Snickerdoodle Prime LE Bootup SPI flash error

[Shane]

Received my Snickerdoodle Prime LE yesterday and now I'm trying to boot into Linux.  Formatted the micro SD card (SanDisk 32GB Extreme microSDHC UHS-I/U3 Class 10) according to both the Windows and Linux instructions (trying several things here) but to no avail.  I can hold down the reset button and power up over USB to get to the u-boot prompt, however when I type 'reset' as others have suggested it still doesn't boot.  I'm using both TeraTerm and Putty in a Windows 7 environment.

The error message that I'm receiving is: SF: unrecognized JEDEC id bytes: 20, bb, 18

followed by: Failed to initialize SPI flash at 0:0 (error -2)

I've attached a screenshot of the output after typing reset.  Notice that early on the FlashID=0x20 0xBB 0x18.

I don't have a complete understanding of the boot process so I'm a bit lost as to the sequencing that typically occurs (a thorough write up would be helpful).  I can tell you that if I don't hold down reset while powering up, the green LED stays lit and it does blink momentarily if I press a key while in the terminal, but nothing is coming back.  I'm also at 115200 8N1 and I've successfully installed the STMicro Virtual COM port drivers.

Any suggestions?

[Bush]

I think your board is booting using a partial image that is on the QSPI. What part of the SD card creation process is failing? Are you using Windows or Linux (and what distro)?

[Shane]

The SD card creation process isn't failing.  I've successfully followed the getting started guide for both Windows and Linux (tried them both separately) and I'm not receiving any errors.  I'm using the linux pre-built images located here for BOOT.  I am not including any of the files from the boot_sources directory, but from what I can tell I haven't been directed to either.  For ROOTFS I'm using snickerdoodle-ubuntu-14.04.tar.gz.  I'm also running Ubuntu 14.04 using VMWare to create the SD card using Linux.

[Shane]

I wrote all zero's to the SD card this morning using dd and then went through the Linux SD card process again, this time using the deprecated 512MB boot image files (since the Prime LE version is 512MB).  The outcome is that now I get a white blinking heartbeat signal and much later the green LED lights up.  Still get momentary flashes on the green LED when typing into the terminal but no command prompt.

When booting up holding down reset, the same behaviour is observed.  I didn't mention this before but there is a warning stating that spi_flash_probe() failed.

[Shane]

I bought a different card tonight to rule out any issues there.  Same exact error.  Even the JEDEC id bytes in the error message are the same (0x20, 0xbb, 0x18).

[Cousins]

Hey Shane,

Maybe it'll be easier/faster to get to the bottom of this in "real time"... Would you be free for a quick Google Hangout or something tomorrow (Tuesday) or Wednesday this week? What timezone are you in? I can post a link here once we get it scheduled - then anyone/everyone can join and listen in. Think of it as snickerdoodle group therapy. One we figure out what's going on, we'll document the result and post it here for others. How does that sound?

-Cousins

[Shane]

That would be great.  I'm in the central time zone.  Early (~8am) or later (~5pm) works best, but I can miss some work if necessary.  

I just found out that when I hold down reset at power up without the micro SD card inserted, I'm still receiving the same errors.

[Cousins]

Excellent, we'll plan on 5pm Central / 3pm Pacific / 10pm GMT on Tuesday, March 21. Here's the link: https://hangouts.google.com/hangouts/_/krtkl.com/snickerdoodlesupport

See you (and anyone else who wants to join) there!

[Shane]

Sounds good - looking forward to it

[mattia....@gmail.com]

Dear Shane,

I am getting your same error.

Please could you tell me how you solved it.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Mattia