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I have been flashing images to to my eMMC from a SD card and have not been having the normal behavior. From my research the typical process to Flash an image from an SD card is:

  1. Download a compressed image from https://beagleboard.org/latest-images
  2. Write an image to the SD card (I've used Etcher)
  3. Edit the /boot/uEnv.txt file by uncommenting the following line:cmdline=init=opt/scripts/tools/eMMC/init-eMMC-flasher-v3.sh
  4. Power down BBB shutdown -h now
  5. Insert SD card
  6. While holding down the (Boot) S2 button give power to BBBw
  7. When lights begin to flash release button
  8. Lights will begin to flash in Knight rider pattern. wait.
  9. Once all 4 USR leds are lit wait for them to power off
  10. unplug BBBw take out SD card and now you have written a new image.

When I follow this process at step 7 instead of the knight rider pattern I get alternating flashing of USR leds 0 and 1 and the BBBw starts

Alternatively:

If I do NOT hold down the 2 button, then the knight rider pattern does occur but when I restart the BBBw after finishing the process without the SD card the board will not start with all USR leds lit up constantly.

In order to get around this I do not edit the /boot/uEnv.txt file. I start the BBBw with the SD card inserted and begin the flashing process from the command line. With the commands:

$ cd /opt/scripts/tools/eMMC/
$ sudo ./init-eMMC-flasher-v3.sh

Even though I have found a workaround to my issue by flashing from the command line instead of from boot I want to know the following things:

  1. Why am I having the issue described above?
  2. What does it mean when the BBBw board USR leds are all lit up?
  3. What does the alternating USR 0 & 1 lights indicate?
Jeff Schaller
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ob1
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  • @Stepen Rauch I'm a relatively new contributor here and had two questions about your edit. Is there some precedent that says SE should prefer the americanised version of English? Is there something that says questioners shouldn't thank for potential answers? If there's a style guide written I would like to stick to it. Thanks. – rlf Jul 10 '17 at 00:14
  • I don't have an BBB (Beaglebone black, I assume?), but to me it smells like the machine fails to boot from the SDcard. Did you verify that the card is formatted correctly and contains the required files (probably an MLO like on other TI cores and so on)? And note that there may be restrictions like you can't use an SDHC (the bootROM is very basic!) – Philippos Jul 10 '17 at 05:52
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    Regarding your question about the "style guide": When writing, think that you are writing for a big Q&A archive, so no greeting and no thank you. May feel unpolite in the first place, but it's not. (-: – Philippos Jul 10 '17 at 05:55
  • @Philippos I know that it is possible to flash the the eMMC of the BBBw (Beaglebone Black Wireless) from the SD card, there are multiple videos and step guides, so it is not a restriction. However, I think you may be right that I could have an issue with hardware. maybe my boot (S2) button is damaged? – ob1 Jul 10 '17 at 14:04
  • Of course it's possible, but maybe not with any SDcard standard, like it works with only with SDSC (classical standard capacity), but you are using SDHC or even SDXC. – Philippos Jul 10 '17 at 14:17

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