One thing that I tried, that resolved my issues with Channels DVR on Raspberry Pi4, with external USB drive boot... I added a powered USB hub in between the Raspberry Pi4 and the external USB drive. This resolved my issue, and it has been running work over a week solid now, with no glitches.
This. And just because it works for someone else, don't think because they're lucky/special, you are too. If you're using an external drive with a Pi—any Pi—your drive needs an external power supply. Sure, it sometimes works. But the power distribution in the Pi is a joke. You can power a HAT, keyboard, or some other minimal device from the Pi. But a real device, like a hard drive, it must have its own separate power supply.
If your drive does not have its own supply—even if it's not the boot drive—then stop. Don't post about your issue or ask for support. Instead, make sure it has its own power supply; and only after doing that, then you can post for support.
But online community support cannot serve as a substitute for poor/faulty hardware that was always going to be the weak point/fail.
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I guess it’s my fault for trusting the very people who recommended the Pi…
“The new [Raspberry Pi 4] makes for a great Channels DVR Server. We have built a custom image that lets you flash it directly onto your USB 3.0 hard drive and get set up with Channels DVR server in minutes.”
I even bought the WD 2Tb drive from the link on that same getchannels web page. If it doesn’t work or if it needed “extra hardware”. don’t you think they should have said so? I’m not a Pi expert, just looking for a better solution to what I already have. So don’t go attacking me for asking for support. Who needs people like you in the “community” if you don’t want to help or chastise people who post about something you think they should know. I’ll figure it out for myself.
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If that is the drive they recommend and it does not work they should update their docs to say a self powered drive is recommended. These bus/usb powered drives are meant for storage ... not for 24x7 read write.
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Mine worked great from the beginning, for about a month, and then stopped working. It would stay up for an hour or so, each time I rebooted, after that. Same for after I wiped it and re-flashed the drive. I'm not sure why, after a month, it would only work with a powered usb hub, but that is what is now working for me.
I'm also hitting this same problem. CanaKit 4GB Raspberry Pi Kit with the supplied 5.1V 3.5A PSU (only thing I could find in stock). Case is a FLIRC as recommended. Have tried both the Blue and Black USB ports. Blue loops after ~30 seconds and black after ~35.
I am getting the same MSD errors then the same final text as in DavidRemus' photo from 8/9 before the hard drive turns off and the boot loop starts over again.
I am using a 3TB Toshiba Canvio Basics portable drive that I had lying around for this (freshly formatted with Pi Imager). As above it is a compact bus powered drive labeled 5V 1A on the bottom. It seems to work fine if I boot the Pi from uSD into Raspian instead (uSD is currently removed, if installed the loop is avoided and after these errors it fails back and boots Raspian).
This little drive and the Pi is really what I would like to use. I'm trying to migrate channels from a 8 bay Ivy Bridge server that I honestly don't like running 24x7 (60w at Idle) and want to go with a more embedded option that uses 5-10w. Are they any recommended inline power adapters that would let me power this HDD externally and get it working with the Raspberry Pi?
I am working on an updated firmware with fix for this. It should be ready tomorrow.
What is the actual hardware revision of the board you are using. As has been previously mentioned, there was a minor chipset change with new production boards that may be affecting this image.
Where would I find the hardware revision printed? I physically picked it up from Best Buy this afternoon after ordering it last week so I would assume a pretty recent stock. The numbers I see on the top right of the back of the board are R-C-P2R-RPI4B.
tmm1 you are AWESOME. Will check back in a few days!
For kicks I also tried a decade old 320GB USB-2.0 bus powered drive. That powered off and went to a reboot loop in maybe three seconds. Didn't even see text pop up on the HDMI out.
Also went down the Raspberry Pi research black hole. Looks like lots of sketchy performance with powered hubs so I think I'd prefer to avoid those if I can.
https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=258242&start=50
Check what it says on the boot screen with no SD/USB attached, next to "board: "
board: c03114 213aa408 e4:5f:01:30:6d:7a
boot: mode USB-MSD 4 order f14 retry 0/128 restart 3/-1
That is with only a USB-C and Micro-HDMI attached
See this post:
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2021/raspberry-pi-4-model-bs-arriving-newer-c0-stepping
That BOOTED!!! I am now showing a page ChannelsDVR with a last line of "Reached target Multi-User System".
I did now hit a different (and I assume more minor snag). When I go to the dvr-server:8089/welcome page and try to Log In I get "The redirect uri included is not valid.". Suggestions on how I should clear that?
Also to transfer my existing recordings you mention Samba. Would it also be possible to turn the Pi off, hook this USB drive up to my existing server, and copy all the recordings and most recent DB over locally? Then boot up the Pi and restore? That might be a little faster if it works.
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Try with the IP of the Pi instead?
Yes you can add files to the usb drive after the first boot completes and the drive is initialized.
I was able to get in with dvr-server.local:8089. That put me on the admin page and it is now downloading guide data to the /media/DVR folder.
Second question still active. Can I just plug the drive in my old Ivy Bridge server and copy the files to the the /media/DVR directory straight up or do I need Samba?
Also, thanks for the insanely fast response on this. Wasn't expecting that.
Yea you can do that. It's an exfat partition at the end named DVR
I got this fully working. Boots off USB-3 from a bus powered 2.5" portable 3TB drive. Manually transferred library and database from old server. Restored using web UI. I also attached a 8TB externally powered USB-3 drive that has some Film/TV content as well as general purpose PC backup. I am able to serve this from my Raspberry Pi to multiple clients and also access the full root drive of that 8TB via Samba as if it were attached via USB to my main PC.
All in all, this is great and looks like it will replicate the job of my old server in something that uses about 1/8th as much wattage and is comparatively tiny. Hopefully long term stability is good. I wasn't able to crash it with my best effort today (recording 4 shows, serving up 5 in original format, transferring files via Samba, and running Comskip on one) so the 3.5 amp 5.1V Canakit charger seems up to the task at least at stock clock speeds.
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A new release is out and the links to the RPI image have been updated on our website. This build should fix the boot loop issue, and supports more models like the Pi 400.
Thanks to everyone who helped investigate in this thread. All the screenshots were very useful in figuring out the issue was caused by the v1.4 revision.
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I see the image has been fixed. However if anyone runs into this again for whatever reason, here is what I did to resolve. In the end I imaged the external hard drive with raspberry pi lite os (Debian). Then I proceeded to boot into Linux and install channels DVR using the instructions here:
Worked great, browsed to the IP of the server on port 8089 and finished up the install. No boot loop issues.