Debian 11 powering off instead of rebooting

[Guff666]

Hi all
I initially installed Debian 12 on a Pi 4 to run Home Assistant. Later, I realized that HA doesn't support Debian 12 so I re-installed with Debian 11. Both were installed to an SSD with a blank SD card in the slot. For both I ran a `dist-upgrade`

I now find that the Pi doesn't recover from a `reboot`, it powers off instead. Any ideas on how to fix this

FWIW, I have reinstalled Debian 12 and it too now fails to recover

[kerry_s]

so what does raspberry os do ?

[BigRedMailbox]

so what does raspberry os do ?

You should test it and let us know. Thanks.

[Guff666]

raspberry os reboots OK. Debian 11 used to as well.

I'm going to flash Debian 11 to an SD card and try that to take the SSD out of reckoning for now

[Guff666]

Hmm
Debian 11 reboots OK if installed on an SD card.

[kerry_s]

Hmm
Debian 11 reboots OK if installed on an SD card.

while in raspberry os update your eeprom.

Code: Select all

sudo rpi-eeprom-update

you know raspberry os is debian optimized for rpi, why not use raspberry ?

it does everything your doing in debian, you can use the lite 64bit and install other desktops/wm's on top of it. if raspberry desktop is your issue.

[Guff666]

The Pi is being built specifically to run Home Assistant and that requires Debian, not Raspbian.

I’ll try updating the EPROM

[kerry_s]

The Pi is being built specifically to run Home Assistant and that requires Debian, not Raspbian.

I’ll try updating the EPROM

dude! raspbian is the old name, now raspberry os.

raspberry os is built on top of debian.

[Guff666]

Nevertheless, the HA installer checks the os version and aborts if its anything other than Debian 11.

Their argument is that they really want you to run on their OS so that they can support you. If you insist on not going down that route (e.g. because, like me, you need to run other services in addition), you can, but they restrict your choice of OS to reduce the volume of support calls.

[kerry_s]

your not understanding, it's debian 11, the desktop gui is the raspberry part, it uses a forked lxde.

[kerry_s]

which instructions are you following ?

i only see
https://www.home-assistant.io/installation/raspberrypi

[redvli]

Raspberry PI OS is modified Debian. Modifications that are needed to operate the Pi4 correctly might not yet have ended up in whatever Debian12 Pi4 image.

Raspberry PI OS uses the Pi SoC watchdog to get the same sort of reboot as we are used to from Linux/Debian on a PC. But it is a proprietary hack, not a standard. If something in Debian12 is misconfigured w.r.t. that hardware watchdog, you might get this behavior. Or different VC4 firmware is used.

If you want a specific OS, use virtualization. Docker or KVM. I have used a HA VM on Intel, you can just download it. For Arm, I don't know, have a look at the HA download site. But installing EFI based Debian11 in a VM and then HA into that should work perfectly well. I have a Pi4-8GB, it runs 5 OSses including the host RaspberryPiOS64 with kernel 6.1.19 and bullseyse-backports.

[Guff666]

your not understanding, it's debian 11, the desktop gui is the raspberry part, it uses a forked lxde.

Sorry, but it's you that is not understanding. Regardless of the base, origin or whatever, home assistant will not install on raspberry pi os, only on pure Debian 11. You'll have to ask them how they tell the difference and why they are so picky.

Gareth

[Guff666]

which instructions are you following ?

i only see
https://www.home-assistant.io/installation/raspberrypi

No, I'm following https://github.com/home-assistant/supervised-installer. It is referred to in the main installation documentation but discouraged - even though it uses tools developed by home assistant.

[Guff666]

...

Raspberry PI OS uses the Pi SoC watchdog to get the same sort of reboot as we are used to from Linux/Debian on a PC. But it is a proprietary hack, not a standard. If something in Debian12 is misconfigured w.r.t. that hardware watchdog, you might get this behavior. Or different VC4 firmware is used.

...

I'll go looking but ISTR seeing some error messages about the watchdog. However, the system reboots fine when running from an SD card; it's only when running from an SSD that it fails - and then only since I re-installed. Initially it was fine.

[Guff666]

FWIW I managed to solve it. The issue was the value for BOOT_ORDER. It was set to 0x041. I changed it to 0xf41 and it now reboots.

There's very little documentation (that I can find) about the EEPROM config values, but I think this means try SD then SSD but keep retrying until something works.

Gareth

[kerry_s]

so your all set then, that was the main issue right ?

[jojopi]

dude! raspbian is the old name, now raspberry os.
raspberry os is built on top of debian.

None of that is true, punter!

You are running the 64bit version of Raspberry Pi OS, which is built on top of Debian arm64. The 32bit version is still built on top of Raspbian armhf, because that is almost the only base distribution to run optimally on first-generation Pies.

Code: Select all

pi@pi3:~ $ head -1 /etc/os-release 
PRETTY_NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)"
pi@pi3:~ $ sudo apt update
Hit:1 http://raspbian.raspberrypi.org/raspbian bullseye InRelease

Of course, the only real difference between Debian and Raspbian is the default compiler options, so OP could probably force the Debian-specific application to run on Raspbian okay. But I do not think you were addressing that, you were just in-correcting the terminology.

Also a screenshot of you using a non-standard alias is of no use to anyone else. The principal disadvantage of aliases and other customizations is that they do not work elsewhere.

[kerry_s]

your just nit picking, the alias wasn't the point.

but your right, i forget about 32bit. just assumed he was using 64bit, my bad.

anyway don't matter, if he's got it working.

the page he linked to doesn't say 32 or 64 and the main componet(docker-ce), well....

(i'm just getting back to work after being sick for a month, so my head is not all there, more pressing things to worry about )

[Guff666]

Thanks all.
Yes, rebooting was the only issue. Everything is fine now.

I looked in the Home Assistant installler and it does a ‘uname -m’ and objects if the answer isn’t what it wants. It would be trivial to disable this check and I’m happy there would be no unexpected side-effects later on. If I ever need to re-install again, I’ll probably make that change before starting the installer.

Gareth