autoboot.txt overrides boot {part}

[matthuisman]

NOOBs Lite 2.8
http://director.downloads.raspberrypi.org/NOOBS_lite/images/NOOBS_lite-2018-04-19/NOOBS_lite_v2_8.zip

(Sorry - Not sure of last known working version)

Current Behaviour
NOOBS ignores reboot {part} and always boots to boot_partition in autoboot.txt

Expected Behaviour
reboot {part} reboots into part and autoboot.txt is ignored.

Steps to reproduce

• Format SD card and copy over NOOBs Lite 2.8 files

• Boot NOOBs and install LibreELEC and OSMC

• Boot LibreELEC, enable SSH

• SSH into LibreELEC (root / libreelec) and do command reboot 8

• Observe Pi reboots to OSMC

• SSH into OSMC (osmc / osmc) and do command sudo reboot 6

• Observe Pi reboots to LibreELEC

• Put SD card into PC and create autoboot.txt file in root of SD card with below contents
  boot_partition=6

• Boot Pi

• Observe Pi booting directly into LibreELEC

• SSH into LibreELEC and do command reboot 8

• Observe Pi reboots to LibreELEC (and not OSMC as expected)

[lurch]

AFAIK this behaviour is all entirely in firmware-land and not in NOOBS-land.
Ping @popcornmix

[XECDesign]

@lurch it is all firmware, but I'm the one who touched it last and it seems most relevant to NOOBS users, so that probably lands it on my todo list.

[XECDesign]

I've had a quick go at fixing this:
bootcode.bin.zip

Seems to work for me, but it would be good to get a few testers to check I haven't messed anything else up. It just needs to be extracted onto the NOOBS partition (the one with recovery.elf) as bootcode.bin.

[matthuisman]

@XECDesign
I have tested all the scenarios I could think of in latest PINN (2.8.5.4) and that bootcode.bin works great 👍

@thegigibeast
Could you give this a test (above comment)?
You should just need to pop your SD card into a PC.
Make a back-up of the bootcode.bin file.
Then over-write it with the above file.
Then check if it fixes the autoboot issue

[Dustee]

I just tested, and reboot command works as expected.

My setup is : noobs 2.8, rasplex 1.8 (outdated firmware?), libreelec 8.2.5, retropie latest.

[XECDesign]

Thanks for testing, @Dustee.

Seems to work well for me too, except for when booting off USB.

Unfortunately, that requires a change to start.elf. We can fix NOOBS and Raspbian relatively quickly (I hope), but then it will take a while for the change to propagate to the other distros.

[matthuisman]

@XECDesign

Do they changes break the other distros from booting?
Or, will they simply just continue to have this autoboot issue until they are updated?

[XECDesign]

The combination of booting off USB, using autoboot.txt AND a reboot parameter would result in files being loaded from two different partitions. If any of the variables are removed, then everything works.

[popcornmix]

Fix should be in latest rpi-update firmware.

[XECDesign]

In the process of publishing v2.9 with this fix:
https://github.com/raspberrypi/noobs/releases/tag/v2.9