Home Center 2 - Stopped working

[druqs 1]

This morning I noticed some outside lights on that should have turned off at sunrise...

 

And of course I could not access my HC2 over the network.

 

The three right lights (power, network, HDD) were solid on.

 

I turned off and on again, just got the flashing lights sequence with nothing happening.

 

As it happens I have a CCTV monitor right next to the HC2 which has an used VGA input, so easy to see what is going on.

 

I have tried googling the errors I am seeing but nothing relevant turns up.

 

Firstly, if you try and just start the machine without going through the F10 (BIOS) menu, you get the 'GRUB loading' etc... and then

 

Quote

early console in decompress_kernel

 

Decompressing Linux... Persing ELF... No relocation needed... done

Booting the kernel.

[       0.897143] kvm: no hardware support

 

Note the number [ 0.99xxx etc...] changes but always ends in kvm: no hardware support, but It hangs here about about 2 minutes, then will reboot (and back to the same).

This error when looked up seems very obscure and to do with virtualisation?

 

If you go via F10, you can see the choices are FIBARO HDD and FIBARO RECOVERY.

 

Oddly FIBARO RECOVERY seems to be *default* boot drive, but if you select FIBARO BOOT, the screen actually states "Booting 'Recovery System'" or similar,

then for a few seconds, 'error - no such device', then within 2-3 seconds you do get a much longer console screen with lots flying by, but then it will hang on;

 

Quote

[1.646394 usb 1-3: new high-speed USB device number 2 using ehci-pci

 

And after about 5 minutes it will then reboot to the above kvm error

 

For the avoidance of doubt, holding down the recovery + doesn't get you anywhere different.

 

We are f**ked right now with no lights in any the rooms or externally that rely on sensor only, looks like my wife was right about this system after all

 

Assuming the internal USB (2gb) stick has become corrupted, can I reflash it or replace it without resorting to $$$ / £££ /  €€€?

 

Help

 

p.s

 

Interesting - if you disable SATA on the bios (after all it isn't being used, right?) then you get past the USB hang above and get to a black screen with only

 

Quote

Initramfs waiting 3s before mounting rootfs...

 

But it just hangs agains for a few minutes then reboots - although sometimes is hangs at slightly different points just after.

 

Just tried a Ubunto LiveuSB on there and it also hangs, though a few lines past the identical 'new high speed USB' line, it hangs on a line about ahci flags...

 

I am beginning to think this could be the hardware, although for a PC to even turn on I understand that 99.9% of it must be working?

 

For £13 I have ordered new memory, and for £30 (£15 of which is postage!) I have actually ordered a new mobo (identical model) from the USA, because you never know.

Its the fact that an off-the-shelf Ubunto won't run that is making me a bit suspicious, perhaps there is a failure of some IO function that isn't stopping

the machine booting to BIOS level but is causing issues when interrogated?

Edited September 6, 2019 by druqs

[druqs 1]

Answering my own question here for the benefit of others...

 

YES - it WAS the Mobo!

 

I first tried the memory, but this did nothing (though I do now have 2GB and I am *certain* it is running faster through the GIU, now it is fixed...)

 

I bought a spare Mobo from the USA, at first I had trouble just getting it to boot at all, oddly, I kept being told I had NO bootable USB devices, despite all appropriate boot options being enabled...

 

So, in deperation I disabled all USB devices (thankfully this does NOT seem to include keyboards during BIOS startup!) rebooted, then enabled USB, rebooted and, IT WORKS AGAIN!

 

Again, it looks as if it WAS a faulty, in some odd way, old Mobo, the plain installation of UBUNTU also works without issues on this new Mobo...

 

I hope this helps someone else in the future, especially as the Mobo was only $19 so I was not charged taxes and fees (it has to be over £20 / around 20 euro I think to get taxed at entry).

Edited September 14, 2019 by druqs

[darrenf 1]

Have the exact same issue. I have seen other Posts that talk about the exact same thing.

Apparently this issue has been happening a lot.

I wonder why the people at Fibaro have not picked up on this at all.

What are we to do now? All of us buy new motherboards because this one fails?

 

Just like you I have my whole house automated with this system. Now I can not even get laundry done without having to do some major rearranging in the kitchen with electric cords and such.

I have created a ticket with Fibaro on a Friday. So far have had no response. Guess they do not work on the weekend. 

Wait and see, I suspect they will want me to send in the system, do not know how long that takes but every day not having the system online is a day way too long of course.

 

Thanks for the post. If I have any new information I will update.

[darrenf 1]

All right, sent the system to Fibaro, and found out that it was the motherboard as we all suspected.

So just to make things clear, the motherboard got replaced, then the system was sent back.

The system seems to be working fine. Just having problems with my phone app not wanting to accept my account information.

Just no idea what is going on here.

[druqs 1]

Hi darrenf, sorry to bump an old topic but I didn't see your reply at the time.

 

Just for info/advice, I subsequently glued a HUGE heatsink on top of mine after this happened because you can bet the heat didn't help.

All OK since, fingers crossed!