Librem 5 system crashes

Hi. I do not want to hijack your thread, but I am also experiencing frequent crashes directly associated with suspend and USB power issues.

I am experiencing this only since the last kernel upgrade.

Interestingly, I cannot access the settings menu at all when on battery power. However, when I plug in anything to the USB C slot, I can access settings. Very odd. This points to a clear power issue associated with the USB and suspend.

Finally, the device crashes spontaneously when heated enough to create a state of no-charge (flashing red light). Suspend is totally broken for me now. All it does is turn off my device.

I wonder, should I simply reflash the device?

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Another thought I had was to maybe downgrade to the previous kernel?

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Up to you, it is your Librem 5 and you are the owner.

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Hi!
You do not write anything about wifi and sdcard usage…

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I have no Wifi or SD card issues. Both work fine.

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Hi, it’s a little bit strange because on the contrary for me this update almost solved the problem

I also encounters charging issues: sometimes when plugged on the battery remains at a static level. I don’t know if this is related to your issue (I can access the settings menu without problem)

Since you’re experiencing a lot of trouble, it could be a solution

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I am going to reflash and report back about this.

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Ok. This is very frustrating. The flashing instructions are wrong.

Two issues:

  1. For whatever reason the live image of PureOS doesn’t not recognize Wifi in two of my computers running (essentially) Debian. So trying to use a live image of PureOS is a total fail and waste of time for this user.

  2. Using my laptop running Linux Mint (Debian), I followed the instructions (I am not a Linux newbie) and the script fails. Why? Who knows.

    2.a. I had to go looking through comments in this forum to try to get a Librem 5 image via the script. @irvinewade solved the problem here: Time to flash is now - but how? - #180 by irvinewade

    The issue: I had to point to the “stable” image using

–stable

It is also dumb that the instructions have not been updated to state this fact here: Reflashing the Phone

Can somebody please update the page and instructions so people like me do not have to go down the rabbit-hole to search for the missing commands in order to reflash the phone?

P.S. Another thing to note: I had to use the proper USB-C cable to get it to flash. The first cable did not want to be my friend.

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On a brighter note, my Librem 5 now suspends again and I do not appear to be experiencing the other odd issues. It appears that re-flashing did the trick!

I am going to re-install ZRam again and see if that creates any issues to try to help @marcms. I will report back about that as well.

I also reserve the right to report back if any more errors appear.

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Yes, I am keenly aware that the official reflashing instructions at developer.puri.sm are missing several things that I have already updated in the documentation source and several things that I am holding off updating until the first issue gets sorted out.

As it stands today, unfortunately the best version of the instructions is to be found distributed across various topics in the forum and I think anyone can see that that is not maximally helpful.

FWIW, you shouldn’t actually need --stable and using that is just a workaround for an unrelated issue i.e. unrelated to any documentation problems.

I don’t think I’m going to be able to document that. When I use Serial Download mode (and I’ve never had a problem doing so) I nearly always use a USB-A to USB-C cable because I don’t have a USB-C port on my computer and because I don’t want to bother to unplug the Purism-supplied USB-C cable from where the charger is. So YMMV … quite a lot.

I take your point that if and when I get that far with the reflashing instructions it can cover generic troubleshooting of “my USB doesn’t work” with things like: try a different USB port / try a different USB cable etc.

I would suggest though that if your computer has a USB-C port then you would be obliged to try the Purism-supplied cable before seeking support (as a hypothetical in your case).

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Thank you for your responses. I appreciate your insight and everything you do on this forum. I realize you are volunteering your time and you are doing your best. I am more frustrated that Purism does not support their products better than what is currently happening. I hope it improves…

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I spoke too soon. The device suspends when plugged in but not when running on battery power.

Put more clearly: the device “attempts” to suspend while on battery power and will turn off some functions, but it does not turn-off beyond showing the login screen. This is odd.

Also, I do not have access to the Settings or “Applications” menu when on battery power. Also odd.

I do have access to the terminal.

The device also appears to be working with convergence and another monitor. However, it does not like suspending at all while being used with convergence. It shuts the device down unless I completely turn off suspend (which is fine with my while being convergent but still an odd power issue).

I wonder if maybe I installed something, after flashing the device, that is causing this problem. I may reflash to see if I can get suspend working again for only battery.

Also, I notice that journalctl is having a lot of trouble with something. Every time I clean it out, I notice 800mb or more of logs that I would guess are associated with the suspend/power/battery issues.

I may create a new post about this as I feel like I have stolen the original poster’s thunder here. I would guess that there are some related power/suspend bugs or issues going on with the new kernel update that recently went out.

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@marcms I am having no better luck than you. My crashes are persistent and have to do with suspend and battery issues.

Modifying the device to enable ZRAM also has not helped. I did reach out to support and will report back.

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Just to update this: Purism has resolved the issue that was preventing changes flowing through to the actual web site. So, suddenly, all the edits that I had previously made are now in the official instructions - and I will now make further edits over the coming days - and hopefully within a few weeks there will be no obvious gaps or errors!

When we reach that point, I would encourage everyone to use the official instructions on the actual web site, rather than either of the two tutorials in the forum or the random distributed comments in posts in the forum - and if there are problems with the official instructions, you can blame me and badger me.

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Okay, how would someone interested in contributing updated documentation be able to do so?

For clarity, I was only talking about the reflashing instructions. Are you talking about the reflashing instructions or other documentation? If other documentation, what kind of areas?

In any case, if a person were interested in directly contributing documentation updates, the first step is to apply for and be granted an account for the Purism git repo. (That allows unfettered access to edit all the Community Wiki pages, and allows one to create MRs for the official documentation, any change to which ultimately still needs to be approved by Purism, understandably.)

If you just want further changes made to the reflashing instructions, you can message me privately with your thoughts.

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The quote I provided earlier about asking @JCS months ago about how to update the documentation was from this post:

Note that while my interest towards this is still intact, the amount of time I have now is significantly more limited, but I am willing to make tough decisions with tradeoffs for the greater benefit of the Purism community.

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A more effective contributing guide is in the works, which will detail the missing steps between documentation updates and having everything properly build & publish. Better organization and consolidation of disparate documentation sources (there are over 7!) is something we’re also working toward.

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Reading through some older posts about updating firmware and the lack of clear guidance on that subject, I believe some official documentation from Purism about updating firmware is very necessary as well.

Please also include a section about updating firmware.

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