RPi4 Stuck in U-Boot Loop

Configuration
1

Hi guys,

During hurricane Beryl, the power in our house went off/on about 5-6 times before finally going out for over a day. After the power came back on, I noticed that HASS wasn’t working, and I couldn’t connect. I went to my Orbi router to make sure the IP hadn’t changed (didn’t get a chance to make it static), and noticed that it was not connected.

Connected the RPi4 to my monitor and noticed that it was in a “U-Boot Loop” (that’s why I’m calling it) where it looks like it wants to boot up, but doesn’t and just starts again over and over. I’ve been using this setup for a couple of years, with no issues up until now

Looking for some suggestions here if you guys can help, much appreciated!

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2

Try a fresh install, if that works then restore from backup.

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Thanks, noob question, won’t I lose the backup if I try a fresh install?

4

Oh dear.

Does that mean you have not been copying your backups off your system as advised in the backup documentation?

Yes it will destroy any backup you have on the system.

If the card has not failed you may be able to copy the backup off the SD card by putting it in a card reader in a PC and searching the contents. Need help. location of backup files on the Hassos sd card

5

Yea, it’s possible that I haven’t. Is there a way to know?

I’m running it off of an SSD, I can try the same with that correct? Sorry, learned how to set this up with YT vids.

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If you did not deliberately do this then no you do not have backups off system.

Yes the procedure for an SSD should be the same. The only difference is how you connect it to the PC.

7

Ok thank you, really appreciate the help. I’ll try it.

8

Quick question, once I do a fresh install, how will I restore from backup? I’ve saved the backup files to my computer.

9

You can do it during onboarding of the newly installed system, see: https://www.home-assistant.io/common-tasks/os/#restoring-a-backup

10

It’s restoring now, you’re a life saver, I really appreciate the support. Looks like a fresh install may have done it. I’ll definitely be backing up to gdrive often from now on. Many thanks.

1 Like
11

No problem. Glad it all worked out.

Investing in a small UPS may not be able to keep home assistant and your network equipment operating during events like you experienced but it may give you time to shut everything down cleanly. They also offer a small amount of power filtering. Something to consider.

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Welp. Hate to rehash this, but had another power outage today, for roughly 5 hours. After the power came back on, I assume the Pi4 is doing the same thing (I haven’t hooked it up to a monitor yet), because it’s not showing up on the network.

In these situations, a UPS may not be as useful, is this a RPi4 issue, or maybe my SSD? What can I do to avoid this happening again? I’ve had several outages before, but this is the first time it has started doing this.

13

An UPS is definitely useful. If used together with Network UPS Tools (NUT) whenever an extended power outage happens NUT will safely shutdown your HA Server after a configurable minimum threshold has been reached.

Thus it will save you from a corrupted file system which is most likely what rendered your HA (RPI4) unbootable.

14

Good call, I’ll give that a shot, thanks!