Flashing hard drive get stuck at 31% (balena fetcher)

starob · August 20, 2023, 7:49pm

The problem is that this guide Generic x86-64 - Home Assistant
does not seem to work for every x86 System. As I mentioned before, for me it did not work and I was Stuck at 31% too. I tried to install it on an old Lenovo Flex 14 Notebook with a Sata SSD.

stevemann · August 20, 2023, 8:19pm

Can you install Ubuntu ON the former Chromebox?

stevemann · August 20, 2023, 8:32pm

What is the full model number. I am seeing them on eBay for $30 and I might buy one.

Damos · August 20, 2023, 8:41pm

@nukem1232, @tom_l,

I think we are discussing two different topics here. One is the awkward behavior when flashing the SSD, the other is the network or DNS issues. I’m not sure if both are interrelated.

Let’s assume the flashing may appear strange but works in the end. What definitely doesn’t work is the connection to HA cloud or HACS. I’ve observed that the connection to the internet works but apparently, DNS doesn’t:

(if you ping www.bbc.co.uk you it resolves to 151.101.0.81)

I assume that’s why I can’t reach download HACS or can’t connect to HA Cloud:

What I’ve done so far:
• I triple checked if ipv6 is disabled on my router (FritzBox): yes, it is disabled (or not activated)

• I set DNS server on my router to 8.8.8.8 and 1.1.1.1:

• I’ve set ipv4 address to “static”, set DNS to 8.8.8.8, and disabled ipv6 address:

• Home Assistant Cloud returns an “unexpected error”:

• The only thing reported in the logs is not being able to connect to weatherapi (probably due to the same reason):

Maybe it’s also worth mentioning that my previous HA instance (running on a VirtualBox on Windows) ran without any problem. When migrated to the Mini PC (with the strange flashing behavior) the network problems occured.

I would appreciate any possible support.

Thanks,
Damos

keydi · August 20, 2023, 10:41pm

I suppose - yes. I haven’t tried to install Ubuntu on my (Chrome)box, but:

I run lightweight live distro (Lubuntu) on it
before installing HAOS I successfully installed Raspberry OS (Debian-based) on it.
So, I think it should work.

keydi · August 20, 2023, 10:48pm

I can confirm @nukem1232 observations: I also let my flashing being stuck at 31%, I waited for at least 5 hours. After that I forced restart of my (Chrome)box and it booted nicely to HAOS and HAOS instance is reachable locally. So, it seems like flashing indeed continued despite frozen system(*). But I can’t comment about DNS issues, HA cloud access, etc. (haven’t tried it yet).

(*) One clarification: When I said before that flashing with Balena got stuck at 31%, in fact it means that the whole OS is frozen, not just Balena etcher.

Damos · August 21, 2023, 5:05am

Yes, confirmed. The whole system freezes.

aceindy · August 21, 2023, 5:32am

It seems balena etcher occasionally get’s stuck during the downloading process.

It is therefore safer to first download the image, and use balena etcher locally instead

Damos · August 21, 2023, 7:48am

Of course, that’s what I did. From the URL it didn’t start at all.

keydi · August 21, 2023, 8:43am

Same here. I did download first, then flashing, yet it freezes.

keydi · August 21, 2023, 9:24am

Indeed, as @Damos said, there is some problem with the networking with HAOS instance installed with such a freezing Balena process. There are 2 “pre-loaded” cloud integrations: Radio Browser and Meteorologisk Institutt (at least on version 10.4 of HAOS). Both fail to work. But I remember that before installing HAOS on my (Chrome)box I run HAOS from SD card and both these integrations worked OK from the start.

keydi · August 21, 2023, 9:32am

@Damos I’m sorry for - maybe - a basic question. How do you get the console (shown in the top 2 screenshots) on a hardware with installed HAOS?

After installation I only get
ha>
prompt but it has no ping command etc. If I get into the real console I could try and test ping just like you did.

Damos · August 21, 2023, 10:12am

@keydi, since HA is running, I connected from a client to http://[IP-address]:8123 and installed the HA Community Ad-on “SSH & Web Terminal”: Home Assistant Community Add-on: SSH & Web Terminal. From there you can work on OS level.
Installation is straightforward. Just keep in mind that you need to assign a password in the configuration section of the add-on.
If you assign a user too, you can connect with putty as well.

nukem1232 · August 21, 2023, 12:11pm

This is EXACTLY the same issue I have : Need help - many issues, probably related to each other - #28 by nukem1232

So you also had the installation stuck at 31% and have the same issue as me with the DNS? There is therefore a high chance that they are correlated…

Lol, are you me ? This is exactly, word for word, what I did and occurred to me.

Same for me, whole system crashed.

Same and same

Yes indeed, both fails on my system as well.

So i guess we can safely conclude that the flashing didn’t work properly…

I will order a sata-usb adapter from amazon and flash it from my main computer. This should solve the issue hopefully.

Damos · August 21, 2023, 12:29pm

@nukem1232,

I appreciate the additional step with the SATA-USB adapter. But - I bet a beer that this won’t solve the DNS problem. I cannot believe that the flashing behavior has impact just on the DNS parameter. My guess would be the whole platform won’t be running. IMHO everything else works fine.

However, give it a try - I’d like to be proven wrong!

Thanks,
Damos

nukem1232 · August 21, 2023, 12:56pm

@Damos

I see what you mean, but this would be a massive coincidence that you and me have the exact same issue with dns after having suffered from that strange flashing behavior.
(+ Keydi above mentionned what seems to be a known issue with networking:

)

I just ordered a m2-usb connector (thinclient runs a m2 ssd) and will keep you posted (ETA this Friday)

What would be your other guess to explain these issues?

Damos · August 21, 2023, 1:15pm

My guess: a bug in HAOS. Nevertheless, if just we two have the problem, then fine, let’s see.

What are you going to do? connect a SATA drive to the thin client, flash HAOS on it and have it boot from there?

nukem1232 · August 21, 2023, 3:05pm

Agree that this might be a bug into HAOS. However, the fact pattern prior to that bug is the very same for you and me, which is the freezing of the ssd flash. This lead me to conclude, possibly wrongfully, that the freezing creates the DNS issue/bug.

What I am gonna do : I ordered a sata to usb connector (make sure to purchase the correct connector, thinclient is a m2 ssd, but you might need a sata 2.5’’). I will take out the ssd from the thinclient, plug it into the connector, and plug that into my main windows computer, and from there flash the thinclient SSD using balena.

This is what is described as option 1 on the HAOS installation guide.

Considering it will bypass any instability that a live Ubuntu OS may have with balena, I really hope this will solve the issue for good. I will keep updating this topic once I went through this process.

Damos · August 21, 2023, 3:25pm

Good luck!

keydi · August 21, 2023, 7:22pm

I might have found a solution. On a live distro of Lubuntu (booted on my former Chromebox from SD card) I installed and used USBImager instead of Balena Etcher.
https://bztsrc.gitlab.io/usbimager/
I used USBImager to flash SSD of my Chromebox with HAOS image (if I remember correctly, I unpacked xz archive beforehand, so the file was *.img). No freezing etc. Chromebox booted nicely to HAOS. After all the initial configuration of HA, I don’t see networking issues I reported in my previous posts, i.e.:

pre-loaded cloud integrations (Radio Browser and Meteorologisk Institutt) work from the start
ping works both with URL and IP (previously worked only with IP)

I don’t have HA Cloud, so I cannot test for that.