I have an Orin Nano that I just set up a month ago. I messed up the system by deleting some necessary parts of Python and installing libraries, so I thought the easiest thing would be to do a fresh flash and start over. However, after multiple attempts to flash the SD card with the latest download of the Jetpack image, the device will not boot completely. When I power it up, I see the initial boot screen where I can press a key to enter setup, but then the screen output goes blank and stays that way. I see a solid green light on the board, but nothing happens.
From this post, it looks like maybe the latest version of Jetpack I downloaded yesterday is incompatible with the UEFI version on the board? I don’t have an Ubuntu machine already set up to flash the board easily.
I’m just comparing this device to a Pi 4. With a Pi 4, I can easily move the SD cards from one device to another, and it boots fine. If I am understanding this correctly, that is not possible with the Orin Nano’s.
Please help explain where I’m wrong. If I’m not wrong, I think Nvidia needs to think seriously about simplifying the architecture of this platform for usability.
(Update: I have two Orin Nano’s. They were both working. I just swapped the SD card from the one remaining working one and it booted on the other device. So I guess it is an SD card flash issue. But I tried multiple times to flash the other SD card. Maybe the SD card is bad?)
Hi @dan.frist,
From what I’ve encoutered, you cant swap storage when its a major version upgrade, for example flashing Jetpack 4.X and moving that sd card to a Jetson with Jetpack 5.X. Usually I’ve seen that across the same major version you can swap storage. The major difference that I know off is that from version 4 to 5, the bootloader was changed, so thats one of the reasons why you cant change the storage that easily. You can try to rule out the sd card by formatting it before flashing, just to be sure its clean before hand.
It seems like the problem is isolated to the change on the jetpack image I downloaded in early December to the one I downloaded yesterday. That’s not a lot of time, so unless something major was changed during Christmas, any change breaks it.
Anyway, I think it’s kind of dumb that you have to go to such lengths to change the jetpack version on a device. The process should not be so difficult.
Honestly, the jetpack platform seems like an academic project still to me, and not an industrial solution like I was looking for and like I think Nvidia wants it to be from what I can tell.
As a minimum, where can I locate the version of the jetpack image I downloaded in early December to reuse it? Or can I clone the SD from the working orin and use that? I tried that yesterday and it did not work. Trying again now…
Yeah you can try cloning it, but it usually creates a lot of partitions so it makes it a bit tought. You can try reflashing it from scratch using sdk manager or the sd card image is here, for jp5.1.2. And check out the guide to verify you dont miss any step. Usually I had better luck with the cmd instead of etcher, you can try this method if you used etcher before, or the other way around, to see if it helps.
Okay. I guess you are confirming that JP512 was the version linked on the download page in early December? I see that JP60 is what is there now. That is a major release difference.
I used the guide, and I’ve tried terminal and etcher for writing the SD card. I’m trying to clone now, but if that does not work I will try the JP512 link you provided.
yeah JP6 is out and its a major upgrade, I have not tried it yet, so I cant provide much insight on it. I belive it uses the same kernel 5+, so it might be compatible with the Jetpack 5 bootloader, but Im just guessing here. And yes as of last year the latest was 5.1.2.
Conclusion: JP6 does not work on hardware that was previously used with JP5.12 (and I assume earlier), at least not without more than changing the SD card image.
If I have the same issue, where my Jetson Orin Nano Developer Kit wont boot after flashing the SD card do I also need to flash the same JetPack 5.12 version onto my SD card to get it to boot? I might be behind the mark at this point, but I have hardware that hasn’t been updated to JetPack 6 and I’m not sure which version it’s currently running. I just got it out of the box.
I don’t know if it matters with hardware that has not been used already (just out of the box.) I’m curious, so please update here.
(If it were me, I would try 6. You can always drop back. I generally try to use latest stable versions.)
I know there are ways of checking the hardware and flashing it, but it requires an Ubuntu machine and possibly other things I don’t already have. I engineer and build automation for manufacturing. I don’t have time to play with computers. I always need to keep moving.)
That’s understandable, I’m running on a duel booted windows and linux machine, so I can easily switch between the two if that’s what is needed for the Jetson Orin Nano to mount to a desktop. I’ve been trying the most recent image that is suggested on the getting started page, but so far I’ve had no luck getting it to actually boot. I get to the kernel that allows for boot settings and then it just powers off.
I have a new (Amazon.ca sourced) Jetson Orin Nano. I do not have a male-male USB3 cable. I observe the same results that @dan.frist did: “after multiple attempts to flash the SD card with the latest download of the Jetpack image, the device will not boot completely. When I power it up, I see the initial boot screen where I can press a key to enter setup, but then the screen output goes blank and stays that way. I see a solid green light on the board, but nothing happens.”
I have been unsuccessful with Jetpack 6 and I think that I have exhausted efforts including this:
If using JetPack 6.x SD Card image for the first time, you will need to update the QSPI bootloaders by installing JetPack 6 on your SD Card using SDK Manager, which will update the QSPI bootloaders as well. Please note that this is a one time requirement only. Once the QSPI bootloaders are updated, you can use JetPack 6.x SD card images for any future releases.
I tried this, I think that I performed what was asked, but no go.
I am going to try using Jetpack 5.1.2 image and see what happens and report in here.
Flashing 5.1.2 to the SD card DID appear to solve the problem for me.
However, I agree though that getting up and running should not be so challenging - I burned more than 8 hours troubleshooting this problem.
As an aside, I found that on my Win 11 pro system I needed to run Balena Etcher as Administrator before it would run properly.