Espressobin: neither SATA nor USB3 is working with 5.1.3

[Sergeanter]

I do not see any related messages under dmesg except for these possibly
phy phy-d0018300.phy.0: phy poweron failed --> -1
xhci-hcd: probe of d0058000.usb failed with error -1

[boorg]

I reported this in Packages subforum, together with a workaround, which is basically use the old /boot/dtbs/marvell/armada-3720-espressobin.dtb. I took one from installation image.

[NanoExplorer]

I have the same problem. My workaround was to downgrade the following packages:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'downgraded hwids (20190316-1 -> 20180917-1)
downgraded linux-firmware (20190514.711d329-1 -> 20190313.efd2c1c-1)
downgraded linux-espressobin (5.1.7-1 -> 5.0.7-1)
')

Also, I think you found the right error message. When the usb port isn't working I see
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '
alarm kernel: xhci-hcd: probe of d0058000.usb failed with error -1
')
and when it does work I see
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '
alarm kernel: xhci-hcd d0058000.usb: xHCI Host Controller
alarm kernel: xhci-hcd d0058000.usb: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 3
alarm kernel: xhci-hcd d0058000.usb: Host supports USB 3.0 SuperSpeed
')
instead.

As far as I can tell the *.dtb file is a binary file specifying the physical layout of the board. Why would it ever be modified?

[moonman]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('NanoExplorer', 'W')hy would it ever be modified?

[Sergeanter]

https://dl.armbian.com/espressobin/u-boot/
Apparently this issue has been solved in opensuse using updated uboot
Would this help us?
https://en.opensuse.org/HCL:EspressoBin

[boorg]

Works for me, thanks Sergeanter
I took bootloader version 'U-Boot 2017.03-armada-17.10' from http://espressobin.net/tech-spec/ and followed instructions at http://wiki.espressobin.net/tiki-index.php?page=Update+the+Bootloader.

[Sergeanter]

Dude, hold on.
I have uboot 17.10 and sata does not work. Are you saying the one at armbian is different?

[boorg]

Hm, maybe it was too late at night. I need to double check, maybe I had the workaround applied.

[boorg]

The 17.10 does indeed not change anything. So I got image from armbian and it seems to fix the issue, SATA is working. The u-boot version is 18.12:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'U-Boot 2018.03-devel-18.12.3-gc9aa92c-armbian (Feb 20 2019 - 09:45:04 +0100)')

Instruction which image to choose is here https://www.armbian.com/espressobin/. For reference, the file name format is flash-image-ddr3/ddr4-MEM-RAM_CHIPS-CPU_DDR.bin:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '5')12,1G,2G, number of RAM chips (if your board is older than a few months it has two RAM chips – one on each side of the PCB opposite to each other. Recent 1GB models have only one chip at the bottom) and appropriate memory speeds. You can obtain numbers from the current boot prompt. Also choose right memory: ddr3 are for V3-V5 EspressoBin’s (i.e. V5, 1g-2cs) and ddr4 images are for v7 EspressoBin’s.

[Sergeanter]

I can confirm that our problem was due to obsolete uboot. After upgrading to 18.12 from armbian SATA works without a workaround dtb .
Now I am going to tell you how I spent my weekend. With my urge to overclock everything I have naively flashed 1200 MHz version of uboot. Then I had a lot of fun with UART recovery. Even though 1.2GHz was mentioned here and there, the real stable clock is 1GHz, period. Re-flash via UART was the only way out of the bootloop.