I've searched these forums, read the documents to unbrick but to no avail. Basically I got my Omega 2+ out recently with a Power Dock. It hadn't been used for a few years, I planned on updating it.

My OS: Linux (6.8.0-58-generic, Ubuntu)
Onion Omega 2+
Power Dock
Ethernet Dock
Ethernet cable, USB data power cable, USB stick with omega2p-v0.3.4-b259.bin renamed to omega2.bin in the root directory

Not remembering how to get it all working, I read the docs and booted it, saw the WiFi name and connected using the onioneer password. All good. In the web UI for the device I had the option to update the firmware. So I went for omega2p-v0.3.4-b259.bin and clicked go (or whatever it was to make it start). I left it for about 45 minutes - the light had stopped flashing and was solid. Obviously the web interface was no longer working so I hard rebooted the device (plugged it on and off).

I've tried resetting it - power on, hold reset button for 10 seconds - it doesn't work. No reset happens.

Now it won't boot at all. I've followed this guide: https://docs.onion.io/omega2-docs/Firmware-Flashing-Web-Recovery.html but cannot get the serial to connect. The light does come on on it, and is solid orange on the Omega board. That's all though.

I have successfully loaded the module cp210x (using modprobe) on my Linux box, but when I plug the USB power cable to the Omega, I do not see a /dev/ttyUSB0. It is a proper data cable too and I've used it to transfer images from my phone so definitely works.

The page referenced above states "First, connect to the Omega’s command line through serial. Then, power on the device and press the Reset button on the Expansion Dock at the same time."

I do not get this - how can I connect through serial and then power the device on?

I've also added the ethernet connection between my PC and Omega, given the PC 192.168.8.100 address (static, obviously) and cannot see 192.168.8.8.

I've also tried following https://docs.onion.io/omega2-docs/Firmware-Flashing-from-USB-storage.html, but again, same problem - no serial connection so still cannot get into it. I placed the omega2.bin file in the root of the USB stick and plugged in to the Omega.

I've looked at other pages with similar problems but am scratching my head now. I've checked WiFi and don't see the Onion router AP name so it's definitely not working.

Can anyone point me in the right direction please, or give some advice where to go from here?

Post edit - output of lsmod:

lsmod | grep cp210x
cp210x                 40960  0
usbserial              69632  1 cp210x

"There is no USB-to-Serial Chip on the Dock. This means that you will not be able to connect to the Omega serially over the Micro-USB port."

I am sure I have a mini expansion dock and/or expansion dock so will try them and get back here with the results.

And it looks like to enable web UI recovery over ethernet, I also need to enable serial.... Which is probably why I can't use that method either.

Same for the USB recovery method - serial required again.

So I guess without a mini dock or expansion dock I'll have to wait.

I do have a USB to TTL serial connector I've used with my Raspberry Pis but could not find out how to do that if anyone has any information, would I be able to do that to connect directly to the serial pins?

I got my expansion and mini docks, managed to connect through serial.

Attached USB with omega 2+ images named omega2.bin in the root of the USB (FAT FS), booted.

Got the correct boot messages, selected to recover from USB:

  / __ \___  (_)__  ___    / __ \__ _  ___ ___ ____ _
 / /_/ / _ \/ / _ \/ _ \  / /_/ /  ' \/ -_) _ `/ _ `/
 \____/_//_/_/\___/_//_/  \____/_/_/_/\__/\_, /\_,_/
 W H A T  W I L L  Y O U  I N V E N T ? /___/"

Board: Onion Omega2 APSoC DRAM:  128 MB
relocate_code Pointer at: 87f60000
raspi_read_devid: ret: 1920c2
flash manufacture id: c2, device id 20 19
find flash: MX25L25635E
raspi_wait_ready: read_sr fail: 0
*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment

============================================ 
Onion Omega2 UBoot Version: 4.3.0.3
-------------------------------------------- 
ASIC 7628_MP (Port5<->None)
DRAM component: 1024 Mbits DDR, width 16
DRAM bus: 16 bit
Total memory: 128 MBytes
Flash component: SPI Flash
Date:Oct 18 2016  Time:17:29:05
============================================ 

Tried with the expansion and mini dock, also used a USB hub attached via my laptop and could still communicate.

