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Pi + USB 3 Hub (Powered) + Boot off SSD = died

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Hi there,

I have a Pi 4 that was running AB on a microSD. Everything was fine but it was quite slow and I heard running off an SSD would be so much faster. On Amazon I saw an option to buy a SSD and powered USB 3 hub.

I power the Pi normally off an AC power which has been great. I had that powered in, then connected the SSD to the Hub and plugged the hub into the USB 3 port. The Pi died on me, the Pi wouldn't boot. Red light only - four flashes of green. I had another microSD with AB so I checked and did the full upgrade - firmware/astro/rpi etc etc. All was upgraded, same issue.

I thought okay maybe somethings gone on with power and ruined the SSD card. I balenaEtcher the AB onto the SSD - flew by and thought maybe I try that. I plugged the SSD into the Pi directly - not through the hub and nothing.  the red light comes on. I tested plugging into the hub and powering the Pi from the hub and the SSD.. stll no boot?

I'm wondering - how do people use the Powered USB 3 hub correctly? Is it booting the PI as well as the SSD? or separate (did I fry my board?).  
Am I missing anything here in getting the Pi to boot?  I have a micro HDMI cable coming to view the screen so can update more. Also, did I just purchase a cheap crap USB 3 hub that won't work anyway?

Steve
Last edit: 2 years 8 months ago by Steve.
2 years 8 months ago #72923

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It could be a power issue. Check the hub's power supply. If it is one of the cheap ones, it'll be 5 volt. The better ones are 12 volt and 5 amp or so,

As an aside, I just setup a new Pi 4 with SSD, and used a Pi case that held the SSD. Works very well.
2 years 8 months ago #72963

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Thanks for that!
Do you power the Pi off the USB 3 hub then just attached the SSD to the USB 3 port directly, or do you connect it through the hub?
2 years 8 months ago #72970

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My Pi is powered via its ow supply. My SSD is in the Pi case, and is powered off of the Pi's USB 3 port (the case is designed to use a USB connector that connects the USB of the SSD to the Pi). Then I have a Powered USB hub for my devices.

The case is the Argon ONE M.2 case.
2 years 8 months ago #72973

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I’ve done both successfully. Found that if you connect the SSD to the RPi4 directly, it boots a little faster.
2 years 8 months ago #72974

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So I got a HDMI mini cable from Amazon and was able to see what's happening.
I get this kernel panic when booting any Astroberry image on my Pi.
- Brand new SD card arrived today - AB 2.0.3 same issue
- SSD - same issue

I then was worried it was the SSD/Card, so I use Pi imager and placed a brand new Pi distro on it - the latest, booted fine. No questions, ran and all ready to use a normal Pi. I then refresh the card, load AB on it and its this image.

I am at a complete loss :-/ 
No idea what to do as I can't get any card (3x SD cards and my SSD) to boot AB. But I can get Pi?
 
2 years 8 months ago #72987
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Quick update....
I looked for an older version of AB, ended up changing AB d/l link to 2.0.2. Its now working aboslutely fine and booted from a clean SSD install.

It seems theres some issue with the latest AB release for this - not sure how I report it?
2 years 8 months ago #72990

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Hi Steve, Just to check, have you confirmed the Pi4's firmware bootloader version is "stable" and not "critical"? I boot from SSD and pretty much followed the "Zippity" post instructions given some time back. Might make sense to reverify your firmware bootloader version, but the chicken/egg thing requires you to start from your original SD card. My recommendation would be to strip down to minimum config (Pi4+SD, orig power supply, no devices). Once there confirm your bootloader via (indilib.org/forum/stellarmate/7577-zippity.html#58671) . If you've essentially followed the same path and still can't boot, that's not a good sign for the HW (but I'd be very surprised by that!). These little Pi4's take quite a bit of abuse and keep on ticking. Good luck, Doug
Last edit: 2 years 8 months ago by Doug S.
2 years 8 months ago #72991

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Okay further update - weirdly enough I can't login haha - astroberry/astroberry doesn't work. And SSH says port 22 closed.
2 years 8 months ago #72992

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Hey Doug,

That's really interesting. I'm going to dig into that tomorrow and see if that's the issue!

Thanks!
2 years 8 months ago #72995

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Doug - you definitely made a difference! It was critical and I moved it to stable.

It boots and shows SOME love but now it has a weird authentication failure?  At the top 'Failed to start Load Kernal modules' appears? ...then shows astroberry login - failure.


I came across this but it's not really helping -/ raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/...t-know-how-to-expand
I'm wondering, as its a 120gb SSD do I need to partition or do something different with the disk? e.g 32gb and 88gb file area? Could this be causing issues?
Aaaaah
2 years 8 months ago #73000
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Ok, well....I'm not an AB user so I don't really know how to help there. My first thought is that you need to be able to boot from the old SD card reliably (whether or not you have changed the bootloader to the latest version). Start by trying to get the old SD card (or an older backup....you do have that don't you! ;-) ) to boot. Once you get that SD card config to boot (again, no devices yet!), then do a disk copy (backup too!). When I did this for myself (long time ago), I used this set of instructions (but other similar instructions can be found):
jamesachambers.com/raspberry-pi-4-usb-bo...for-ssd-flash-drives
Essentially what happens is an update on SD, then a backup. That backup is copied to the SSD via balenaEtcher. The SD card is booted, and the SSD is pluged in after. The UUID is changed on the SSD (otherwise it's the same drive as the SD). Afterwards, follow the rest of the instructions and you should be to a place where you can unplug the SD, plug in the SSD, and boot. That's about all I can help with. Good luck...I suspect you're not far. In the end, you'll need to resize the SSD partition too to reclaim all the space not used...those instructions are there too.
2 years 8 months ago #73009

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