Downloading Bootloader Fails

dzar · March 24, 2021, 3:31am

I have several RockPi 4C boards that now fail to do anything. They will not boot. No flashing blue LED.

So I have attached them in mask ROM mode and see them:

$ rkdeveloptool ld
DevNo=1 Vid=0x2207,Pid=0x330c,LocationID=403 Maskrom

But when I try to do anything with the device, I get nothing:
$ sudo rkdeveloptool db rk3399_loader_spinor_v1.15.114.bin
Downloading bootloader…

and it just hangs.

Also:

$sudo rkdeveloptool wl 0 zero.img
Write LBA failed!

Does this mean I have bricked/dead boards? I’ve checked the power supplies and they look good. But anything else to check?

I’d love to get these boards booting, again!

Thank you!

Freik · November 7, 2021, 10:58pm

Did you ever get a response? I just had the same problem with a Pi4B. The lack of support for this sort of thing is making me regret this purchase. RasPi’s have solutions for everything under the sun. This is literally me following the instructions step-by-step and then “go post in the forums” where the forums are a ghost town…

dzar · November 7, 2021, 11:16pm

Nope. Never a response. I have a pile of boards that are useless due to this same failure.

I have moved on…

Radxa is maybe fine for a personal project, but no way I’m using this for another commercial system. My initial impressions were good, but then the hardware proved unreliable and with zero support for the hardware, I’m done.

Good luck with your project (s).

dw1939 · December 14, 2021, 4:58pm

This is so annoying. I’ve been scratching my head and attempting to figure this out. I keep getting a failure after the bin gets loaded but it never downloads the image. I’ve attempted this both in linux and windows with the same outcome.

So far returning it not an option. Youtube isn’t helpful, apparetnly all the videos on YouTube are are all centered around the older board where the eMMC is de-attachable to be written, that model works perfectly i have that model and I’m not having issues.

So I’m trying to find if there is another BIN file that can be used, however nothing is avaliable. So if it’s failing I’m wondering if there is something needed on the cable for it to work. Reading thru another Fourm… someone got this working without an issue. So it looks like there isn’t an image… we’ve got that figured out how do we get the image to work though.

New Rock Pi 4 doesn’t start - Using ROCK Pi 4 - Radxa Forum

Steve_Walsh · April 30, 2022, 10:12am

I am also having this issue. Using MacOS (Intel). The command
rkdeveloptool db rk3399_loader_spinor_v1.15.114.bin shows

“Downloading Bootloader …” and hangs indefinitely.

Tried mutliple times. One time, it showed: “Downloading Bootloader failed!”

But now it is back to hanging

Oliver · October 4, 2024, 12:17pm

To flash the image to the device, you need to first flash the loader. Here’s the step-by-step process explained in English:

Flash the Loader: You must first flash the loader before flashing the image. The loader is responsible for initializing the system, including memory and peripherals.Use the following command to flash the loader:

sudo rkdeveloptool db rk356x_spl_loader_ddr1056_v1.12.109_no_check_todly.bin

This command downloads the bootloader and flashes it to the device. You should see a message indicating success, such as:
Downloading bootloader succeeded.
2. Flash the Image: After successfully flashing the loader, you can now proceed to flash the actual operating system image (in this case, a Debian Bullseye image):

sudo rkdeveloptool wl 0 radxa-zero3_debian_bullseye_xfce_b6.img

This command writes the image to the device, starting from address 0.

In summary, you must always flash the loader first before you can flash the OS image. The loader prepares the device, and once that’s done, the image can be written.