Uboot fails, boots to rescue mode, and error starting reform-hw-setup.service

MNT Reform
1

I think I’m having a recurrence of this: Systemctl: error starting reform-hw-setup.service or maybe several problems are happening at once.

Some suspicious messages during boot:

Device 0: unknown device
Card did not respond to voltage select!
...
ERROR: Did not find a cmdline Flattened Device Tree
Could not find a valid device tree
...
SCRIPT FAILED: continuing...

The “device tree” part repeats for all 6 uboot entries. Then it asks me to unlock my disk. Afterwards:

[FAILED] Failed to start reform-hw-setup.service - MNT Reform Hardware Defaults setup
...
You are in rescue mode...

Maybe these are relevant:

uname -a
Linux reform 6.19.14-mnt-reform-arm64 #1 SMP PREEMPT Debian 6.19.14-1+reform20260409T045900Z (2026-04- aarch64 GNU/Linux

$ cat /proc/device-tree/model
MNT Reform 2

May 02 12:00:07 reform systemd[1]: Starting reform-hw-setup.service - MNT Reform Hardware Defaults Setup...
May 02 12:00:07 reform reform-hw-setup[740]: /usr/bin/reform-hw-setup: 128: cannot create /sys/bus/i2c/drivers/wm8960/bind: Directory nonexistent
May 02 12:00:07 reform systemd[1]: reform-hw-setup.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=2/INVALIDARGUMENT
May 02 12:00:07 reform systemd[1]: reform-hw-setup.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
May 02 12:00:07 reform systemd[1]: Failed to start reform-hw-setup.service - MNT Reform Hardware Defaults Setup.
May 02 12:04:06 reform systemd[1]: Starting reform-hw-setup.service - MNT Reform Hardware Defaults Setup...
May 02 12:04:06 reform reform-hw-setup[965]: Simple mixer control 'Playback',0
May 02 12:04:06 reform reform-hw-setup[965]:   Capabilities: volume
May 02 12:04:06 reform reform-hw-setup[965]:   Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
May 02 12:04:06 reform reform-hw-setup[965]:   Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
May 02 12:04:06 reform reform-hw-setup[965]:   Limits: 0 - 255
May 02 12:04:06 reform reform-hw-setup[965]:   Front Left: 255 [100%] [0.00dB]
May 02 12:04:06 reform reform-hw-setup[965]:   Front Right: 255 [100%] [0.00dB]
May 02 12:04:06 reform reform-hw-setup[969]: Simple mixer control 'Left Output Mixer PCM',0
May 02 12:04:06 reform reform-hw-setup[969]:   Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
May 02 12:04:06 reform reform-hw-setup[969]:   Playback channels: Mono
May 02 12:04:06 reform reform-hw-setup[969]:   Mono: Playback [on]
May 02 12:04:06 reform reform-hw-setup[974]: Simple mixer control 'Right Output Mixer PCM',0
May 02 12:04:06 reform reform-hw-setup[974]:   Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
May 02 12:04:06 reform reform-hw-setup[974]:   Playback channels: Mono
May 02 12:04:06 reform reform-hw-setup[974]:   Mono: Playback [on]
May 02 12:04:06 reform reform-hw-setup[975]: Simple mixer control 'Left Input Mixer Boost',0
May 02 12:04:06 reform reform-hw-setup[975]:   Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
May 02 12:04:06 reform reform-hw-setup[975]:   Playback channels: Mono
May 02 12:04:06 reform reform-hw-setup[975]:   Mono: Playback [on]
May 02 12:04:06 reform systemd[1]: reform-hw-setup.service: Deactivated successfully.
May 02 12:04:06 reform systemd[1]: Finished reform-hw-setup.service - MNT Reform Hardware Defaults Setup.

$ find /sys/devices/platform/soc*/ -wholename '*/tty/ttymxc*/power/wakeup'
/sys/devices/platform/soc@0/30800000.bus/30860000.serial/30860000.serial:0/30860000.serial:0.0/tty/ttymxc0/power/wakeup
/sys/devices/platform/soc@0/30800000.bus/30890000.serial/30890000.serial:0/30890000.serial:0.0/tty/ttymxc1/power/wakeup
/sys/devices/platform/soc@0/30800000.bus/30880000.serial/30880000.serial:0/30880000.serial:0.0/tty/ttymxc2/power/wakeup

