I’m running Armbian 25.2 on a Banana Pi BPI-M4-Zero (Allwinner sun50i-h618). EMAC1 (ethernet@5030000) with its internal PHY never comes up:

sunxi-gmac 5030000.ethernet end0: renamed from eth0
… No PHY found! … phy init again… No PHY found! … phy init failed

 

So far I have tried:
 

1. Directly patching full.dts

Enabled /soc/ethernet@5030000 (status = “okay”)

Added phy-mode = "rmii", pinctrl-0 = <&rmii_pins>, phy-handle, phy-supply etc.

Defined a simple ethernet-phy@0 under MDIO.

Recompiled to sun50i-h618-bananapi-m4-zero.dtb and rebooted.

2. User overlay (.dts → .dtbo)

Created fragments to:

Turn on /soc/ethernet@5030000/mdio

Inject an ethernet-phy@0 node

Enable EMAC1, assign RMII pins, MDIO and PHY handle

Compiled with dtc -@ and loaded via user_overlays=bpi-m4z-eth in armbianEnv.txt.

3. Following Armbian build PR #6617
Tried the patch for H618’s internal AC300 PHY from https://github.com/armbian/build/pull/6617

No change: PHY still not detected, no power-up.

4. Troubleshooting notes

Overlay apply errors: FDT_ERR_NOTFOUND

dtc compile errors on duplicate or missing phandle references

Verified pinctrl entries (rmii-pins) and alias names match base DTS

I’ve collected a full hardware/software report via armbianmonitor—see the logs here: https://paste.armbian.com/rolisaboru
 

What I’m looking for

A known-good snippet of device-tree (base DTS or overlay) that brings up the internal EMAC1 PHY on sun50i-h618

Advice on any missing power-or-clock settings or MFD nodes required for the AC300 PHY

Confirmation whether additional kernel/config patches are needed

Thanks in advance for any pointers!

I want to create an automatic backup internal storage -  so that the system (booted from emmc) reboots, starts from the SD card, backs up content emmc to sdcard, and then reboots again, booting from emmc.  Is it possible some how?

We have 2GB RAM , allwinner h618, axp313. All the same as orangepi zero 3. 

Please help. Desperate help needed.

using Armbian_25.2.2_Bananapim4zero_noble_current_6.6.75.img

wifi not work, thats fixed with: overlays=bananapi-m4-sdio-wifi-bt

Applying kernel provided DT overlay sun50i-h616-mcp2515.dtbo
failed on fdt_overlay_apply(): FDT_ERR_NOTFOUND
 

and then:

Error applying DT overlays, restoring original DT
 

and have no wifi and any overlays at all..

on a bpi 2W Zero runs double mcp2515 on a spi1 as can0 + can1, but on M4 zero - no success at all, everythings are tried, all armbian builds, trying self writed overlays, tried boot from uSD, emmc - no success.

always took this:

Applying kernel/user provided DT overlay **any**.dtbo
failed on fdt_overlay_apply(): FDT_ERR_NOTFOUND
 

Board: BPI‑M4 Zero
OS: Armbian (Bookworm), kernel 6.12.35 (current)

This board has two USB‑C ports: one fixed HOST and one OTG. I’d like the OTG port (USB0) to operate as a host as well. I can’t find any Armbian overlay in armbian-config or on the forums that flips USB0 to host.

If anyone has this working, it would be cool to let me know .

Thanks!

    I've built a custom image for the BPI M4 Zero and have been using a wired USB cable for my config and development work,    It's final destination will require wireless. So I started to configure that today and discovered that it does not find any wireless access points.

The device exists.

