Raspberry Pi 5 boot issues after EEPROM update

freeman94 · July 2, 2026, 1:27pm

Hi everyone!

I’m currently having problems with my HA installation and don’t know what to do next:

As part of the update to HA OS 18, the bootloader is supposed to be updated, which I did after the actual update using the following command in the Advanced SSH & Web Terminal:

‘ha os boards raspberrypi firmware update’

After a reboot, the Pi’s bootloader apparently failed to load and only the small LED flashed 8 times (SDRAM error).

It took me a while, but using a separate SD card, I was able to roll the bootloader back to version 2024-09-10. This meant that both the Raspberry Pi and HA were able to boot into OS 18 again.

I was quite happy with this situation for the time being, but with the release of 18.1, it is once again recommended to update the bootloader, which consequently presents me with the same problem.

All attempts to update the bootloader to the latest version – whether using an external SD card or Raspberry Pi OS – seem to work initially, but after a reboot the same problem reoccurs: the LED simply flashes eight times.
So for my point of view it's not a problem on how to perform the update, but more like the update is working.

To sum up, this article actually describes it quite well:

github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eeprom

Raspberry Pi 5 fails to boot after 2024-09-23 EEPROM update when using Micron D8CJN LPDDR4 (8GB) – green LED blinks 8 times

opened 05:34AM - 15 Oct 25 UTC

closed 06:06AM - 15 Oct 25 UTC

MoeclubM

### Describe the bug After updating the bootloader/EEPROM to any release dated …2024-09-23 or later, my Raspberry Pi 5 (8GB) fails to boot. The green ACT LED blinks 8 times repeatedly, indicating SDRAM failure. The same hardware boots perfectly with older EEPROM releases (e.g. 2024-09-10). The SDRAM chip on my board is Micron (4GC77) D8CJN ,soc is BROADCOM 2712ZPKFSB00D0T TN2427, and reverting to older EEPROM firmware fully resolves the problem. ### Steps to reproduce the behaviour 1. Flash the EEPROM (>= 2024-09-23)/Boot from the latest RPI OS(without disabling eeprom automatic update) and reboot. 2. Observe the ACT LED pattern (8 flashes, pause, repeat). 4. Downgrade to 2024-09-10 EEPROM or ealier → system boots normally. ### Device (s) Raspberry Pi 5 ### Bootloader configuration. [all] BOOT_UART=1 BOOT_ORDER=0xf461 POWER_OFF_ON_HALT=0 ### System https://pastebin.com/Sk56muwz ### Bootloader logs _No response_ ### USB boot _No response_ ### NVMe boot _No response_ ### Network (TFTP boot) _No response_

What I’d be interested to know is:

Is there anyone else who has encountered the same problem, perhaps in connection with Home Assistant, or who may have already found a solution?

Similar articles online mention poor-quality RAM. What’s the best way for me to find out if I’m affected by this too and what kind of RAM I'm using?

Briefly, here’s my setup:

Raspberry Pi 5, 8 GB RAM
HA 18.0
Core 2026.6.4
Installed via SD card

Many thanks in advance!

vt220 · July 2, 2026, 6:23pm

Same problem here, also had ro rollback eeprom/bootloader.....running from nvme SSD.
Did me take hours to figure out the Problem.

vt220 · July 2, 2026, 6:25pm

I went back to 2024-4-17. Does anybody know, what ia the latest working eeprom/Firmware/loader? Or any other ideas how to fix this?

ShadowFist · July 2, 2026, 6:43pm

It's not looking good for either of you. Are you sure it's actually an 8GB model?