It goes through the flash process:

Reading file "omega2.bin"
*
********************************
******
******
**********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
*
FAT: 7078055 Bytes read
raspi_wait_ready: read_sr fail: 0

... Then at some point finishes and comes up with:

Boot Linux from Flash NO RESET PRESSED.
## Booting image at bc050000 ...
raspi_wait_ready: read_sr fail: 0
Bad Magic Number,00000000 

The number of bytes read, above, matches the file sizes:

ls -l /media/user/68EA-5A44
total 13856
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user 7078055 May 20 19:43 omega2.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user 7078055 May 20 19:43 omega2p-v0.1.10-b160.bin

I've also tried omega2p-v0.2.2-b201.bin

So as a last resort I tried command line boot and ran bootm and a CRC check:

** No boot device **
Omega2 # bootm
## Booting image at 80100000 ...
Bad Magic Number,00A14395 
Omega2 # crc32
Usage:
crc32   - checksum calculation

So, is this totally bricked or is there anything else I can try? Would web recovery mode work any different?

HTTP upload is complete.
Upgrading...


****************************
*    FIRMWARE UPGRADING    *
* DO NOT POWER OFF DEVICE! *
****************************

raspi_wait_ready: read_sr fail: 0
## Error: HTTP ugrade failed!

Bringing Eth0 (10/100-M) up...
HTTP server starting at 192.168.8.8 ...
HTTP server is up and running.
Request for: /style.css
Request for: /o.gif

Light flashed for a few seconds, then it went off and the message above came up.

Please select option: 
   [ Enter ]: Boot Omega2.
   [ 0 ]: Start Web recovery mode.
   [ 1 ]: Start command line mode.
   [ 2 ]: Flash firmware from USB storage. 

Option [1] selected.
   
1: System Enter Boot Command Line Interface.

U-Boot 1.1.3 (Oct 18 2016 - 17:29:05)
Omega2 # 

Judging by the U-Boot 1.1.3 (Oct 18 2016 - 17:29:05) it looks like your Omega2 has a very old bootloader.

Please try following these instructions to update the bootloader: https://docs.onion.io/omega2-docs/Web-Recovery-flash-bootloader.html

And then try firmware recovery over ethernet again. Let me know how it goes!

First, boot from serial and select [ 0 ]: Start Web recovery mode:

[11:17:21.900] Connected


   ____       _             ____
  / __ \___  (_)__  ___    / __ \__ _  ___ ___ ____ _
 / /_/ / _ \/ / _ \/ _ \  / /_/ /  ' \/ -_) _ `/ _ `/
 \____/_//_/_/\___/_//_/  \____/_/_/_/\__/\_, /\_,_/
 W H A T  W I L L  Y O U  I N V E N T ? /___/"

Board: Onion Omega2 APSoC DRAM:  128 MB
relocate_code Pointer at: 87f60000
raspi_read_devid: ret: 1920c2
flash manufacture id: c2, device id 20 19
find flash: MX25L25635E
raspi_wait_ready: read_sr fail: 0
*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment

============================================ 
Onion Omega2 UBoot Version: 4.3.0.3
-------------------------------------------- 
ASIC 7628_MP (Port5<->None)
DRAM component: 1024 Mbits DDR, width 16
DRAM bus: 16 bit
Total memory: 128 MBytes
Flash component: SPI Flash
Date:Oct 18 2016  Time:17:29:05
============================================ 
icache: sets:512, ways:4, linesz:32 ,total:65536
dcache: sets:256, ways:4, linesz:32 ,total:32768 
CPU freq = 1073 MHZ
Estimated memory size = 128 Mbytes
Resetting MT7628 PHY.
Initializing MT7688 GPIO system.


