[BUG]: flashing and booting issues

[sskorol]

Describe the issue

• Followed the steps from this video: https://www.jetsonhacks.com/2021/08/25/native-boot-for-jetson-xaviers/
• When I ran flash_jetson_external_storage.sh it failed with the following stacktrace:

[   0.5738 ] tegrasign_v3.py --key None --list bct_list.xml --pubkeyhash pub_key.key --getmontgomeryvalues montgomery.bin
[   0.5775 ] /usr/bin/env: Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./tegraflash.py", line 1296, in <module>
    tegraflash_run_commands()
  File "./tegraflash.py", line 1155, in tegraflash_run_commands
    interpreter.onecmd(command)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/cmd.py", line 217, in onecmd
    return func(arg)
  File "./tegraflash.py", line 667, in do_sign
    tegraflash_sign(exports)
  File "/home/skorol/Projects/bootFromExternalStorage/R32.6.1/Linux_for_Tegra/bootloader/tegraflash_internal.py", line 1078, in tegraflash_sign
    tegraflash_generate_bct()
  File "/home/skorol/Projects/bootFromExternalStorage/R32.6.1/Linux_for_Tegra/bootloader/tegraflash_internal.py", line 4004, in tegraflash_generate_bct
    tegraflash_generate_br_bct(True)
  File "/home/skorol/Projects/bootFromExternalStorage/R32.6.1/Linux_for_Tegra/bootloader/tegraflash_internal.py", line 3510, in tegraflash_generate_br_bct
    run_command(command)
  File "/home/skorol/Projects/bootFromExternalStorage/R32.6.1/Linux_for_Tegra/bootloader/tegraflash_internal.py", line 202, in run_command
    log = print_process(process, enable_print)
  File "/home/skorol/Projects/bootFromExternalStorage/R32.6.1/Linux_for_Tegra/bootloader/tegraflash_internal.py", line 164, in print_process
    outputchar = output.decode('ascii')
UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xe2 in position 0: ordinal not in range(128)
Error: /home/skorol/Projects/bootFromExternalStorage/R32.6.1/Linux_for_Tegra/bootloader/signed/flash.idx is not found
Error: failed to relocate images to /home/skorol/Projects/bootFromExternalStorage/R32.6.1/Linux_for_Tegra/tools/kernel_flash/images
Cleaning up...

Which version of Ubuntu on the Host machine
Ubuntu version: 20.04.2 LTS

Which Jetson
Jetson: Xavier NX

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior: just run flash_jetson_external_storage.sh following the video guide

Expected behavior
Flashing should be completed.

[sskorol]

I added export LC_ALL=C.UTF-8. Now it's failing with a new error. Continue googling... :)

[   0.5848 ] Get Signed section of bct
[   0.5867 ] tegrabct_v2 --brbct br_bct_BR.bct --chip 0x19 0 --listbct bct_list.xml
[   0.5875 ] 
[   0.5894 ] tegrasign_v3.py --key None --list bct_list.xml --pubkeyhash pub_key.key --getmontgomeryvalues montgomery.bin
[   0.5901 ] /usr/bin/env: ‘python’: No such file or directory
[   0.5907 ] 
Error: Return value 127
Command tegrasign_v3.py --key None --list bct_list.xml --pubkeyhash pub_key.key --getmontgomeryvalues montgomery.bin
Error: /home/skorol/Projects/bootFromExternalStorage/R32.6.1/Linux_for_Tegra/bootloader/signed/flash.idx is not found
Error: failed to relocate images to /home/skorol/Projects/bootFromExternalStorage/R32.6.1/Linux_for_Tegra/tools/kernel_flash/images
Cleaning up...

[sskorol]

The following package installation did the trick:

sudo apt-get install python-is-python3

Waiting for completion... Fingers crossed.

