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Jim Oost avatar image
Jim Oost asked

Venus large, rpi4 nightmare

Hi all, sorry about the long post.
I hope someone can advise.

I recently upgraded from a mpp solar inverter to a multiplus 2 gx. works great.

I am also running a pi4 4gb with mosquitto, node red, influxdb and grafana. and using esp8266 controllers to access data from my bmv-712 via the ve direct port and also from my epever charge controllers via rs485 as well as numerous other non solar related devices.

I am very much a "monkey see, monkey do" type person with google and GitHub being true friends.

My plan is to set up another rpi4 2gb running "venus os large with node red" and connected to the multiplus via the MK3 VEBUS TO USB dongle and to the bmv712 via the ve direct port with a generic USB To RS232 TTL UART PL2303HX dongle to transmit relevant data via mqtt and node red to my influxdb/grafana rpi4.

"BUT" after a week of trying I have not been able to install venus os large on a new pi4 2gb device.

My method.

First I installed raspberry Pi OS Full (32-bit) release 2022-01-28 onto a new 32gb card using Raspberry Pi imager and booted the install. I then made sure the firmware was up to date with "sudo apt uptate" and then "sudo apt full-upgrade".

Next I downloaded "venus-image-raspberrypi4-20220215235310-v2.84.rootfs.wic" and etched to a new 32gb card using balena etcher. This is where my problems began. I inserted the card and turned on the pi and the boot process failed.

"start4.elf: is not compatable This board requires newer software" was the message displayed. After some googling I found a post that suggested replacing the "start4*" files from a working os rasbian card. I copied "start4.elf, start4x.elf, start4db.elf and start4cd.elf and finally fixup4.dat to the venus os card.

I can now see my pi4 as a Cerbo GX Raspberry Pi 4 model b rev1 firmware v2.84 on my victron connect app and can access the portal with a browser on a LAN connected pc and can change the time zone etc.

My next step was to copy "venus-swu-raspberrypi4-20220208151137-v2.82-large-30" on to a usb stick and insert it to update to the large version of the operating system but after turning off "remote update" and clicking "check for firmware on on SD/USB" all I get is "No firmware file found".


The usb stick is a 1gb toshiba stick formatted fat32.
After lots more searching I can't find a way forward.

I have also tried etching an earlier version of venus os "venus-image-raspberrypi4-20220131070934-v2.80.rootfs.wic" on the card with the same method and results.

please help.

Jim.

Venus OS
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7 Answers
Stefanie (Victron Energy Staff) avatar image
Stefanie (Victron Energy Staff) answered ·

@Jim Oost

did you try another USB stick? Also make sure the swu update file is in the root folder of your USB drive.

There was no need to install Raspberry Pi OS. It's just another OS that will be overwritten by the Venus OS image.

FWIW, if you're using swu updates, normally there is no need check for firmware on SD/USB. It should recognise the swu update file by itself and you only have to confirm that you want to install.

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Jim Oost avatar image
Jim Oost answered ·

Hi Stefanie,

Thanks for your interest ;)

Yes I also tried a 16gb sdcard formatted to fat 32 in the usb adapter I used to etch/flash the os.

and yes I understand that the original rasbian operating system is over written. I wanted to make sure the "firmware" on the "low level" part of the rpi that doesn't depend on the operating system installed on the sd card is up to date.

Is there another way to update to venus large without using .SWU ? It seems to me that the venus os doesn't even recognise the usb memory as storage.

thanks

Jim.

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Stefanie (Victron Energy Staff) avatar image Stefanie (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ commented ·

Yes, there is. But as I understand your initial post, you already tried etching a .wic image?

See also: https://github.com/victronenergy/venus/wiki/raspberrypi-install-venus-image

and https://www.victronenergy.com/live/venus-os:large

which I suppose you have read already.

Give it a try again. Even try a brand new SD card. I can hardly count how many SD cards I've already worn out...the downside of owning a Raspberry Pi.

FWIW, I'm running the latest large image on a PI4 4GB with v1.1 board without problems, no matter if I'm burning the image (.wic) or update from .swu.

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Jim Oost avatar image
Jim Oost answered ·

Hey Stefanie. Anything new is good!

I have only found venus os large as a .SWU so no I have not etched venus os large onto a sd card as I don't have an image file.

do you have a link for this image?

I clicked on the second link you provided in your last post but got in return

"

This topic does not exist yet

You've followed a link to a topic that doesn't exist yet. If permissions allow, you may create it by clicking on Create this page. "

I downloaded the .swu file from a dropbox link from this page https://www.victronenergy.com/live/venus-os:large

If I can download a .WIC image for venus os large it may solve my problems.


thanks again for your interest and your help.

best wishes

Jim

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Stefanie (Victron Energy Staff) avatar image Stefanie (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ commented ·

@Jim Oost
Ooops, sorry. I got that mixed up with the link Johnny provided.

edit: I fixed the link in my post above.

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johnny-brusevold avatar image
johnny-brusevold answered ·

@Jim Oost

Now I do not think that venus-os is updated to support raspberry pi 4 v1.4 board yet, or am I wrong here?

If it has not been updated, the USB ports will not work with changing the startup and fixup files.

You can test this image if you want to see if it works

Files

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Jim Oost avatar image
Jim Oost answered ·

awesome.

I would love to send both Sefanie and Johnny-brusevold each a virtual packet of "TIM TAMS". :)

I Etched the image in the link supplied by johnny-brusevold which booted without issues.

This is the one I downloaded "venus-raspberrypi4-20220208151137-v2.82-large-30.rootfs.img"

I can acces the portal from my browser without issues and it shows the "venus os large features" at the bottom of the settings page,

I can now move forward.

I want to thank everyone who took an interest. also thanks to Victron for hosting this forum.


Jim...

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Kevin Windrem avatar image
Kevin Windrem answered ·

As Johnny said previously, the current RPI4 images and .swu files provided by Victron are NOT, repeat NOT compatible with current production Raspberry PI 4 models. A new kernel is required. Replacing files in the boot partition is NOT, repeat NOT sufficient.

A new kernel is being tested and is mostly operational but it has NOT been incorporated into the latest Victron Venus OS files.

So for right now Venus OS is not compatible with an RPI4 unless you happen to have an older board version which are not available new anywhere.

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Jim Oost answered ·

Thanks for the imput Kevin. I have confirmed that I have a version 1.4 board which makes sense as I purchased it recently and confirmed visually https://core-electronics.com.au/guides/Versions-Raspberry-Pi/

Interestingly Johnny-brusevold's test image has been up and running for two days now sending data to the victron online portal as well as to my home automation pi4 via node red and mqtt.

I did not swap any files on the boot partition, it just worked.

Just to clear things up.


Jim

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Related Resources

Victron Venus OS Open Source intro page

Venus OS GitHub (please do not post to this)