**************************************
* Hold Reset button for more options *
**************************************


You have 40 seconds left to select a menu option...


Please select option: 
   [ Enter ]: Boot Omega2.
   [ 0 ]: Start Web recovery mode.
   [ 1 ]: Start command line mode.
   [ 2 ]: Flash firmware from USB storage. 

Option [0] selected.
raspi_wait_ready: read_sr fail: 0

Bringing Eth0 (10/100-M) up...
RT2880 ETH setup done.
HTTP server starting at 192.168.8.8 ...
HTTP server is up and running.
Request for: /
Request for: /style.css
Request for: /o.gif

Next I've downloaded uboot-omega2p-20221118.bin, the latest firmware via the web UI, the click Update!:

The web UI updates with Your file was successfully uploaded!, here is the serial output:

Data will be downloaded at 0x81000000 in RAM
Upgrade type: firmware
Upload file size: 173124 bytes
Loading: #######################################
         #######################################
         #######################################
         ####

HTTP upload is complete.
Upgrading...


****************************
*    FIRMWARE UPGRADING    *
* DO NOT POWER OFF DEVICE! *
****************************

raspi_wait_ready: read_sr fail: 0
## Error: HTTP ugrade failed!

Bringing Eth0 (10/100-M) up...
HTTP server starting at 192.168.8.8 ...
HTTP server is up and running.
Request for: /style.css
Request for: /o.gif

Clearly it's broken.

Is there anything I can diagnose from the command line?

Here's the options it gives me:

1: System Enter Boot Command Line Interface.

U-Boot 1.1.3 (Oct 18 2016 - 17:29:05)
Omega2 # ?
?       - alias for 'help'
bootm   - boot application image from memory
cp      - memory copy
crc32   - checksum calculation
erase   - erase SPI FLASH memory
fatinfo - print information about filesystem
fatload - load binary file from a dos filesystem
fatls   - list files in a directory (default /)
go      - start application at address 'addr'
help    - print online help
md      - memory display
mdio   - Ralink PHY register R/W command !!
mm      - memory modify (auto-incrementing)
nm      - memory modify (constant address)
printenv- print environment variables
reset   - Perform RESET of the CPU
rf      - read/write rf register
saveenv - save environment variables to persistent storage
setenv  - set environment variables
spi	- spi command
tftpboot- boot image via network using TFTP protocol
usb     - USB sub-system
usbboot - boot from USB device
version - print monitor version

This page mentions reflashing the ART - https://community.onion.io/topic/238/another-odd-omega-not-booting-problem/18 - is that worth trying?

Omega2 # printenv
bootcmd=tftp
bootdelay=5
baudrate=115200
ethaddr="00:AA:BB:CC:DD:10"
ipaddr=192.168.8.8
serverip=192.168.8.1
stdin=serial
stdout=serial
stderr=serial

Environment size: 150/4092 bytes

The web UI updates with Your file was successfully uploaded!, here is the serial output:
Data will be downloaded at 0x81000000 in RAM
Upgrade type: firmware
Upload file size: 173124 bytes
Loading: #######################################
#######################################
#######################################
####

HTTP upload is complete.
Upgrading...

---

• FIRMWARE UPGRADING *
• DO NOT POWER OFF DEVICE! *

---

Judging by the serial output, it looks like you used the firmware upgrade web page to try to upgrade the bootloader.

When following the procedure at https://docs.onion.io/omega2-docs/Web-Recovery-flash-bootloader.html:

• make sure to go to http://192.168.8.8/uboot.html in Step 5
• Then, the serial should output messages indicating u-boot is upgrading:
  

So I thought you said that my bootloader was out of date. So I followed the instructions at:

https://docs.onion.io/omega2-docs/Web-Recovery-flash-bootloader.html

So I downloaded uboot-omega2p-20221118.bin and applied the uboot update.

