CM5 Boot and Stability Issues on uConsole (Works Fine with CM4)

Hi @rex - first of all, thank you for your fantastic work on the Bookworm 6.12 release.

I’m running into persistent boot and stability issues only with CM5. With the original CM4 that shipped with the uConsole, everything works fine (same configuration, same SD card).


Device & Setup

  • Device: uConsole with CM5 lite 8GB (CM5108000)

  • 4G Module: Present (official module)

  • SD Card: Silicon Power 64 GB V30 A1 U3 (3D NAND)

  • OS: Fresh install of Bookworm 6.12 (first booted with CM5 installed, tried CM4 after the problems occured)


Symptoms (Only with CM5)

Boot Issues

  • Very slow boot (30+ seconds), including any of the following:

    • Black screen with backlight on, nothing else

    • Black screen with blinking cursor

    • Stuck on penguin logo with dphys-swapfile.service or any other message

  • Occasionally needs battery removal to recover

  • With patience, it eventually boots

  • Sometimes it boots fast with no problems

Post-Boot Freeze

  • After cold boot, launching a heavier app (e.g. Chromium or VS Code):

    • GUI input like opening apps or opening menu freezes

    • Cursor moves, windows move, but no clicks register

    • After 10–20 seconds, everything “catches up” and all tasks complete rapidly

  • This happens only once after cold boot, rest of session is stable


EEPROM Config Tried

[all]

BOOT_UART=1

POWER_OFF_ON_HALT=1

BOOT_ORDER=0xf1

SD_BOOT_MAX_RETRIES=2

SD_QUIRKS=1 

Happy to run logs, dmesg, bootchart, or anything else you need.

did you apply EEPROM patch? I believe it was common in the very beginning, but now it should be fixed on the latest Rex’s bookworm + EEPROM patch.

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Most those problems were early on getting the CM5 working with the uConsole. Are you using the latest 6.12.40 release? Have you tried a different SD card? When you flash the image did apply any custom settings?

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:white_check_mark: Trying another SD card (Samsung 128GB EVO Plus) solved my issue. Thank you!

For informational purposes:

Yes

No

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