Erro with Jetson Orin Nano flashing with sdkmanager

Autonomous Machines Jetson & Embedded Systems Jetson Orin Nano
1

I bought a Jetson Orin Nano development kit 8GB and tried to flash it using sdkmanager 1.9.2, placed the Jetson Orin Nano in recovery mode, which was recognized by the Ubuntu PC running sdkmanager. But around 84% of the Linux flashing process it failed (tried multiple time and always the same error). The Jetson Orin Nano is setup with a NVMe for storage which is recognized the Jetson Orin when open the Boot Manager using F11.

I am attaching the screenshot of the error above and also the exported logs file generated by sdkmanager. Any idea to resolve the issue is welcome, I am desperate to get this device working for a project. Thanks in advance for your help.

Screenshot from 2023-04-29 09-21-17
Screenshot from 2023-04-29 09-21-171920Ă—1200 195 KB

SDKM_logs_JetPack_5.1.1_(rev._1)_Linux_for_Jetson_Orin_Nano_modules_2023-04-29_09-10-30.zip (132.6 KB)

1 Like
2

please also help dump the log from device side.

3

I have the same error; I have tried flashing from Ubuntu 18.04 and 20.04 based on other threads I saw that seemed to imply 18.04 better. I have also tried with every possible combination of manual/OEM mode runtime etc. Have also tried doing it from a virtual machine. As yet nothing works - would be grateful for any resolution to this

4

I would suggest you can dump the host side and device side log here…

There are lots of kind of causes that may lead to flash failure.

One possible cause is using the VM.

5

I tried flashing from a laptop running 18.04. It took me many tries before it worked. I set the concurrent downloads to 1 and set it to install later. That finally got everything downloaded without errors. It took several attempts before the flashing was successful.

I recommend putting the Orin in flash mode only after everything is downloaded and when the screen tells you to.

6

@CyborgSam So yours had issues with downloads? I have managed to download everything in Step3 of the SDK Flasher just fine. When I go and start the flashing all it needs to do is create the OS image and flash it - but the flashing fails consistently around 50%.
I am not sure the ";Recovery Mode’ timing matters in this case since I have already downloaded everything and the connected Jetson Orin Nano is (I think) doing nothing in the meantime.

Were there any adjustments to 18.04 you needed to make to get it to work eventually?

@WayneWWW I can see it is possible to get virtual machine working e.g. as shown here:

Especially given the VM approach is giving the same errors as when I do it from a base linux install, it appears the problem is in the SDK/flasher, or OS (given some have found needing to switch 20.04->18.04) rather than the VM itself.

7

Yes, I had a lot of issues with the downloads. No adjustments to 18.04 other than to set the power to not blank the screen.

I suggest leaving the Orin off until the screen appears telling you to power it on in flash mode. I don’t have any hard proof that it makes a difference, but the time it worked was the only time I freshly powered on the Orin in flash mode while the screen was up.

8

Just to confirm then - by “power it on in flash mode” you mean you put the jumper across the recovery mode pin, then power it on, then leave it with that jumper in place during the flashing? The Nvidia instructions seem to imply that the jumper get removed prior to clicking “flash” ont he popup but that seems to crash mine.

9

For my case, when this message popped up:

IMG_021312
IMG_0213121920Ă—2161 298 KB

I did unplug the jumper (Step 7), chose NVMe and put in my username and password, before clicking on “FLASH” and SDK Manager started to install the OS OK from there for me.

IMG_021314
IMG_0213141920Ă—1130 147 KB

10

Just a suggestion. Please file your own topic and share the log there.

It is kind of weird to discuss this on this because this is a topic from another owner. And I am still waiting for the topic owner to share log.

11

Thank you for this. I have tried this but unfortunately it did not solve it for me. Will require some more troubleshooting…

@WayneWWW The reason i posted in here is the OP seems to have an IDENTICAL problem to me, as it seems do quite a few other users who have not been able to get the SDK to flash properly with it throwing all of these errors. Ill keep trying then make a new thread if no success.

1 Like
12

I think the suggestion from other users are valid, because is the same problem. Exactly the problem they mentioned above is the same things happening to me. Now I was able to download all the software without issues, the problem is with the flashing that it never complete. I tried with Ubuntu 18.04 and now with Ubuntu 20.04 and the problem is exactly the same. I tried with Windows WSL and VirtualBox and the problem stay the same (flashing do not finish). Now with VirtualBox the USB connection work seamlessly, because with Windows WSL you need to run usbipd with the auto-attach option. I have VirtualBox USB port as USB 3.0, I will try to change it to USB 2.0, as someone above mention that Jetson Orin do not work with USB 3.0, and I will let you know the result soon.
Another scenarios that I tried: I flashed the SD image provided by Nvidia to the NVMe using BalenaEtcher in my Windows PC, and that did not work neither.

13

Note to anyone following - I eventually got this to work by digging out a different old laptop that had 20.04 but probably 3 years since it had been booted; did an upgrade of all the software on the laptop (since I saw on another forum thread that somehow people succeed with 20.04 upgraded from earlier OS versions but FAILED when using a 20.04 fresh install). Then, I did the SDK flasher as per usual and it worked first time (though there were various errors raised on the log, at least I got a bootable system).