3: wlan0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state DOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether ac:6a:a3:3f:9c:65 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

There is an overlay loaded (I did not add it, it was part of the image build)

overlays=bananapi-m4-sdio-wifi-bt usbhost bananapi-m4-pi-5-6-i2c0 bananapi-m4-pi-7-8-i2c1

I do not see any errors from dmesg, but only these:

[    8.484857] brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: using brcm/brcmfmac43455-sdio for chip BCM4345/6
[    8.851537] brcmfmac: brcmf_c_process_txcap_blob: no txcap_blob available (err=-2)
[    8.852261] brcmfmac: brcmf_c_preinit_dcmds: Firmware: BCM4345/6 wl0: Aug 29 2023 01:47:08 version 7.45.265 (28bca26 CY) FWID 01-b677b91b

I am not sure where to begin diagnosing this. I almost never use wireless on Linux so I could be overlooking something basic.

# iwlist wlan0 scanning
wlan0     No scan results

# uname -a
Linux bananapim4zero 6.13.11-edge-sunxi64 #5 SMP PREEMPT_RT Thu Apr 10 12:42:07 UTC 2025 aarch64 GNU/Linux

@c0rnelius I know you tried to figure out why, I'm missing technical knowledge to help... Digging the Internet I saw similar bluetooth issue for radxa zero 3w with aic8800, resolved using hciattach / hci up, but needing an available /dev/ttyS1 (UART1) we are missing here... Do you know why? Could it be the problem for banana pi m4 zero and if yes could an overlay activate it? 

Denis

Looking for Debian or Ubuntu with XFCE and support for wifi (usb eth at start if needed ok), bluetooth, HDMI sound, QHD display resolution (2560x1440) 

Main tests results:

- Standard Armbian (V25.2.2 Linux 6.6.75 Ubuntu noble XFCE + overlays=bananapi-m4-sdio-wifi-bt)

   -> wifi OK, bluetooth NO, HDMI sound NO, bad display perf, buggy screen size (display 1920 when choosing 2560) 

- Official BPI (V24.8.2 Linux 5.4.125 Debian XFCE + overlays=i2c0 spi1 uart4

   -> wifi OK, Bluetooth NO, HDMI sound NO, bug in screen size (limited to 1920)

- Other rolling releases, starting from minimal, ...: not better ou worse.

Any build you know with better results? Please help.

During the build process I configured the kernel to enable real time threads.

CONFIG_NO_HZ_COMMON=y
CONFIG_HZ_1000=y
CONFIG_HZ=1000
CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT=y

However, as I started to migrate my development I discovered I couldn't create a real time thread.

So I pulled down areal time test suite (https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/realtime/documentation/howto/tools/rt-tests)

And confirmed it has the same issue:

Unable to change scheduling policy!
either run as root or join realtime group

I am root, it is a real time kernel.

Linux bananapim4zero 6.13.7-edge-sunxi64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_RT Thu Mar 13 12:08:08 UTC 2025 aarch64 GNU/Linux

I am not sure what might be driving this.  For the past several months I've been doing some dev work on a TI AM625 based board that I built a yocto distribution on and it's fine.

I know that is a completely different board, but my kernel setting for real time enablement are the same.  I pulled them from that build since.

Appreciate any input!

I have a 3.5" TFT touch screen and some relays that I need to run along with a sensor.

In order to get WiFi working, I use the image from here: https://docs.banana-pi.org/en/BPI-M4_Zero/BananaPi_BPI-M4_Zero.  For my needs, this image works fine with the one exception.  It does not detect the display and only shows default with no ability to change settings.  

I have poked around and tried to find a solution but am coming up empty.  Is there some trick to get the display propagated properly with the working-wifi build?  Thanks! 

Tried modprobe brcmfmac without any luck - module loads but no wlan0 comes up.

The board to my understanding has CYW43455 chip (from Cypress). Apparently there are several variations of BPI M4 Zero.

The only image that has working wifi is from BPI website but it's a backports build with 5.4 kernel, so fairly old and outdated (running an upgrade makes the board unbootable).

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Looking at the u-boot environment, it shows console=both, disp_mode = 1080p60, fb0_width= 1920,fb0_height= 1080 all of which are within the capabilities of the monitors, but still no video.

Am I missing a driver or something?