Bela not working?

OG93

Hi, I've switched my Bela on today which I've been working with for the past few months for a project. When I plug it in the power light lights up and the user leds flash once and thats it. I can't access the browser. Any ideas? Really need to get this back working.

OG93

Also not showing as a device in finder as if it's not plugged in.

giuliomoro

Is this a Bela or BelaMini? Does it have an SD card?

OG93

Hi Giulio,

Thanks for the quick response.

It's the Bela, doesn't have an SD card inserted and I've never actually used one with it. Have just been using it day to day plugged into laptop and using a an accelerometer through I2C.

giuliomoro

Does the Power light stay on? Also, do you have anything plugged into the board?

OG93

The power light stays on, nothing else flashing. Only have the USB plugged in.

giuliomoro

you said one of the USER LEDs turns on briefly on boot? Could you make a short video? Also can you try and remove the Bela cape as explained here and see if that allows it to boot?

OG93

Same thing happens with the cape removed. Is there somewhere I can send the video? It won't let me attach.

giuliomoro

giulio@bela.io will work

OG93

That's sent now.

Thanks

giuliomoro

right, it would seem that the eMMC (internal memory) got somehow corrupted. Have you got an SD card (at least 4GB) at hand? You could flash the latest Bela image on it, then remove the Bela cape and try and boot it using the instructions at option 3.

OG93

I don't think so, is there any other way? I'll have a look for an SD card.

giuliomoro

There is no easy other way, unfortunately.

OG93

giuliomoro Thank you very much! That seems to have done the trick and the board seems to be working fine now. Should I leave the SD card with the flashed image in the board?

OG93

I'll try give this a go then.

giuliomoro

that's good news!

OG93 Should I leave the SD card with the flashed image in the board?

if you do, it will keep booting from it. If you remove it, it will boot from the built-in memory (eMMC)

OG93

giuliomoro OK , Thank you.

OG93

giuliomoro The board doesn't work when the SD card is not in it, is that something I should be worried about?

giuliomoro

did you flash the eMMC from the SD card? That'd be this step.

If you already did that, try again, but yes, we may have a problem. I think I had one BBB (out of a few hundreds I handled myself) where the eMMC was not working as expected: it would seem to be fine if you flashed it, but then on reboot it failed. Maybe this is a similar issue? After all, your initial failure was probably linked to an eMMC corruption ... maybe it has failed completely?

OG93

giuliomoro I flashed it again there and seems to be working now without the SD. Hopefully will be alright. Thanks again for the quick help!