I have recently accepted the 23.11.1 armbain kernel release on my RockPro 64

 

The update has not rebuilt or updated the uIntrd for the 6.1.63 kernel. Note that the /boot/uInitrd symlink still points to the old uInitrd version but the other two symlinks have updated.

 

root@jupiter:~# ls -l /boot/dtb /boot/Image /boot/uInitrd
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 29 Dec  2 20:38 /boot/dtb -> dtb-6.1.63-current-rockchip64
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 33 Dec  2 20:38 /boot/Image -> vmlinuz-6.1.63-current-rockchip64
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 33 Nov 30 18:04 /boot/uInitrd -> uInitrd-6.1.50-current-rockchip64
root@jupiter:~# ls -l /boot/uInitrd*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root       33 Nov 30 18:04 /boot/uInitrd -> uInitrd-6.1.50-current-rockchip64
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 17777215 Jul 22 21:07 /boot/uInitrd-5.15.93-rockchip64
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 17560966 Nov 30 12:06 /boot/uInitrd-6.1.50-current-rockchip64

 

The first time after the update I did not notice before rebooting, and the box failed to boot properly. I got to a rescue console and was able to restore the three 6.1.50 kernel files from a backup, and restore the symlinks.

 

I tried running:

 

apt reinstall armbian-config armbian-firmware linux-dtb-current-rockchip64 linux-image-current-rockchip64 linux-u-boot-rockpro64-current base-files

 

But this did not fix the problem. Google is not helping me find the command to create the 6.1.63 uInitrd file by hand.

 

I have also tried installing the 6.1.64 kernel from beta.armbian.com but that had the same issue.

 

Currently my device is running 6.1.50-current-rockchip64 but the 6.1.64-current-rockchip64 kernel is installed and I suspect that there are inconsistencies in how things are setup. For example wireguard is not working correctly.

 

How can I restore my device back to a stable working state?

 

Edited December 3, 20232 yr by David Pottage

NB: armbianmonitor did not work. No such package, and nothing that I can find to install.

 

armbianmonitor is shipped with all images by default. There is no dedicated package for it.

https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/main/packages/bsp/common/usr/bin/armbianmonitor

Thanks @Werner - I have found a copy of the armbianmonitor script and used it to upload diagnostics.

I was able to restore my system to a working state, by downgrading to the old kernel versions.

 

I think that there is probably a bug or missing command in the postinst scripts for newer armbain kernels.

 

For anyone landing here via an internet search in future, the steps where:

• Find the upgrade command that installed the bad kernel.
  • zless /var/log/apt/history.log.1.gz
  • eg: Upgrade: armbian-config:arm64 (23.8.3, 23.11.1), linux-u-boot-rockpro64-current:arm64 (23.8.1, 23.11.1), linux-dtb-current-rockchip64:arm64 (23.8.1, 23.11.1), linux-image-current-rockchip64:arm64 (23.8.1, 23.11.1), armbian-firmware:arm64 (23.8.3, 23.11.1)
  • Note that it shows both the old and new versions.
• Removed the beta apt source
  • nano apt/sources.list.d/armbian.list
• Used apt to downgrade the offending packages using <name>=<version> syntax
  • eg: apt install armbian-config=23.8.3 linux-u-boot-rockpro64-current=23.8.1 linux-dtb-current-rockchip64=23.8.1 linux-image-current-rockchip64=23.8.1 armbian-firmware=23.8.3
• Checked that symlinks in /boot are consistent.
  • ls -l /boot/
  • In my case dtb, Image and uInitrd all pointed to 6.1.50 versions
• Crossed fingers, rebooted.

The other thing that made it possible to resolve this was a serial console adaptor. Without one it would have been very much harder to find the problem in the first place.