One aside on this point - it seemed that while the specific USBC cable was not important for me the USB port used to connect to my host PC WAS. The port I initially used on the back could “see” the jetson nano but would fail; when I switched to a different USB port on the front of machine it worked.

14

HS131231 did you update your system running only:

  • sudo apt update
  • sudo apt upgrade
    Or there was other software update that you did beside that one? like python update also?
15

I did change the USB from USB 3.0 to USB 2.0 in the VirtualBox configuration, also tried to flash only the Linux OS, did the sudo apt update and sudo apt upgrade on the Ubuntu 20.04 and the error still the same at the same point in the flashing phase.
I will try to do the serial console debug with the magic cable, but first I need to buy one.
Any other suggestion is always welcome. My frustration level is too high today, 3 days (36 hours) trying to get this device to work.

16

The screen is correct. Once it’s powered on with the jumper in place it’s in Flash Mode. Remove the jumper before flashing so the Orin can restart and boot what you just flashed.

17

I did something even less advanced, used the ubuntu gui system update :) It was about 1GB of package/base system updates since as I said hadn’t done it for years.
IMO the more important thing might be USB compatability; mine magically works on some USB 3.0 ports on my computer but not other USB3.0 ports.

18

I think you might be right about USB compatibility. Not sure what is the spec of the USB Port-C for the Jetson Orin Nano, but the other USB port are USB 3.1. I am switching gear with this issue, I am changing the storage from NVMe to Micro-SD (order a new one from Amazon). I will flashing it with BalenaEtcher. I will not do the magic cable for now. And if I cannot get it to work with Micro-SD I just return the product to Arrow Electronics. Too much wasting time with a probabilistic process from Nvidia and SDKManager. This should be a deterministic process with clear steps that make it work, and not probabilistic that work sometime with some unknown condition. By the way, SDKManager is an excellent concept, BUT after trying around 15 times it filled up the hard-drive from 50GB to 120GB, every epoch (try) is generate new files and did not reuse existing one (Good concept BUT bad implementation).

19

Hi All,

It looks like multiple things are at play in this thread. So, here are my two cents.

1. NVMe M.2 SSD - Now, what are you using for this? Jetson Orin Nano only supports only upto PCIe Gen3, and NVIDIA tested this with a few (very few) SSD’s. here is a short compatibility list here.
Note: that my NVMe M.2 SSD is not from the list above, but it is PCIe Gen3.

2. SDK Manager - Now this is one of the buggiest software’s I’ve ever used. USB-C was included only on the Jetson Orin Nano DevKit (I’m not sure able AGX), and it looks like the SDK software wasn’t upgraded to support this. Most of the modern devides have atleast USB 3.1 and if you have to use pre-historic USB 2.0 you are in luck :).

3. Download Issue - Now this is puzzling, other than using Ubuntu 18 or 20 and SDK manager you don’t need anything else to download. So, it is possible your ISP or (proxy) may be blocking or terminating your connections. So, my recommendation is to use Google DNS or a VPN that doesn’t block any of the NVIDIA IP’s. Trying to solve this with the SDK Manager or a different version of Ubuntu could waste your time and yield nothing.

4. Flashing issue - Flashing issue could be because of incompatible NVMe, USB, USB cable, or how you are setting the Jetson in recovery more, or any other quirks. I would recommend, you check all compatibility issues prior to getting to this, and if nothing works try the USB diagnostics (there is a video on that).

5. Improving SDK Manager - Now if SDK manager team is taking a note of this thread, please, please, please simplify this step by packaging SDK manager in the SD card image. It doesn’t make any sense to have another dedicated machine to flash Jetson. SD card image should have all the necessary tooling to flash/reflash Jetson wither to boot from SD, eMMC, NVMe or USB. Just make it an App or a script.

Finally, i hope this helps those of you struggling to get Jetson Orin Nano working. I know how frustrating this can be, i’ve spent over a week doing the same.

Best of luck

1 Like
20

Regarding the last point here.

Now if SDK manager team is taking a note of this thread, please, please, please simplify this step by packaging SDK manager in the SD card image

This is not possible. The point to have another host to flash your jetson is because the “flash” process itself includes to flash the bootloader software on a QSPI-flash on module.

Sdcard image can only work because bootloader software exists. If there is a condition that bootloader already corrupted, then your sdcard image won’t work either.
In that case, plugging the sdcard won’t save the bootloader.

Which means if the bootloader gets broken, then you have to flash it with sdkmanger in the end.

And just my personal comment. I am glad you guys finding out your solution by yourself.
However, just a reminder. Only @facruz dumped the (partial) log file here.
Without checking the log files, it is always not precise to tell whether you guys are in same issue or if your experience can pass to another users.

The most common case I saw here is: most people could only tell “sdkm fails to flash”. But the causes may be various. For example, NVMe compatibility issue, host cannot detect jetson in recovery mode or maybe host side configuration.
Or even some users are making their own custom carrier board (not devkit) and hit flash issue. They think it is still sdkmanager issue but it is totally different level.

Thus, the log file is always needed. Thanks.