Re: RPI4-4Gb Boot fails from SD card (both my build AND the official 14.3 build)

This is what fails (from /usr/local/share/u-boot/u-boot-rpi4):

  strings u-boot.bin | grep "U-Boot 20"
          _+{}|~:"~<>?2H53F6CDBAU-Boot 2025.04 (Jul 01 2025 - 23:03:56 
+0000)

$ cksum u-boot.bin
3394302399 702400 u-boot.bin

This boots (from /usr/local/share/u-boot/u-boot-rpi3):

$ strings u-boot.bin | grep "U-Boot 20"
          _+{}|~:"~<>?2H53F6CDBAU-Boot 2025.04 (Jul 01 2025 - 19:02:10 
+0000)

$ cksum u-boot.bin
3805910080 641584 u-boot.bin

I changed nothing else; merely copied in the pi-3 u-boot.bin to the card 
that already had the rest on it (didn't re-run a build) and it boots as 
expected.

start4.elf comes off the rpi-firmware package (and thus is invarient); 
mine shows:

[karl@NewFS /usr/local/share/rpi-firmware]$ strings start4.elf|grep _ID_
VC_BUILD_ID_USER: dom
VC_BUILD_ID_TIME: 10:50:39
VC_BUILD_ID_VARIANT: start
VC_BUILD_ID_TIME: Mar 17 2023
VC_BUILD_ID_BRANCH: bcm2711_2
VC_BUILD_ID_HOSTNAME: buildbot
VC_BUILD_ID_PLATFORM: raspberrypi_linux
VC_BUILD_ID_VERSION: 82f3750a65fadae9a38077e3c2e217ad158c8d54 (clean)

(Same as yours)

On 7/27/2025 12:37, Bakul Shah wrote:
> FWIW, I am running freebsd-current on a 4GB Raspberry Pi 4 Model B Rev 
> 1.1 (bought in June 2019). It used to run 14.0-RELEASE but I switched 
> it to 15.0-CURRENT in February. Its firmware was updated (under 
> raspbian) I don't recall what it is now. Its root is on a usb ssd & 
> doesn't have an SDcard installed now (last it had an sdcard in on 
> October 29).
>
> # strings /boot/efi/u-boot.bin | grep "U-Boot 20"
>  _+{}|~:"~<>?2H53F6CDBAU-Boot 2024.07 (Apr 24 2025 - 03:47:59 +0000)
>
> # strings /boot/efi/start4.elf | grep _ID_
> VC_BUILD_ID_USER: dom
> VC_BUILD_ID_TIME: 10:50:39
> VC_BUILD_ID_VARIANT: start
> VC_BUILD_ID_TIME: Mar 17 2023
> VC_BUILD_ID_BRANCH: bcm2711_2
> VC_BUILD_ID_HOSTNAME: buildbot
> VC_BUILD_ID_PLATFORM: raspberrypi_linux
> VC_BUILD_ID_VERSION: 82f3750a65fadae9a38077e3c2e217ad158c8d54 (clean)
>
> ^^^ this is the same as what Mark Millard reported.
>
>> On Jul 27, 2025, at 7:53 AM, Karl Denninger <karl@denninger.net> wrote:
>>
>> Now this is interesting.....
>>
>> The image I have been running (and the one apparently in the official 
>> releases -- I'll have to go look but I mimic'd what it was doing for 
>> ARM64 on the Pis) was using the u-boot binary out of the rpi-4 package.
>>
>> If I copy in the u-boot.bin file out of the rpi-3 package the older 
>> Pi4 I have here boots and runs.  The u-boot.bin files are different 
>> in both size and content despite allegedly being the same version.
>>
>> I do not have (yet) one of the newer Pi4s to test with but do have 
>> one coming, so I'll check that one as well -- and in the meantime, 
>> well, guess where I'll be pulling the u-boot binary from in my builds 
>> since this one works with both the "3" and "4"s that I have.....
>>
>> On 7/27/2025 08:10, Karl Denninger wrote:
>>> On 7/26/2025 23:40, Mark Millard wrote:
>>>> On Jul 26, 2025, at 18:24, Karl Denninger<karl@denninger.net> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Well, the same card (physically the same card) boots in the Pi3 with the same FreeBSD load *and* the same card loaded with an "official" Pi firmware load boots in the 4 and runs.  I have attempted this with two very different SD cards -- one Sandisk Ultra that previously had Kodi on it and was running in that specific Pi4 and the second is one that while slower is one of a dozen here of a series that have served me extremely well in Pis for a very, very long time.
>>>>> The builds on my box (and apparently the one on the FreeBSD official image page) are all using 2025-04 u-boot as the official FreeBSD load off the distribution page behaves exactly the same way -- the EFI loader boots without incident, gets and loads the kernel, the kernel boots as expected but the mmc driver takes timeouts and cannot see the sd card after the kernel comes up, thus root mount fails.
>>>> Summary: The below booted from a microsd card just fine
>>>> on one system --but not on another-- based on:
>>>>
>>>> FreeBSD-14.3-STABLE-arm64-aarch64-RPI-20250724-f0a7a1bda375-272016.img.xz
>>>>
>>>> It failed for a rather old 4 GByte RPi4B that I got access
>>>> to (older EEPROM content as well) --but worked on a modern
>>>> 8 GiByte RPi4B.
>>>
>>> Lovely.  So from appearances there's a hardware difference that 
>>> apparently results in this; this is an older one (quite old) which 
>>> is the only "4" I have right now.  I guess it get relegated to Kodi 
>>> use (if ever); I'll see about sourcing some newer ones (whether I 
>>> borked it when I updated its firmware as Kodi wanted or whether its 
>>> rot somewhere in the FreeBSD driver code that breaks for this 
>>> hardware but not newer stuff I don't know.)
>>>
>>> I'll play with some older u-boot copies I have laying around but 
>>> since the EFI loader and then kernel starts I'll wager that ain't 
>>> the issue and see about sourcing a couple of the newer ones to play 
>>> with for the purpose I'm screwing with these in the first place.
>>>
>>>> ===
>>>> Mark Millard
>>>> marklmi at yahoo.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Karl Denninger
>>> karl@denninger.net
>>> /The Market Ticker/
>>> /[S/MIME encrypted email preferred]/
>> -- 
>> Karl Denninger
>> karl@denninger.net
>> /The Market Ticker/
>> /[S/MIME encrypted email preferred]/
>
-- 
Karl Denninger
karl@denninger.net
/The Market Ticker/
/[S/MIME encrypted email preferred]/