Trying to get Bela started

zadek

Hi,

I'm trying since a couple of day to Bela going. I did all the staps to install the drivers (the HorNDIS one for example), flash the SD card, and holding the user button while plugging in power. Then the LEDs flash all at once, and do some random pattern, after which two of them continue flashing in a repeating pattern. I'm not sure if the transfer from SD to EEPROM worked or not. I waited a long time but the repetative pattern doesn't change afterwards.

The problem is that it just wouldn't show up in my browser. I plugged it in with the USB cable, and tried to head over to 192.168.7.2, but nothing.

What could be the problem?

Here's a video of the LEDs flashing: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8nktmzlthn0eage/bela_flashing.MOV?dl=0

Cheers,

Zadek

giuliomoro

Hi,
not sure why you would hold the user button when plugging in the power.

In case you received a Bela cape with no SD card, you will have to flash the SD card, push it into the BBB and connect it to your laptop.
Here is our getting started guide.

If you have troubles with the HoRNdis drivers, check out the troubleshooting section.

bela_robert

Also in the video you posted the Bela cape is not sitting on the Beaglebone. This is an essential step.

See the hardware section of the getting started guide: https://github.com/BelaPlatform/Bela/wiki/Getting-started-with-Bela#hardware-setup

zadek

Thanks for your answers. The problem is actually that I can't access my BeagleBoneBlack over the USB port and a browser.
Looking at general getting started guides for the BBB, they all state that I should transfer the SD card image to the internal on-board memory. I think the problem is that as I used the BeagleBoneBlack before, the on-board memory image is booted while the Bela image on the SD card is ignored. That's why I want to overwrite the on-board memory. I hope that makes sense?

Apparently, during this process, you should not have any capes attached to the board. I tried the troubleshooting before (thanks giuliomoro!), without any success.. I'll try again today and let you know how it went.

andrew

If you have a correctly flashed SD card in the slot, it should boot that instead of the on-board MMC. Make sure the SD is flashed properly, or try it again following these instructions:

https://github.com/BelaPlatform/Bela/wiki/Manage-your-sd-card#flashing-the-bela-image

If you put the SD card into your computer, you should see a partition called BELABOOT come up. If that doesn't happen then probably the SD is not flashed correctly. (The most common problem is not unzipping it with xz first.)

There shouldn't be any need to write the Bela image onto the onboard memory, though you could do this if you wanted to. Personally I find it more convenient to be able to swap SD cards.

franciscobernardo

Can you confirm that SD card image will only load correctly on boot ONLY if the Bela cape is attached to the BB? I'm still waiting for the next round of Belas to come out, I don't have one yet...

I was thinking that the SD image would load correctly nonetheless... However all LEDs get lit permanently, and I don't get ssh access.

On the other hand, I can access the BB perfectly via usb when it boots from the on-board MMC.

giuliomoro

hmm. no, the image should work just fine even if the Bela cape is not connected.
Usual things to check are:
- condition of your SD card (you must be able to read it from your computer (if you are on Linux you would see two partitions, on other operating systems probably only one), otherwise it may be corrupted)
- size of your SD card (it must be 4GB or more)
- make sure you unzip the file before trying to flash it (if you are using dd, for instance, it WILL NOT warn you if you try to flash the compressed file!)
- more tips and tricks

If all of the above fails, I'd suspect a failed SD reader on the beaglebone. Give this a try:
- boot from eMMC
- insert SD card
- log in over ssh
- type
$ ls /dev/mmcblk1
if it returns an error, then the SD card has not been read correctly
if it works, then try to mount the boot partition manually, e.g.
mount /dev/mmcblk1p1 /mnt
try to browse around /mnt to make sure files are accessible

franciscobernardo

Thanks Giulio,

sorry I didn't mention something important, I am using the BBGW. I read on that thread (http://forum.bela.io/d/41-noisy-analog-inputs-with-pd/29) that BBGW seemed to worked seamlessly. Is there any config or script that I have to change?

Anyway, I checked every step (twice) and the SD reader seems to be working well, I mounted the partition. Here's my listing
..
.Spotlight-
.Trashes
._.Trashes
Docs
Drivers
LICENSE.txt
MLO
SOC.sh
START.htm
autorun.inf
backup
debug
dtbs
initrd.img
run_boot-sc
tools
u-boot.img
uEnv.txt
uEnv.txt~
uInitrd
whats_on.rt
zImage
zImage_bak

Thanks!

giuliomoro

Actually that thread says that BBG works fine, but BBGW does not, rather it has some troubles with the pin muxer and the analog channels (not sorted out yet).
Yet, it should indeed boot without troubles, so I am not sure what is the cause of the issue you are having.

What version of the image are you using?
Can you show the content of the dtbs folder listed above?

franciscobernardo

I thought so too... Anyway here goes...

Version: Bela Image v0.1.0a stable 2016.07.23

/mnt/dtbs:
am335x-bone.dtb
am335x-boneblack.dtb
am335x-boneblack_orig.dtb
am335x-bonegreen.dtb
am335x-evm.dtb
am335x-evmsk.dtb
am335x-tester.dtb
omap2420-h4.dtb
omap3-beagle-xm.dtb
omap3-beagle.dtb
omap3-evm.dtb
omap3-tobi.dtb
omap4-panda-a4.dtb
omap4-panda-es.dtb
omap4-panda.dtb
omap4-sdp.dtb
omap4-var-som.dtb
omap5-evm.dtb

Is there a dtb missing for the BBGW?

franciscobernardo

Hey Giulio, just got it. I had to press the "user button" S2 and it booted from SD card. didn't know that I had to do it.

Updated the known hosts and finally got Bela logo 😉
Thanks

giuliomoro

Good to know! Well that's very strange: the BBG Wifi we got did not require to do that ... maybe you made some changes to yours in the past?

franciscobernardo

Not really... I followed the instructions you have on the wiki, and because I wasn't successful I looked for a hint on seeed studio forum.

giuliomoro

I see, can you please point us to that page?

franciscobernardo

Sure, actually I consulted several pages until I got that hint, I realised it wasn't from seeed studio..

Read "Step #8: Boot your board off of the SD card" section
http://beagleboard.org/getting-started

Read "Booting ..."
http://www.twam.info/hardware/beaglebone-black/u-boot-on-beaglebone-black

andrew

I think the BBGW does need a new dtb called am335x-bonegreen-wireless.dtb. You can copy the existing bonegreen one over to that name. But there are still some problems with the BBGW.

To be specific, the pin which is the chip select line for the ADC ends up in the wrong mode on the BeagleBone pinmux, so the analog inputs don't work properly. On my BBGW, the analog outputs were fine as was audio, just not the inputs, but that's kind of a big drawback.

franciscobernardo

Thanks Andrew, I'll try that later today.

About the pins I think that might be good news for me after all... Because I would be mostly using Bela for the audio output for my use case.

However, it is still not clear to me wether the ADC problem is an actual impediment for me, and I could actually use your feedback on this. So, if I would want to use data from the BBGW Bluetooth/BLE module to drive sound on Bela would that be compromised? From my understanding, I wouldn't be needing the ADC, correct?

One last question, any appointed dates for the next Bela sale?

franciscobernardo

Thanks Andrew, I'll try that later today.

About the pins I think that might be good news for me after all... Because I would be mostly using Bela for the audio output for my use case.

One last question, any appointed dates for the next Bela sale?

giuliomoro

cool, I'll see if I can compile the drivers (and also fix that pinmuxer setting).

franciscobernardo

that would be awesome!