To do so, I started web recovery mode, selected uBoot Update which says:

You are about to update the uBoot bootloader on the Omega. Select the .bin file from your computer and click the Update! button.

The URL in the browser now reads http://192.168.8.8/uboot.html.

I select the file previously mentioned, then click Upload!.

These are the results:

Data will be downloaded at 0x81000000 in RAM
Upgrade type: U-Boot
Upload file size: 173124 bytes
Loading: #######################################
         #######################################
         #######################################
         ####

HTTP upload is complete.
Upgrading...


****************************
*     U-BOOT UPGRADING     *
* DO NOT POWER OFF DEVICE! *
****************************

raspi_wait_ready: read_sr fail: 0
## Error: HTTP ugrade failed!

So I've followed the suggestion to upgrade the bootloader via the information that you suggested.

File data on my file system for uboot-omega2p-20221118.bin:

ls -l Downloads/uboot-omega2p-20221118.bin
-rw-rw-r--  1 user user     173124 May 23 01:06  uboot-omega2p-20221118.bin

As you can see this matches exactly the byte count of the uboot upload, have I misread what you were advising?

E.g. from previous paragraph output of upgrade we see

Upload file size: 173124 bytes

... Which matches the file size of my uboot upload. I hope that's the right thing to have done?

I think the issue stems from this error message raspi_wait_ready: read_sr fail: 0
This indicates the bootloader is having an issue writing to the flash.

What does the serial log look like if you let it try to boot into Linux?

tio /dev/ttyUSB0
[18:55:39.251] tio v2.7
[18:55:39.251] Press ctrl-t q to quit
[18:55:39.253] Connected


   ____       _             ____
  / __ \___  (_)__  ___    / __ \__ _  ___ ___ ____ _
 / /_/ / _ \/ / _ \/ _ \  / /_/ /  ' \/ -_) _ `/ _ `/
 \____/_//_/_/\___/_//_/  \____/_/_/_/\__/\_, /\_,_/
 W H A T  W I L L  Y O U  I N V E N T ? /___/"

Board: Onion Omega2 APSoC DRAM:  128 MB
relocate_code Pointer at: 87f60000
raspi_read_devid: ret: 1920c2
flash manufacture id: c2, device id 20 19
find flash: MX25L25635E
raspi_wait_ready: read_sr fail: 0
*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment

============================================ 
Onion Omega2 UBoot Version: 4.3.0.3
-------------------------------------------- 
ASIC 7628_MP (Port5<->None)
DRAM component: 1024 Mbits DDR, width 16
DRAM bus: 16 bit
Total memory: 128 MBytes
Flash component: SPI Flash
Date:Oct 18 2016  Time:17:29:05
============================================ 
icache: sets:512, ways:4, linesz:32 ,total:65536
dcache: sets:256, ways:4, linesz:32 ,total:32768 
CPU freq = 2147 MHZ
Estimated memory size = 128 Mbytes
Resetting MT7628 PHY.
Initializing MT7688 GPIO system.


**************************************
* Hold Reset button for more options *
**************************************



Boot Linux from Flash NO RESET PRESSED.
## Booting image at bc050000 ...
raspi_wait_ready: read_sr fail: 0
Bad Magic Number,00000000

Booting into recovery mode shows:

tio /dev/ttyUSB0
[18:53:45.634] tio v2.7
[18:53:45.634] Press ctrl-t q to quit
[18:53:45.636] Connected


   ____       _             ____
  / __ \___  (_)__  ___    / __ \__ _  ___ ___ ____ _
 / /_/ / _ \/ / _ \/ _ \  / /_/ /  ' \/ -_) _ `/ _ `/
 \____/_//_/_/\___/_//_/  \____/_/_/_/\__/\_, /\_,_/
 W H A T  W I L L  Y O U  I N V E N T ? /___/"

