[Bug]: Disabling firmware upgrades broken?

[EvilOlaf]

What happened?

https://forum.armbian.com/topic/49253-correct-procedure-to-disable-kernel-updates/#comment-210648

How to reproduce?

apparently only armbian-firmware package is put on hold but not dtb, kernel and headers

On which host OS are you running the build script and observing this problem?

Other

Code of Conduct

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[EvilOlaf]

Could not reproduce with sunxi64. Did not test with rk35xx, maybe functionality was lost when merging this into rockchip64? Pure guess...

[igorpecovnik]

Strange. We need to look into, yes.

[zejjnt]

I thought it was only me, had this problem for a long time where everything but one "piece" (out of uInitrd, dtb, Image, vmlinuz & initrd.img) wouldn't update so that I have to boot from an SD-card and fix the symlink again.

The missing version was never in apt, and I have just resorted to changing the faulty symlink to the previous version again, partly because I've had problems with having to recompile custom made overlay and partly because it worked fine before.

I just ran apt and upgraded everything and even if the firmware is supposed to be on hold everything was upgraded BUT for the first time in like 2 months everything seems to be the same version.
I'm not calling it a success until next reboot and I don't do those more often than I have to.

Sorry for a rambling post; I have looked everywhere for logs but as I've understood it the bootloader only saves the logs in ZRAM? The fact that the SBC tries PXE booting wouldn't help either I guess.

If the logs for the bootloader is saved somewhere I would love to try to help with this, otherwise I apologize for this prolonged "yeah same here" :/

EDIT: Radxa Rock 4 SE

[vilaxara]

I am facing a similar issue. On rock 5 irx board with bookworm os image, I am using a 6.1.75-vendor-rk35xx kernal. After changing the option using armbian-config, when I do apt update and apt upgrade, it is updating it to 6.1.8*(I don'trememberthis nimber)-vendor-rk35xx. Is this supposed to happen?

[igorpecovnik]

Steps to reproduce / test functionality:

Freezing:
armbian-config --cmd SY203

Checking:

$ apt-mark showhold
armbian-firmware
linux-dtb-current-rockchip64
linux-image-current-rockchip64

Unfreezing:
armbian-config --cmd SY202

Checking:

$ apt-mark showhold
$

Works as expected. Make sure you have latest armbian-config package.

[vilaxara]

Board type : Rock 5 ITX
OS : Debian 12 bookworm 24.11
Kernal : Custom kernal built with LSI modules enabled

Linux rock-5-itx 6.1.75-vendor-rk35xx #1 SMP Wed Nov 27 22:16:11 EST 2024 aarch64 GNU/Linux

armbian-config version :

$ dpkg -l | grep armbian-config
ii armbian-config 24.11.1 all Armbian configuration utility - The new generation

I updated the armbian-config using :

$ apt update && apt install --reinstall armbian-config

$ dpkg -l | grep armbian-config
ii armbian-config 25.2.0-trunk.378.0123.223643 all Armbian config: The Next Generation
Rebooted the system

Everything is working fine where my raid card is getting dectected with lspci -v:

0000:01:00.0 RAID bus controller: Broadcom / LSI MegaRAID SAS-3 3108 [Invader] (rev 02)
Subsystem: Broadcom / LSI MegaRAID SAS 9364-8i
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 133
I/O ports at 200000 [disabled] [size=256]
Memory at f0400000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Memory at f0200000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1M]
Expansion ROM at f0300000 [virtual] [disabled] [size=1M]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 3
Capabilities: [68] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
Capabilities: [d0] Vital Product Data
Capabilities: [a8] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable+ 64bit+
Capabilities: [c0] MSI-X: Enable+ Count=97 Masked-
Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
Capabilities: [1e0] Secondary PCI Express
Capabilities: [1c0] Power Budgeting <?>
Capabilities: [148] Alternative Routing-ID Interpretation (ARI)
Kernel driver in use: megaraid_sas
Kernel modules: megaraid_sas

Now I am following the given steps :

$ armbian-config --cmd SY203

Then :

$ apt-mark showhold
armbian-firmware

If I proceed to upgrade the kernal is getting updated to : 6.1.84-vendor-rk35xx and lspci -v gives :

0000:01:00.0 RAID bus controller: Broadcom / LSI MegaRAID SAS-3 3108 [Invader] (rev 02)
Subsystem: Broadcom / LSI MegaRAID SAS 9364-8i
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 133
I/O ports at 200000 [disabled] [size=256]
Memory at f0400000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
Memory at f0200000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1M]
Expansion ROM at f0300000 [virtual] [disabled] [size=1M]
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 3
Capabilities: [68] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
Capabilities: [d0] Vital Product Data
Capabilities: [a8] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable+ 64bit+
Capabilities: [c0] MSI-X: Enable+ Count=97 Masked-
Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
Capabilities: [1e0] Secondary PCI Express
Capabilities: [1c0] Power Budgeting <?>
Capabilities: [148] Alternative Routing-ID Interpretation (ARI)

The kernel drivers are not getting recognized.
This is happening for a long time.

[igorpecovnik]

$ apt-mark showhold
armbian-firmware

OK, it seems freezing doesn't work right. Looking into.

[domfe]

Looking at the code, seems BRANCH variable is required.

I added BRANCH=vendor in /etc/armbian-config and armbian-config work as expected

[igorpecovnik]

BRANCH variable is set at boot time. Did you perhaps changing kernels from current to vendor and / or vice versa before that?

[domfe]

I have no BRANCH set.
No. I stayed with kernel provided in the armbian image

[vilaxara]

I can't find any armbian-config file.

$ ls /etc/armbian*
/etc/armbian-distribution-status  /etc/armbian-image-release  /etc/armbian-leds.conf  /etc/armbian-release  /etc/armbian.txt

/etc/armbian:
chromium  chromium.conf  firefox.conf  lightdm

/etc/armbianmonitor:
datasources