$ sudo reform-check
I: Contents of /proc/device-tree/model: MNT Reform 2
I: `uname -a` output: Linux reform 6.19.14-mnt-reform-arm64 #1 SMP PREEMPT Debian 6.19.14-1+reform20260409T045900Z (2026-04- aarch64 GNU/Linux
I: Version of linux-image-mnt-reform-arm64: 6.19.14-1+reform20260409T045900Z
I: Version of reform-tools: 1.86-1+reform20260417T215359Z+1
I: Version of system image: System Image v5: 2026-01-27
I: Version of LPC firmware: MREF2LPC 30_R1 20250701
I: Version of upstream U-Boot: 2018.07
I: Version of MNT U-Boot: 2026-01-11
I: probably booting via /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf (/boot/boot.scr also exists)
I: Mount source of /: /dev/reformvg/root (LVM vg 'reformvg' on LUKS device 'reform_crypt' on SSD)
I: Mount source of /boot: /dev/mmcblk0p1 (eMMC)
I: Recommends of reform-desktop-minimal is not installed: reform-qcacld2
I: the following files differ from how they are shipped by reform-tools (ignore /var/lib/alsa/asound.state):
??5??????   /var/lib/alsa/asound.state                                                                                                I: kernel boot parameters your system does use but which are not the default:
 + single
 + single
 + single
W: Your kernel cmdline has 'single' in it and will boot into rescue mode on each boot. Maybe booting via extlinux.conf failed?
I: eMMC contains the latest bootloader version 2026-01-11


$ cat /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf
## /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf
##
## IMPORTANT WARNING
##
## The configuration of this file is generated automatically.
## Do not edit this file manually, use: u-boot-update

default l0
menu title U-Boot menu
prompt 1
timeout 1


label l0
        menu label Debian GNU/Linux forky/sid 6.19.14-mnt-reform-arm64
        linux /vmlinuz-6.19.14-mnt-reform-arm64
        initrd /initrd.img-6.19.14-mnt-reform-arm64


        append   ro no_console_suspend cryptomgr.notests plymouth.ignore-serial-consoles pcie_aspm=off ${bootargs} console=tty1
label l0r
        menu label Debian GNU/Linux forky/sid 6.19.14-mnt-reform-arm64 (rescue target)
        linux /vmlinuz-6.19.14-mnt-reform-arm64
        initrd /initrd.img-6.19.14-mnt-reform-arm64

        append   ro no_console_suspend cryptomgr.notests plymouth.ignore-serial-consoles pcie_aspm=off ${bootargs} console=tty1 single


label l1
        menu label Debian GNU/Linux forky/sid 6.19.13-mnt-reform-arm64
        linux /vmlinuz-6.19.13-mnt-reform-arm64
        initrd /initrd.img-6.19.13-mnt-reform-arm64


        append   ro no_console_suspend cryptomgr.notests plymouth.ignore-serial-consoles pcie_aspm=off ${bootargs} console=tty1

label l1r
        menu label Debian GNU/Linux forky/sid 6.19.13-mnt-reform-arm64 (rescue target)
        linux /vmlinuz-6.19.13-mnt-reform-arm64
        initrd /initrd.img-6.19.13-mnt-reform-arm64

        append   ro no_console_suspend cryptomgr.notests plymouth.ignore-serial-consoles pcie_aspm=off ${bootargs} console=tty1 single


label l2
        menu label Debian GNU/Linux forky/sid 6.19.11-mnt-reform-arm64
        linux /vmlinuz-6.19.11-mnt-reform-arm64
        initrd /initrd.img-6.19.11-mnt-reform-arm64


        append   ro no_console_suspend cryptomgr.notests plymouth.ignore-serial-consoles pcie_aspm=off ${bootargs} console=tty1

       label l2r
        menu label Debian GNU/Linux forky/sid 6.19.11-mnt-reform-arm64 (rescue target)
        linux /vmlinuz-6.19.11-mnt-reform-arm64
        initrd /initrd.img-6.19.11-mnt-reform-arm64

        append   ro no_console_suspend cryptomgr.notests plymouth.ignore-serial-consoles pcie_aspm=off ${bootargs} console=tty1 single

I would appreciate any help!

2

Thank you for reaching out with your bug report!

You can see the problem in the extlinux.conf you pasted above. This is the problem we diagnosed here two weeks ago: Ptyxis high CPU utilization

It will be fixed in the next release of reform-tools. Sorry for the mess. If you cannot wait, you could manually edit /etc/u-boot-menu/conf.d/reform.conf and make sure it contains the following and then re-run sudo u-boot-update.

U_BOOT_FDT_DIR="/dtbs/"
U_BOOT_FDT="/freescale/imx8mq-mnt-reform2.dtb"

What I don’t understand is how this problem only shows up now because reform-display-config had this bug since 2024.

I should add a check for this to reform-check.

1 Like
3

This has been happening for a while, but the machine works fine once I exit single-user mode, so I’ve just been procrastinating reporting it :sweat_smile:

Good to know that a fix is forthcoming!

4

About the reform-hw-setup failure, I think this is harmless. It tries to rebind the audio card, but it’s not available yet. Then the service is automatically started again a few seconds later by systemd, where it seems to work this time around.

5

@minute Can/should that issue not be solved by either retrying binding the audio card in a loop with a maximum number of tries and a short sleep until it succeeds? This is how @stephano suggested to solve a race with NetworkManager in reform-hw-setup here: reform-hw-setup: bring down end0 before a311d PHY fix (!168) · Merge requests · Reform / MNT Reform Tools · GitLab

I also wonder why the service is automatically started again even though it is Type=oneshot?