Hello, I am using HA for some time now on my Rpi3b. I have installed everything on SSD drive and is working very stable. My problwm is when I try to reboot rpi. In 90 % times it takes longer as 3-4 hours to boot up. I have took my boot screen logo to show you. It doesn’t happen always. In some rare cases he is after 5 minutes ready. What could be the problem here? I have tried to fresh install HA and to set everything from beginning, but that did not help. One other thing. I have tried with many different power supply l, but I always get undervoltage message. I do not understand that non3 of my mobile device chargers is capable to power Rpi3b
Hi,
I use a RPi3b as a test bed, and a reboot is more like 5 minutes with HAOS.
(A RPi3b is a bit limited in memory, so install lots of add-ons may struggle later.)
Two likely issues:
Your power supply isn’t supplying enough current - hence the undervolt message (but this can sometimes be OK, unless…)
Your storage is bad. Bad discs (even spinning rust) struggling to read data from bad storage retry and retry and retry and take a long time, sometimes with error messages if the problems are bad enough.
Low voltage power supplies can make this worse even with uSD cards leading to corruption.
Use a decent, modern micro SD card with at least a U1 / Class 10 speed rating:
Modern uSD cards have much better wear levelling (means less corruption) and significantly better speeds. A USB-C or NVMe hat with a SSD is a LOT faster, but not worth it unless you upgrade later to a RPi4/5.
Most RPi issues are due to a poor PSU (no, not the one that came with an old phone), and bad storage (no, not the one you found in that old phone…).
Backup, save the file locally, get a new uSD, reimage, and restore.
I am not having trouble because rpi3 is too slow. He is working very stable and all of my automations are done instantly. I am having problems only when he reboots.
Can anyone recommend me a decent power supply for my raspi? Very important is micro usb or removable cable so i can put my cable on it.
Second. I have switched to SSD, because i have read here, that SSD much stable is and has longer life expectancy. I can’t remember, that I had this issue with my cheap sd card before. Sd card is in my rpi too, but she has only bootcode.bin file on it.
Please than recommend me a good sd card too. I would like to try that.
Rpi5 or something stronger are an option too, but it needs to be passive cooled, because the server is in my bedroom and needs to be quiet
If this has started to happen since moving to an SSD, there are 2 possible issues. Faulty SSD (unlikely) or lack of USB power to power the SSD. Combine these with the lack of memory in an RPi3 and it is telling me that it needs more hardware to run faultlessly.
There’s the problem - a SSD uses a lot more current than a uSD card, so explains the undervolt warning. The SSD is not working properly as it isn’t getting enough current, so the voltage droops.
The RPi5 works well with the official active cooler, and only spins up (quietly) if you’re loading the CPU, which isn’t likely with HAOS.
Personally - run HAOS on the RPi3b + official PSU + official uSD, then consider upgrading later if it (when working properly) runs slow and you know more about which radios you might need (and a Yellow + RPi compute module 5 with a Zigbee / Thread radio might be useful, and also can take your existing NVMe SSD).
The RPi5 NVMe kit is also an option. The Pimoroni RPi5 NVMe hat should work, but didn’t for my SSDs, so again, I’m recommending the official hardware.
An external USB-C SSD enclosure might be better with a RPi4/5 (more robust USB-C power supplies, not micro USB as on the RPi3b+), but again I’ve had problems with some Samsung NVMe SSDs and command queueing - this may be fixed now as more people use SSDs especially with PCIe 3.0.
Compiling ESPhome is more of a reason to upgrade than general HAOS tinkering (although reboots and upgrades do take a lot longer than a 4 or 5).
Thank you very much for your assistance. I have made the following. I have ordered Rpi5 8GB, Flirc case with passive cooling built on it and a official power supply. I have planned to test it with my SSD drive (I have two of them laying around in the cases and I will try both of them if needed)
If that does not work I will order a good SD card too.
I am having this problem for a long time and I think the time has come to finally make a upgrade. I think that for my currently 50 devices (shelly + zigbee) this setup is more than enough.
Rpi3b has served me verry vell for many years and I would like to be a future proof for some time after upgrade. I have read that bootloader on the Rpi5 does better job with SSD then the one in Rpi4. That’s why I have decided to go for the Rpi5.
With all the PCI-based HATs for the RPi5, you’re probably right about the platform being more able to support SSDs (USB-C certainly helps a lot with power supplies).
The latest firmware is quite impressive - as well as all the boot options, it now has a basic interface that can flash blank storage directly from the network.
Remember to re-use the RPi3b as a pre-production HAOS test bed with a uSD - it can be useful for testing, or even to tinker with Beta releases (forked from main in about week 2/4).
Yes I am definitely keeping my Rpi3b. I will find some job for it too for sure. Until now Rpi3b has been deployed for many tasks and all of them did just fine.
this post!