[Solved] Freshly imaged SD card no HDMI video out?

Manjaro ARM
#1

Over the weekend I had a functional booting RPI-4 using the 19.12 image. I had update the mirrors and even installed the mainline kernel. In the 20.04 release thread I asked if a minimal image will ever be released going forward and Darksky proved a a quick minimal spin.

I broke down my testing area, brought over another 4 imaged a new SD card with the 20.04 minimal image and powered on the Pi, nothing. I moved the SD card from the 19.12 minimal based image didn't boot. Put the SD card in with Ubuntu 19.10 and booted. I then downloaded and imaged the 20.04 xfce image tried again... nothing would display on the monitor. I then tried the kde image, again nothing. I tried the Ubuntu nightly and it booted. Tried to imaging SD card with the 19.12 minimal again it didn't boot. I then tried that card in Pi-4 I had working over the weekend... and no display out.

That last phrase is important as I know what the IP address of the boards should be.
Any ideas? None of my SD cards that I have imaged with Manjaro boot/have video output. While raspbian and ubuntu does boot/have video output. Using the same hardware/power supply/cables and monitor. The only difference is what has been written the the SD card.

I'm at a total loss.

UPDATE: I noticed the lights on the ethernet port where chirping, I can ping the Pi... so it appears as if it boots, just no video out. I also tried using a much older 19.04 minimal image, it boots and gives me video out.

New Update: I see I can ssh into the Pi root@IP and run the installer. I'll see what I can back backtrack from that point.

Solved: Apparently Ubuntu and Rasbian output to both HDMI:0 and HDMI:1 and I was plugging into HDMI:1. I was using those images to test my sanity that my issue was not hardware but with the image. Like they say 85% of statistics are made up and and 99.9% of tech issues exist between the keyboard and the back of the chair.

#2

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the minimal image lack a GUI due to it being minimal?

I made my own minimal img, that one is definitely headless.

#3

It doesn't have a GUI correct, but you should still get tty1, like I said I also tried the xfce image and kde image. None of the images seem to be pushing data out of the the hdmi port.

After a boot I have nothing on the monitor not even a terminal prompt... no do I get any boot messages.

#4

Good point. :man_facepalming:

#5

The annoying part is this, the original SD card that I had working with video output also stopped working as well.

I'm wondering if it some overlays issue... doubtful... but maybe.

#6

I tried to reproduce your issue here and was unable to with the minimal image. The reason being is when the pi4's first came out if only 1 monitor was attached then you had to plug the hdmi cable in to the onboard hdmi0 port regardless which image you were using. Since then they fixed that issue so I wanted to know if there was a regression.

I probably can not test with the same conditions as you as they have not gotten yet where it can read my VIZIO tv's EDID info so I have to define manually in /boot/config.txt for each onboard hdmi port:

Resolution below is for 1366x768

# HDMI 0
hdmi_force_edid_3d:0=1
hdmi_mode:0=39
hdmi_drive:0=2
hdmi_group:0=2
hdmi_force_mode:0=1
hdmi_ignore_edid:0=0xa5000080

# HDMI 1
hdmi_force_edid_3d:1=1
hdmi_mode:1=39
hdmi_drive:1=2
hdmi_group:1=2
hdmi_force_mode:1=1
hdmi_ignore_edid:1=0xa5000080
#7

A recall that being an issue when the Pi4 just shipped and I can't for the life of me really recall which one was hdmi:0 and hdmi:1 when I set everything up on my workspace I know I wasn't actively thinking about which port I was plugging into.

Anyway the hdmi gets converted to DVI along the path to my monitor its just a cheap display I bought 10 years ago using a cheap htmi to dvi converter I bought 12 years ago. I'm just luck it works.

#8

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