OrangePi3B eMMC bootloader issues

[beanflyingau]

Tried this on several OPi images downloaded from your Google Drive using both DD and RKDevTool.

When the image successfully installs to the drive and you go to apt update/upgrade any subsequent reboot fails and puts you back into a broken bootloader mode.

This is repeatable and yes I have been clearing the SPIflash before a fresh install attempt.

Currently this makes the 3B unusable from an eMMC.

[w568w]

Same device, same problem. I can confirm that this happens on Orange Pi OS (Arch-based) too.

Starting the OS, running sudo pacman -Syu, applying all updates and rebooting, then you are definitely thrown into the uboot emergency shell (through serial)... Until you erase the eMMC in the shell (to purposely break the file system on eMMC so that it will not be recognized as a valid boot partition, and uboot will fall back into the MaskROM mode) and flash it with RKDevTool again.

Not many clues, but the only error reported in the boot log shown by uboot in serial debugging is as follows:

Reading /extlinux/extlinux.conf OK (1MB/s)

/extlinux/extlinux.conf: unrecognized command: <An incorrectly rendered character that looks like a square>

(p.s. I have reflashed it already, so the log above is based on my memories and may have some inaccuracies.)

Have you found any solution to this issue?

[beanflyingau]

Mine is sitting in the corner of the bench in disgrace kind of like the lack of support offered here!

Apart from that the attached potential solution which I need to find time to try is attached from the OPi discord group. In particular if you have 5+ or 5's more generally worth joining as some of the external OS devs are there.