

As you can see the shutdown seems to be by the book except that it does not start again.

Yes, it does look to be by the book. I can't say for sure, but I suspect it may be something more to do with the boot sequence after the reset occurs. Let me suggest this. Remove or backup the files in the /boot partition of the Raspbian SD card and in their place put a copy of the files from the working Debian SD card -- just make sure you edit the cmdline.txt file to use /dev/mmcblk0p3 as the root file system. That will remove a source of difference between Debian and Raspbian.

[Gerhard Schwarz]

I had the same problem with the Hexxeh-image of raspbian, so probably (as Mike suggested) it's an issue of Raspbian rather than Pisces-related problem.

[trn]

Some work around, solution for this problem?

[mpthompson]

Sorry, I don't have any work arounds yet as the cause of the issue is still unknown.

Another suggestion, copy the "Pisces" image (as downloaded, without any changes) to the SD card, boot and then reboot using "shutdown -r now". Have only a keyboard plugged in the USB port. Does your Raspberry Pi reboot successfully under that scenario?

Presumably, everyone with a Pi has the same hardware and that image does reboot on the hardware I'm using. If it doesn't reboot for you, there must be some difference between our hardware that we'll need to figure out. For instance, is it related to the SD card?

On the other hand, if it does reboot without making changes to the "Pisces" image, we'll need to track down what package updates or hardware issues might be causing the reboot failure.

I'm sorry these problems are occurring with Raspbian, but these issues tend to be the nature of the beast at these early stages of getting a port to work on small embedded devices. The community doesn't yet have good knowledge of all the failure scenarios between all the different hardware and software combinations that can cause issues with the Raspberry Pi.

[marsman2020]

Is GPM installed in the Pisces image? I've had it hang on stopping on the official Debian Squeeze image, as part of my debugging of the USB-hub-kills-Ethernet issue.

[trn]

I reinstaling(on other sd card), and now is ok!
Reboot is working now.

[mpthompson]

I reinstaling(on other sd card), and now is ok!
Reboot is working now.

Do you think the issue was related to the SD card? Or, an update or package that you might have installed on the other card?

[trn]

I reinstaling(on other sd card), and now is ok!
Reboot is working now.

Do you think the issue was related to the SD card? Or, an update or package that you might have installed on the other card?

i think other SD card is not problem, but some package, some conf,..

on first sd card, i have dhcp, on second static, maybe this...

[mpthompson]

i think other SD card is not problem, but some package, some conf,..

on first sd card, i have dhcp, on second static, maybe this...

OK, if you track the issue down with the other card, please report back.

[sharix]

I have the same problem, but on debian.
edit: I found out that if I ping the Pi after the reboot when I can't SSH to it anymore, the LNK led blinks every time I send a packet.

[plugwash]

http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... =50&t=7607 may or may not help.

[paaland]

Wee hee! Today my raspi running Raspbian managed to reboot for the first time ever. I'm fully apt-get upgraded and running the latest rpi-update firmware. It even boots with root on a usb hdd. It's never been able to reboot sucessfully before. Don't know it it's any of the latest apt-get updates or the latest firmware that fixes this issue.

[oztrailrider]

Wee hee! Today my raspi running Raspbian managed to reboot for the first time ever. I'm fully apt-get upgraded and running the latest rpi-update firmware. It even boots with root on a usb hdd. It's never been able to reboot sucessfully before. Don't know it it's any of the latest apt-get updates or the latest firmware that fixes this issue.

I would suspect that the fix has come from the big SD updates in the firmware pushed out on Wednesday. I could be wrong though.

[dom]

I would suspect that the fix has come from the big SD updates in the firmware pushed out on Wednesday. I could be wrong though.

I don't believe that would have an effect.

When the reboot fails, can you mention whether shutdown or booting that is hanging.
I believe when shutdown hangs, the network lights continue flashing.
If shutdown completes, the chip is reset, and the network leds go off. So if network LEDs are off, it is a booting problem.

[Yoda007]

I have a similar problem with the Debian squeeze updated with rpi-update

When trying too reboot my pi the screen goes blank and I have to plug it out/in to start it:
- sudo reboot
- I enter my password
- it starts to reboot
- the last message on the screen is : Will now restart.

Then the screen goes blank and it doesn't start up again. All the LEDs are on. So its probably the shutdown that is the problem in my case.

When i started with the image the restart worked fine, so apparently something i did afterwards broke the reboot (i didn't do that much - apt-get update and apt-get upgrade, rpi-update, installed and configured lighttpd, and installed mplayer).

[mahtiaivo]

i have this problem too from time to time on 3 of my raspis...
for me the solution that always worked was to unplug whatever is plugged to the upper usb port and replug it, after that it reboots fine again for some time...
could be a power problem?