XBian hangs during boot showing "configuring network"

[ditschi]

Hi

I'm running xbian RC2 on my raspberry pi.

At some point I noticed that even though xbian most of the time started without problems, now and then it hung during boot showing the "configuring network".

Now, I can't boot at all. Xbian stays at "configuring network" splashscreen while boot permanently.(waited several hours)

What i tried:
- removed eth0 auto setting from /etc/network/interfaces (read that in a forum) - seemed to improve reliable boots
- many restarts (with/without LAN, with/without USB Keyboard - and so on)
- ping not successful
- waited very long after several boots

other things i can think about:
- I read something about nfs shares (I have none in fstab - not sure if I added one)
- maybe a problem with tvheadend?! no Idea how to test and fix that.

I really don't want to reinstall my nicely set up xbmc.
OK, I could backup, but I'd like to know the source of the problem, so I know how to fix it when it appears next time. Also I can't see how that could fix the problem because I only installed some plugins to customise a fresh XBian installation (this I would repeat with a new XBian)

someone else had his problem? any ideas how to fix that?

Cheers
Ditschi

[menakite]

Could you try disabling any overclock?

Insert the SD in your PC, edit config.txt by adding a "#" before any of these entries (values provided as an example):

Code:

arm_freq=1000
core_freq=500
gpu_freq=500
over_voltage=6
sdram_freq=550

e.g.:

Code:

#arm_freq=1000
#core_freq=500
...

Also run a fsck on the FAT partition (you can also use Disk Utility on OS X). Can't remember how you do that on Windows.

[ditschi]

thanks that worked!!!
haven't thought about the overclocking.

I disabled overclocking and booting worked like a charme

It seems like overclocking messes with the ethernet communication/synchronisation so no handshake is possible (or something similar)

A fsck wasn't needed. I also can't tell how to do fsck on windows... I'm using Kubuntu on my private Laptop (but I think to remember using something like chkdsk when using windows many years ago)

[menakite]

Yep. I investigated that issue a couple months ago, but I can't really remember the details. Some boards are more sensible than others w.r.t. to overclocking.

Anyways disabling overclock isn't really a solution, XBMC may probably suffer from this. I'm using a custom kernel with the "powersave" CPUFreq governor as default, i.e. it boots with overclock disabled but it can be enabled later (in my case, when XBMC starts).

Are you able to compile your own kernel?

@mk01 you probably want to read this thread.

[mk01]

@menakite

are we speaking about impossible DHCP acquire ? we had just similar issue on cubox-i - u-boot/SPL code effectively messed up UDP on eth0 for maybe 30-40s after boot. so DHCP failed initially and system was done. static IP was ok. if DHCP was delayed with sleep 30 before ifup eth0, all was ok.

anyhow I would report this to popcornmix on rpi-firmware. the cubox-i example was just to show that there are things beyond our knowledge, but there are people who can know more.

[ditschi]

@menakite
yes, i have already compiled my own kernel some years ago when I was using gentoo. but thats quite some time ago...
at the moment I'm not sure how to set up the "powersave" kernel because I never modified the Kernel on my pi. (I'll look into that later this week - surely I'll find a dokumentation how to do that)

@mk01
I reported the issue as suggested

I'll test boot with a Static IP and overclocking - will report on that later
I can't say what the problem with network exactly is. DHCP was only a guess.

how/where can I insert that DHCP delay you mentioned to test that.

[CurlyMo]

Change these lines while compiling:
https://github.com/xbianonpi/xbian-patches/blob/master/kernel.i.MX6/config#L477-L482

[mk01]

(2nd Jul, 2014 08:04 PM)ditschi Wrote:  @menakite
yes, i have already compiled my own kernel some years ago when I was using gentoo. but thats quite some time ago...
at the moment I'm not sure how to set up the "powersave" kernel because I never modified the Kernel on my pi. (I'll look into that later this week - surely I'll find a dokumentation how to do that)

@ditschi

if you follow https://github.com/xbianonpi/xbian/wiki/Building-XBian-packages , clone then xbian-package-kernel and there is rpi-powersave variant predefined. just run building.

for compiling kernel you can also skip the longest initial part (creating buildroot - armhfwheezy). just install crosscompiler - like gcc-arm-linux-gnueabihf if you have ubuntu. if debian add

Code:

deb http://www.emdebian.org/debian/ stable main

and install "gcc-4.X-arm-linux-gnueabi" (you have to check what version is available to you)

---

to put a test delay
edit

Code:

/etc/init/network-interface.override

and you will still see commented "[ "$(xbian-arch)" != iMX6 ] || { ip link set $INTERFACE up; sleep 0; }" from cubox
so uncomment, change iMX6 to RPI and change sleep 0 to sleep 40 to delay 40s

[ditschi]

thanks! I'll look into that later...

Meanwhile popcornmix commented on my issue on github.
He suggests a power supply problem.