Both linked github issues seem to indicate these are 2GB models modded to pretend they're 8GB

github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eeprom

Raspberry Pi 5 fails to boot after 2024-09-23 EEPROM update when using Micron D8CJN LPDDR4 (8GB) – green LED blinks 8 times

opened 05:34AM - 15 Oct 25 UTC

closed 06:06AM - 15 Oct 25 UTC

MoeclubM

### Describe the bug After updating the bootloader/EEPROM to any release dated …2024-09-23 or later, my Raspberry Pi 5 (8GB) fails to boot. The green ACT LED blinks 8 times repeatedly, indicating SDRAM failure. The same hardware boots perfectly with older EEPROM releases (e.g. 2024-09-10). The SDRAM chip on my board is Micron (4GC77) D8CJN ,soc is BROADCOM 2712ZPKFSB00D0T TN2427, and reverting to older EEPROM firmware fully resolves the problem. ### Steps to reproduce the behaviour 1. Flash the EEPROM (>= 2024-09-23)/Boot from the latest RPI OS(without disabling eeprom automatic update) and reboot. 2. Observe the ACT LED pattern (8 flashes, pause, repeat). 4. Downgrade to 2024-09-10 EEPROM or ealier → system boots normally. ### Device (s) Raspberry Pi 5 ### Bootloader configuration. [all] BOOT_UART=1 BOOT_ORDER=0xf461 POWER_OFF_ON_HALT=0 ### System https://pastebin.com/Sk56muwz ### Bootloader logs _No response_ ### USB boot _No response_ ### NVMe boot _No response_ ### Network (TFTP boot) _No response_

github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eeprom

Pi 5 Bootloader shows "Raspberry Pi 5 – 2GB" on an 8 GB board (rev b04170)

opened 10:30AM - 18 Sep 25 UTC

closed 08:51AM - 20 Sep 25 UTC

bokyvasic

### Describe the bug Hi all, I have a Raspberry Pi 5, board revision b04170, w…hich is definitely the 8 GB version (Linux reports ~7.9 GiB total). However, on HDMI during power-on, the bootloader text shows: Raspberry Pi 5 – 2GB bootloader: 69471177 2025/05/08 System boots normally, and free -h + /proc/meminfo both confirm the full 8 GB is available. Questions for the community: Do other Pi 5 (8 GB) owners see the same “2 GB” message on boot? Is this a known issue with the latest EEPROM/bootloader? Any official fix or upcoming update planned? ### Steps to reproduce the behaviour ![Image](https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/5bc3967b-c3d2-41df-bbb8-748e78979e1e) ![Image](https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/5da645cf-8dea-4d21-bb9c-a3051484598f) ### Device (s) Raspberry Pi 5 ### Bootloader configuration. New user ### System new user ### Bootloader logs new user ### USB boot new user ### NVMe boot new user ### Network (TFTP boot) new user

This one explains how to check Raspberry PI 5 reports 8GB of memory in the diagnostic tool with the 2024/09/23 bootloader but with any later bootloader it reports 2GB · Issue #797 · raspberrypi/rpi-eeprom · GitHub

freeman94 · July 3, 2026, 6:42am

@ShadowFist Thank you so much!

If I understand the last article correctly, the most important information can be find within the otp_dump, isn't it?

What is, however, the best way to access it on my Raspberry? For my understanding it's a system file, so it's not accessible using HA. So using the Rasperry Pi OS should do the trick?
I'm sorry if my questions sounds foolish, but these little things are still confusing me

Maxon5050 · July 3, 2026, 12:03pm

I ran into the same problem when installing the bootloader update, so I rolled it back. I ran all the tests, including memory stress tests; everything came back error-free, and the 8 GB of RAM handled the load fine, so that’s likely not the issue.

daddeo · July 3, 2026, 12:28pm

I updated the firmware using the Pi's console before I ran the 18.0 update. I couldn’t get the firmware update to work from the SSH Terminal prior to the 18.0 update.

wbraunbo · July 3, 2026, 3:23pm

Same issue, after flashing the EEPROM with the version from 2024 Raspi 5 starts again. In case I run the requested Raspi Firmware in HA again I face the same issue.
Raspi 5, 8 GB RAM
HA 18.0
Core 2026.7.0

ShadowFist · July 3, 2026, 3:51pm

Not 100% sure, but hooking up a monitor to the Pi & typing login should put you on the host where you can execute that command.

edlangton · July 4, 2026, 1:46pm

Same issue after the Firmware update was released for 18.1 update.