[sskorol]

Ok, seems like I'm good to continue:

[ 184]: l4t_flash_from_kernel: Successfully flash the qspi
[ 184]: l4t_flash_from_kernel: Flashing success

Note: The flash process might have added some nvidia-flash-* connections in
NetworkManager to set up USB ethernet through flashing port (L4t USB Device mode).
You might want to check your NetworkManager configuration if you have some special
configuration.
Reboot target
Run command: sync; { sleep 1; reboot; } >/dev/null & on root@fe80::1%usb0
bash: warning: setlocale: LC_ALL: cannot change locale (C.UTF-8)
Success
Cleaning up...
Log is saved to Linux_for_Tegra/initrdlog/flash_1-2.2_0_20210826-114426.log 

[sskorol]

Moved to Jetson and see the following:

EXT4-fs (nvme0n1): VFS: Can't find ext4 filesystem
You are in emergency mode. After logging in, type "journalctl -xb" to view system logs, "systemctl reboot" to reboot, "systemctl default" or "exit" to boot into default mode.
Press Enter for maintenance
(or Control-D to continue)

[sskorol]

In logs I see the following:

[sskorol]

I ran the process again. Reached the point where I need to switch to Xavier. I connected it via hdmi cable to see what's going on there. And there's a black screen with a blinking cursor. Key presses don't work. BTW, in logs of a flash_jetson_external_storage I noticed that it formats /dev/sda. Shouldn't it be a nvme0n1p1 selected by default? Or I misinterpreted the output?

[sskorol]

Ok, it seems like the size of a drive is correct, so it formatted a valid one. Finally, I noticed one important note in a README that I've previously missed: removing sd card. I removed it and repeated the process from scratch. Then manually rebooted the board after flashing and now I see the default oem screen! So it works! :)

[sskorol]

BTW, I also noticed some python warnings before flashing:

/home/skorol/Projects/bootFromExternalStorage/R32.6.1/Linux_for_Tegra/bootloader/tegraflash_internal.py:2064: SyntaxWarning: "is not" with a literal. Did you mean "!="?
  if sig_type is not "zerosbk":
/home/skorol/Projects/bootFromExternalStorage/R32.6.1/Linux_for_Tegra/bootloader/tegraflash_internal.py:2067: SyntaxWarning: "is" with a literal. Did you mean "=="?
  if sig_type is "oem-rsa":
/home/skorol/Projects/bootFromExternalStorage/R32.6.1/Linux_for_Tegra/bootloader/tegraflash_internal.py:2560: SyntaxWarning: "is not" with a literal. Did you mean "!="?
  while count is not 0 and not check_ismb2():
/home/skorol/Projects/bootFromExternalStorage/R32.6.1/Linux_for_Tegra/bootloader/tegraflash_internal.py:2569: SyntaxWarning: "is not" with a literal. Did you mean "!="?
  while count is not 0:

They are self-explanatory and easy to fix. I did it and no more warnings.

[sskorol]

One more point. When I tried to get_jetson_files when they have been already present on my host, I faced different issues with permissions and cudatools. If I'm not mistaken, the first one I got w/ disconnected board. And in terms of a second, it seems like I ran a script with a connected board. Not sure what had happened. But when I removed the repo folder and cloned it from scratch, the process has finished w/o errors.

[sskorol]

@jetsonhacks to summarize, I'd made the following improvements to avoid any further confusion:

• add export LC_ALL=C.UTF-8
• add python-is-python3 package
• fix tegraflash_internal.sh python warnings
• add a step to the README which requires rebooting the Jetson board (if it should be done automatically, it didn't work for me)
• reword the warning about SD card, that it must be absent and may cause booting issues (or if it's not true, then would be nice to figure out why I couldn't boot for the first time)
• add a cleanup script/step for situations when users need to run the process multiple times (e.g. in case of any errors)

[anhmiuhv]

The SD card thing is because of the boot order of the bootloader. If Your sd card is present and not empty, the jetson xavier nx will priotize booting from the SD card.

[jetsonhacks]

Most of these script issues have been addressed now.