I'm useing am 2A supply which should be sufficient (or not?) - but it could be broken or something else
I'll check that later (like discribed here http://elinux.org/R-Pi_Troubleshooting#Troubleshooting_power_problems).

[ditschi]

Finally I had time to do some testing.

Power supply is ok!

Static IP: When I try to change IP to "static" with the xBian config in XBMC there is a popup "Network: An unexpected error occured" - then settings are restored to DHCP (same with ssh xbian config)
- How to change that in which config file?

Setting an 40 s delay in /etc/init/network-interface.override before ifup to delay DHCP didn't solve the problem - boot still hangs with overclocking enabled

I tried to compile the kernel but got stuck. I installed gcc-arm-linux-gnueabihf and cloned xbian-package-kernel (git clone https://github.com/xbianonpi/xbian-package-kernel) like suggested. Then I tried to follow "Building XBian" and "Compiling the Linux kernel & Raspberry Pi firmware" without success. How exactly do I do "just run building".

[menakite]

mk01 built 3.15.2 with the default governor set to powersave: https://menakite.eu/~anaconda/xbian-package-kernel1.5.2-53b3fbf0.deb - I didn't have a chance to test it yet.

Terminal

wget https://menakite.eu/~anaconda/xbian-package-kernel1.5.2-53b3fbf0.deb
sudo dpkg -i xbian-package-kernel1.5.2-53b3fbf0.deb
rm xbian-package-kernel1.5.2-53b3fbf0.deb # optional

After that, edit /etc/default/xbian-module-init-tools and set the only configurable option to:

Terminal

CPUFREQ_GOVERNOR="performance"

You can now uncomment overclocking settings in /boot/config.txt. This kernel should boot with "powersave" and switch to "performance" after about 10-15 seconds. If you're unsure, pastebin a dmesg output post-reboot.

[calhaus]

I've installed RC2 and i was having this problem too.

The problem was caused every time i set overclock to Turbo. Changing that made Xbian work again.
Not having Turbo is not really an option to me so the first solution tried was also changing the net work settings from DHCP to Static.

Like ditschi said in the quote below, change to static from the Xbian Config Addon is not possible. I get an error every time. ("Network . An unexpected error occurred")

So i've tried to changed it from xbian-config via SSH and it worked!

So far, Turbo overclock + static ip is working fine so i guess the custom kernel with powersave is not the only solution.

(8th Jul, 2014 02:17 AM)ditschi Wrote:  Static IP: When I try to change IP to "static" with the xBian config in XBMC there is a popup "Network: An unexpected error occured" - then settings are restored to DHCP (same with ssh xbian config)
- How to change that in which config file?

[0xFF]

(2nd Jul, 2014 06:32 AM)ditschi Wrote:  Hi

I'm running xbian RC2 on my raspberry pi.

At some point I noticed that even though xbian most of the time started without problems, now and then it hung during boot showing the "configuring network".

Now, I can't boot at all. Xbian stays at "configuring network" splashscreen while boot permanently.(waited several hours)

What i tried:
- removed eth0 auto setting from /etc/network/interfaces (read that in a forum) - seemed to improve reliable boots
- many restarts (with/without LAN, with/without USB Keyboard - and so on)
- ping not successful
- waited very long after several boots

other things i can think about:
- I read something about nfs shares (I have none in fstab - not sure if I added one)
- maybe a problem with tvheadend?! no Idea how to test and fix that.

I really don't want to reinstall my nicely set up xbmc.
OK, I could backup, but I'd like to know the source of the problem, so I know how to fix it when it appears next time. Also I can't see how that could fix the problem because I only installed some plugins to customise a fresh XBian installation (this I would repeat with a new XBian)

someone else had his problem? any ideas how to fix that?

Cheers
Ditschi

I have the same issue with latest Xbian running on RPi B+ overclocked @1000MHz.
I found I can boot Xbian again after leaving my RPi unpowered for about one day.
Does DHCP lease have to expire?
Is there known workaround?

Best regards

[mk01]

@0xFF

try using static instead of dhcp (if that is an option)
try using different dhcp client. try isc-dhcp-client as first (only install that package, isc is choice #1 for network handling scripts.

[Singular]

(2nd Jul, 2014 07:22 AM)menakite Wrote:  Could you try disabling any overclock?

Insert the SD in your PC, edit config.txt by adding a "#" before any of these entries (values provided as an example):

Code:

arm_freq=1000
core_freq=500
gpu_freq=500
over_voltage=6
sdram_freq=550

e.g.:

Code:

#arm_freq=1000
#core_freq=500
...

Also run a fsck on the FAT partition (you can also use Disk Utility on OS X). Can't remember how you do that on Windows.

I was getting desperate fixing this and used your advice..
In my case it was a "turbo setting", quite unlike the way you described Xbian's config.txt file..

Anyway! I got it to work again by editing a # infront of the turbo mentioning thing, instead of reinstalling :-)

Thx!