Hi folks,

 

I have one of those cheap boxes based off Amlogic S905X, and while ARMbian boots properly, I really wanted OpenGL support and 2D and 3D acceleration in Xorg. After looking for a while I found Amlogic's buildroot package , which has full wifi, hdmi, and full mali support including GL, and cross compiled an image based off gcc-linaro-6.3.1, uboot-2015-next, and kernel 4.9. I managed to build the whole thing with no major issue, and flashed it using USB Burning Tool. But the box was then stuck in an infinite reset loop. I connected the serial console, and this is the output:

Spoiler

GXL:BL1:9ac50e:a1974b;FEAT:ADFC318C;POC:3;RCY:0;EMMC:0;READ:0;0.0;CHK:0;
TE: 76284

BL2 Built : 11:58:42, May 27 2017.
gxl gc3c9a84 - xiaobo.gu@droid05

set vcck to 1120 mv
set vddee to 1000 mv
Board ID = 2
CPU clk: 1200MHz
DQS-corr enabled
DDR scramble enabled
DDR3 chl: Rank0+1 @ 912MHz - PASS
Rank0: 1024MB(auto)-2T-13
Rank1: 1024MB(auto)-2T-13
DataBus test pass!
AddrBus test pass!
-s
Load fip header from eMMC, src: 0x0000c200, des: 0x01400000, size: 0x00004000
New fip structure!
Load bl30 from eMMC, src: 0x00010200, des: 0x01100000, size: 0x0000d600
Load bl31 from eMMC, src: 0x00020200, des: 0x05100000, size: 0x0002c600
Load bl33 from eMMC, src: 0x00050200, des: 0x01000000, size: 0x00064000
NOTICE:  BL3-1: v1.0(release):5fba975
NOTICE:  BL3-1: Built : 14:24:33, Jun 15 2017
[BL31]: GXL CPU setup!
NOTICE:  BL31: BL33 decompress pass
mpu_config_enable:ok
[Image: gxl_v1.1.3221-2cfba69 2017-05-27 16:03:58 qiufang.dai@droid07]
OPS=0x82
1c 98 37 9d 96 21 7 e5 25 b2 c6 e3 [0.296355 Inits done]
secure task start!
high task start!
low task start!
ERROR:   Error initializing runtime service opteed_fast


U-Boot 2015.01 (Jul 03 2017 - 23:13:17)

DRAM:  2 GiB
Relocation Offset is: 76ebd000
register usb cfg[0][1] = 0000000077f5c430
[CANVAS]canvas init
vpu: error: vpu: check dts: FDT_ERR_BADMAGIC, load default parameters
vpu: clk_level = 7
vpu: set clk: 666667000Hz, readback: 666660000Hz(0x300)
vpu: vpu_clk_gate_init_off
vpp: vpp_init
boot_device_flag : 1
Nand PHY Ver:1.01.001.0006 (c) 2013 Amlogic Inc.
init bus_cycle=6, bus_timing=7, system=5.0ns
reset failed
get_chip_type and ret:fffffffe
get_chip_type and ret:fffffffe
chip detect failed and ret:fffffffe
nandphy_init failed and ret=0xfffffff1
MMC:   aml_priv->desc_buf = 0x0000000073ebd6b0
aml_priv->desc_buf = 0x0000000073ebf9d0
SDIO Port B: 0, SDIO Port C: 1
emmc/sd response timeout, cmd8, status=0x1ff2800
emmc/sd response timeout, cmd55, status=0x1ff2800
init_part() 293: PART_TYPE_AML
[mmc_init] mmc init success
dtb magic edfe0dd0
      Amlogic multi-dtb tool
      Single dtb detected
start dts,buffer=0000000073ec2200,dt_addr=0000000073ec2200
      Amlogic multi-dtb tool
      Single dtb detected
parts: 11
00:      logo   0000000002000000 1
01:  recovery   0000000002000000 1
02:       rsv   0000000000800000 1
03:       tee   0000000000800000 1
04:     crypt   0000000002000000 1
05:      misc   0000000002000000 1
06: instaboot   0000000000400000 1
07:      boot   0000000002000000 1
08:    system   0000000080000000 1
09:     cache   0000000020000000 2
10:      data   ffffffffffffffff 4
init_part() 293: PART_TYPE_AML
eMMC/TSD partition table have been checked OK!
check pattern success
mmc env offset: 0x27400000
In:    serial
Out:   serial
Err:   serial
reboot_mode=watchdog_reboot
hpd_state=0
cvbs performance type = 6, table = 0
[store]To run cmd[emmc dtb_read 0x1000000 0x40000]
_verify_dtb_checksum()-917: calc 779af835, store 779af835
_verify_dtb_checksum()-917: calc 779af835, store 779af835
dtb_read()-1039: total valid 2
dtb_read()-1106: do nothing
      Amlogic multi-dtb tool
      Single dtb detected
Net:   dwmac.c9410000amlkey_init() enter!
"Synchronous Abort" handler, esr 0x96000210
ELR:     77efe52c
LR:      77efe52c
x0 : 0000000077fbc000 x1 : 0000000000000001
x2 : 0000000000000000 x3 : 0000000000000000
x4 : 0000000000000000 x5 : 0000000000000004
x6 : ffffff80ffffffc8 x7 : 0000000000000044
x8 : 0000000000000000 x9 : 0000000000000000
x10: 0000000000000000 x11: 0000000000000000
x12: 0000000000000000 x13: 0000000000000000
x14: 0000000000000000 x15: 0000000000000000
x16: 0000000000000000 x17: 0000000000000000
x18: 0000000073eace28 x19: 0000000077f39618
x20: 0000000077f62000 x21: 00000000ffffffff
x22: 0000000077f4a2c2 x23: 0000000077f48b89
x24: 0000000077f5951e x25: 0000000077f4a291
x26: 0000000000000000 x27: 0000000000000000
x28: 0000000000000000 x29: 0000000073eacc60

Resetting CPU ...

resetting ...

 

 

The problem is with the Synchronous Abort at the end, but I have never seen that before, and I cannot figure out what is causing it. I know this has nothing to do with Armbian per se, but seeing as it is a u-boot issue, I was wondering if anyone ran into this issue before, and how I can figure it out?

 

While the box was stuck in infinite reset, the USB burning tool couldn't connect at all, and uboot wasn't configured to boot from SD card... I managed to get out of the loop and reprogram via USB by shorting pins 31 and 32 on the eMMC during bootup, and reflashed the stock firmware. Everything is now back to Android and behaving normally, but I really would love to be able to boot that image that took me roughly 6 hours to compile...

 

Thanks for any help!

It is better to boot from a microSD card or USb memory. It is much easier to test and you wont brick your device. The aml_autoscript starts s905_autoscript that specifies where the box starts to look zImage and uInitrd files. If the kernel can not be started then the boot process stays  in loop (see the .cmd file) . It is better to build sd card image using armbian scripts that are easy to modify to your projects. Configure it using and creating new files in lib/config/boards&kernel&sources directories.

https://github.com/150balbes/lib

 

You can try  balbes or mine install images. In my image there is mali 400 kernel driver enabled and support for brcm wifi. For gpu accelerated graphics, you need some special libdrm and other X components that are not in Debian repositories

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsNzZn-luc0

 

 

IMHO. You have a problem not the right build u-boot (possibly not used the correct GCC or src). I don't recommend to change (flash) u-boot and dtb, if they are collected using source not from the manufacturer of the TV set-top box.