If you apply that Rasp Pi Firmware Update to a Pi 5 8GB, it changes the bootloader, and it will no longer boot.

Pi flashes green LED 9 times to indicate SDRAM issue.

Found a fix to revert back to a Bootloader firmware version dated 2024-04-20 that, once loaded , resolves the boot issue. (Bootloader Image = rpi-boot-eeprom-recovery-2024-04-20-2712-sd specifically in my case)

BUT: You will not be able to do the Home Assistant Operating System 18.1 update, as it requires the Firmware to have been applied.

So now we need to see why this PI Firmware, which cannot be applied to a Pi5 8GB unit, is required, Else no future updates will be able to be loaded.

edlangton · July 4, 2026, 1:51pm

If this is the same issue, you can look at Raspberry Pi 5 EEPROM Recovery Guide – Pi Australia to see how to reset the EEPROM.

Hope this helps to get you back up for now.

PS: After fixing the Firmware to booted normally and loaded Home Assistant normally and all was good. So did nothing to break HA, thank heavens. But not able to load HA OS 18.1 before the firmware issue is resolved.

ogiewon · July 4, 2026, 2:11pm

Working fine here... So, at least we know the issue does not affect all Raspberry Pi 5 8GB boards.

freeman94 · July 5, 2026, 11:13am

Well I did some research on my own system and here's what I found out:
On startup the boot screen definitely says "Raspberry Pi 5 - 8GB".
However, when having a look into the otp_dump (I did so using Raspberry Pi OS, running the command 'vcgencmd otp_dump') it says in line 32: 00b04171.

This means, reffering to

github.com/raspberrypi/documentation

documentation/asciidoc/computers/raspberry-pi/revision-codes.adoc

0e264f00d

== Raspberry Pi revision codes

Each distinct Raspberry Pi model revision has a unique revision code. You can look up a Raspberry Pi's revision code by running:

[source,console]
----
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
----

The last three lines show the hardware type, the revision code, and the Raspberry Pi's unique serial number. For example:

----
Hardware    : BCM2835
Revision    : a02082
Serial      : 00000000765fc593
----

NOTE: All Raspberry Pi computers report `BCM2835`, even those with BCM2836, BCM2837, BCM2711, and BCM2712 processors. You should not use this string to detect the processor. Decode the revision code using the information below, or `cat /sys/firmware/devicetree/base/model`. Depending on which kernel you're running, your `cpuinfo` might also have a "Model" line, and might not have a "Hardware" line.

=== Old-style revision codes

This file has been truncated. show original

my Raspberry was originally meant to be a 2 GB RAM version.
So it's most likey it was affected by a RAM swap as well....
Guess that's the reason for all my problems, even though I now have to deal with the reseller.

Anyway, thank you all very much for your help!

ShadowFist · July 5, 2026, 11:20am

Ouch. Good luck!

mattcd216 · July 7, 2026, 8:54am

Hi folks. I have the same notification for the firmware upgrade available on my pi 5 8GB. Not seen this before, after years using homeassistant, so I'm a bit cautious... I have my data disk moved to nvme (if that's relevant at all!).

Should i wait? Proceed?!

freeman94 · July 8, 2026, 6:26am

Good morning!

Well if you want to move on to HA OS 18.1 you need a more or less recent boot loader.
What version is running on your system right now?
From what I experienced and read so far you can simply try to update. If your Raspberry really isn't able to boot afterwards you should downgrade (using an external SD-card) to the version it's running at the moment and perform more trobuleshooting.
But some people using NVME however noticed that their Raspberry lost the correct boot order after the eeprom-update. But I'm not able to tell if everyone is affected by that.
To sum things up, every update comes with some risks

Here you'll find older eeprom-releaes:

mattcd216 · July 10, 2026, 1:28pm

Tried and looks to have gone well! Slightly longer (nervous) initial boot, but all looking good.

I think i was nervous with an unusual (less common) update. Felt like one that would be delivered with the homeassistant OS.

Thanks for the assistance