Error creating Encrypted SSD / Migrating

This issue should’ve been fixed by these changes:

Your log looks like it is waiting for you to enter the luks passphrase but the passphrase prompt is shown on your blank display (so you cannot see it).

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Thank you for testing! I don’t know the reason yet, but can you try entering your decryption password after a while of waiting at the black screen? I had this once when testing (yesterday I think) and the display then came on a bit after entering the password. It could be that the brightness is initially 0, for example.

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Indeed, it works if I enter the passphrase with the black screen, thanks! :slight_smile: But it also shows the password prompt during the boot after migration as expected, any ideas why?

Also, how could I switch the display on before the disk is decrypted?

Yes, same here. My the device is shut down, there is no prompt and just a black screen. Typing the password works.
When I just reboot the prompt shows.

But I can now use my nvme, which is fine :slight_smile:

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In case you missed it, Lukas merged reform-tools 1.44 (!72) · Merge requests · Reform / MNT Reform Tools · GitLab and reform-tools 1.44 is now in the MNT repos: Index of /reform-debian-repo/pool/main/r/reform-tools/

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I’m having a similar issue to the above, with the a311d module and reform-tools 1.45. I migrated via the script reform-setup-encrypted-nvme and in reboot everything worked as expected. unfortunately now it’s not booting and the screen backlight doesn’t come on either. Typing the unlock password into the blank screen doesn’t do anything that I can see.

i can get it to boot from a clean SD, and also if i reboot that (reboot specifically) swap the card for the nvme-boot one at the right moment, and select power on from the keyboard menu, it boots normally. Obviously not ideal but i may just try to leave it plugged in and powered up until I can fix this.

Do you have any serial output via UART?

Your problem might have a slightly different solution as you are using the a311d module while the thread so far was about the pocket reform with the default imx8mplus.

Yeah I debated starting a new topic, would that be better? Also I’m away for the weekend, but I can try to rig up something to read from the UART tomorrow evening. An arduino hooked up to my Mac should do, right?

The issue for you might be a similar one as for those with the imx8mplus. Maybe some more modules are missing in the initramfs to turn on the display early enough.

If you Arduino allows you to set up a UART connection with the Reform, then sure. I’m using a simple FT232 based adapter: DEBO MUSB2UART 3: Developer boards - microUSB socket on UART, FT232 at reichelt elektronik

We just confirmed the issue with A311D today, it must be relatively new. It doesn’t happen on my devide that is still on 6.8.12 but it is broken on 6.9. Typing the password after around 10 seconds works though and turns the display on. I will look into this tomorrow.

Edit: I looked into this today and it’s not a regression but it never worked in initramfs. The reason is that the “bl_power” value of the panel’s backlight node is 0 by default. Breaking in initramfs console over serial and echoing a 1 into this value made the display light up. When reviewing my JDI panel patches I realized that I had removed a “backlight_enable()” call that I now put in in a working branch. Will keep you updated if that fixes things.

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If you apt update, there’s now a new version of the package linux-image-6.9.9-mnt-reform-arm64 which has the backlight fix and should turn the panel on in initramfs. Can someone except me confirm that it works?

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Thanks. Works. The font could be a bit larger, but it is works!!!

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Confirming that it fixed it for me as well, great work!

I’m getting a bash: reform-setup-encrypted-nvme: command not found but that command is what reform-help says to use.

Is there a package I need to install first?

The reform-setup-encrypted-nvme program modifies parts of your system which your normal user account is not allowed to touch. You need to become the superuser to run this script, which you can do by prefixing the command with sudo. So you would run this:

sudo reform-setup-encrypted-nvme

Is there a package I need to install first?

If you know a command foo that you want to run and want to find out in which package it is located, you can run this command:

apt-file search bin/foo

In your case, running apt-file search bin/reform-setup-encrypted-nvme would’ve shown you that the command is part of the reform-tools package. You can then use the following command to figure out whether you have that installed:

apt-cache policy reform-tools

In my case, this prints:

reform-tools:
  Installed: 1.42
  Candidate: 1.45
  Version table:
     1.45 500
        500 https://mntre.com/reform-debian-repo reform/main arm64 Packages
     1.45 999
        999 https://reform.debian.net/debian bookworm/main arm64 Packages
 *** 1.42 100
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

This tells me that I have version 1.42 of reform-tools installed and that i could install version 1.45 by running apt upgrade.

Ah, the command is available from a root shell, right.

Should probably be mentioned in reform-help because the way its shown right now implies that the command is supposed to be run by a normal user and will ask for root authentication later in the process.

I guess I could look into doing that as a PR maybe?

If you create one, I’ll merge it – thanks! You just need an account on source.mnt.re which @minute needs to manually approve.

So, I tried reform-setup-encrypted-nvme and also chose “yes” to run the migration afterward automatically. It seemedd to copy everything fine but then I ended up here:

The encrypted NVMe is now set up. Do you want me to run reform-migrate now as well? [y/N] y
 12,023,095,273  87%   28.38MB/s    0:06:43 (xfr#331023, to-chk=0/430297)    
Your /boot partition will be on eMMC by default. Do you want it on the SD-Card instead? [y/N] N
This script selects your preferred boot medium. It writes your choice to the file /etc/fstab

/dev/mmcblk2p1 is still mounted somewhere, which means that it is
probably used by the currently running system and that replacing
its contents might make the currently running system unbootable.
Should this script run 'umount /dev/mmcblk2p1' for you? [y/N] 
I: Not unmounting as requested.
Please unmount before running this script
cleaning up /dev/reformvg/root
cleaning up /tmp/reform-boot-config.mEcgYPClFY
reform-boot-config FAILED to run
reform-boot-config failed. To re-run it manually, perform the following steps:
    $ cryptsetup luksOpen "/dev/nvme0n1" reform_crypt
    $ vgchange -ay reformvg
    $ reform-boot-config --emmc /dev/reformvg/root >&2
    $ vgchange -an reformvg
    $ cryptsetup luksClose reform_crypt
  0 logical volume(s) in volume group "reformvg" now active
/usr/sbin/reform-setup-encrypted-nvme FAILED to run

I tried those listed steps manually too but got the same result. After rebooting, everything seems to till be running off eMMC like before.

Not sure how to proceed from here.

You did not choose “y” for that question. Hence, the script did not unmount /dev/mmcblk2p1 and as a result, reform-boot-config is not able to operate because /boot is still mounted.

I tried both, same result