Board: Onion Omega2 APSoC DRAM:  128 MB
relocate_code Pointer at: 87f60000
raspi_read_devid: ret: 1920c2
flash manufacture id: c2, device id 20 19
find flash: MX25L25635E
raspi_wait_ready: read_sr fail: 0
*** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment

============================================ 
Onion Omega2 UBoot Version: 4.3.0.3
-------------------------------------------- 
ASIC 7628_MP (Port5<->None)
DRAM component: 1024 Mbits DDR, width 16
DRAM bus: 16 bit
Total memory: 128 MBytes
Flash component: SPI Flash
Date:Oct 18 2016  Time:17:29:05
============================================ 
icache: sets:512, ways:4, linesz:32 ,total:65536
dcache: sets:256, ways:4, linesz:32 ,total:32768 
CPU freq = 2147 MHZ
Estimated memory size = 128 Mbytes
Resetting MT7628 PHY.
Initializing MT7688 GPIO system.


**************************************
* Hold Reset button for more options *
**************************************


You have 40 seconds left to select a menu option...


Please select option: 
   [ Enter ]: Boot Omega2.
   [ 0 ]: Start Web recovery mode.
   [ 1 ]: Start command line mode.
   [ 2 ]: Flash firmware from USB storage. 

Option [1] selected.
   
1: System Enter Boot Command Line Interface.

U-Boot 1.1.3 (Oct 18 2016 - 17:29:05)
Omega2 # 

If neither of these is what you wanted me to do please let me know.

Also please let me know if you have any other ideas!

if by boot to Linux then a 'normal' boot

Yep, that's right.

Judging by the raspi_wait_ready: read_sr fail: 0 error showing up here as well, it loosk like the bootloader can't access the flash for some reason.
Which is weird because we know the flash works since the bootloader runs.

Unfortunately, I think this Omega is damaged. It's hard to know what exactly is wrong, if I had to guess I would probably point towards ESD damage.

I recommend getting a new unit!

Luckily, I was a KS backer of the Onion Omega 2+ and got a bundle of 8 of them off the back of enjoying having bought 2 of the first Omegas to be released. 1 down, 7 to go...

So, as a parting shot, can you please point me in the right direction?

I plan to upgrade all the others and hopefully not run into the same issues.

Should my upgrade process for each be:

• Upgrade uboot image first with the latest version, then
• Upgrade the firmware Omega .bin file with the latest version

... Then reboot. That's the right thing to do to get it to the latest version, right?

Do both of the above points in one go or reboot after uboot is update?

If you just want to have a running Omega2, you can boot into Linux and upgrade to the latest stable firmware. You can follow the First Time Setup using the Command Line guide in the Docs

If you're looking to run the beta firmware, you can follow the beta firmware installation guide.

Upgrading u-boot is a nice to have imo. Even the oldest bootloader version should support firmware recovery over ethernet. But you can upgrade to the latest available version if you want - not much has changed but it's more stable.

Be on the lookout for some bootloader news in the next little while

@Lazar-Demin thanks! I thought as much. Many thanks for looking into this either way.

Luckily, I was a KS backer of the Onion Omega 2+ and got a bundle of 8 of them off the back of enjoying having bought 2 of the first Omegas to be released. 1 down, 7 to go...

So, as a parting shot, can you please point me in the right direction?

I plan to upgrade all the others and hopefully not run into the same issues.

Should my upgrade process for each be:

• Upgrade uboot image first with the latest version, then
• Upgrade the firmware Omega .bin file with the latest version

... Then reboot. That's the right thing to do to get it to the latest version, right?

Do both of the above points in one go or reboot after uboot is update?

for the record/clarity, you can sysupgrade into the new image from an old Omega2 firmware.

I tried today, using the 'beta firmware' instructions via archive.org (couldn't find any working link otherwise)

https://web.archive.org/web/20250213213028/https://documentation.onioniot.com/firmware/installing-firmware/

used that with the latest 23.05 image from the repo

http://repo.onioniot.com/omega2/images/openwrt-23.05/
(no https is available)