Pinecil reboots on weak DC power supply

[adokitkat]

Describe the bug
Pinecil (2.17 European firmware) reboots constantly when plugged into USB-C (Thunderbolt 3) port on a laptop. This didn't happen before the last update. I know the power from the USB port is not enough for soldering, but it was nice to be able to change settings at least.

To Reproduce

1. Update Pinecil to firmware version 2.17
2. Connect Pinecil to USB port on a PC/laptop (USB-C port in my case)
3. Pinecil reboots and screen flashes

Expected behavior
Pinecil should boot up normally as it did before.
Pinecil was displaying 5V input when connected to a laptop's USB port.

Details of your device:

• Device: Pinecil
• Release: 2.17.E065BE3
• Power adapter being used: USB-C Thunderbolt 3 port on a laptop
• Update tool: Pine64 updater on Windows

[River-Mochi]

(1) when you switch back to 2.16 does it stop constantly rebooting when you connect to a 5v device like your laptop/pc or android phone?
(2) does constant reboot mean pinecil is rebooting over and over many times and does not stop rebooting when 2.17 is loaded and you are connected the the laptop?
(3) are you able to test 2.17 on other PD 5V devices to confirm such as Android phone with PD usb-c or another laptop/PC ?

[Ralim]

Hello,
You have not provided exact details about what device you are using for the power, PD is controlled by the OS and the hardware, so both can change how this works out.

There are lots of variations of PD on desktop and a lot of them cause issues because they keep trying to power cycle the device because "it isnt working" because we actively reject USB, we also reject power swap and a bunch of others.

I can not reproduce this on the 3 computers I have with USB-C, so suspect this may be down to differences with your device.

[adokitkat]

Hi again @Ralim and @river-b.

So I've tested it and here's what I've found.

Pinecil with IronOS 2.17 flashed via Pine64 updater, 3 different USB-C cables and 1 USB-A to C cable used:

• connected to Dell G5's Thunderbolt 3 port running Windows 10 - 5V, rebooting and screen flashing
• connected to ThinkPad E14's only USB-C port (also used as a charging port) running Pop!_OS 21.10 Linux (Ubuntu based) - 5V, rebooting and screen flashing
• the same ThinkPad E14 but Pinecil connected to USB-A port - 5V, works as expected
• connected to Google Pixel 6's USB-C port - 5V, works as expected
• connected to 45W and 65W USB-C PD chargers - 12V, works as expected

I didn't try to downgrade to 2.16 yet, however before on 2.16 Pinecil connected to Dell G5's Thunderbolt port on Windows 10 worked well.

A video of the bad Pinecil behavior (try to download it and play it locally if it doesn't play in browser):

PXL_20220305_181506467.mp4

[Ralim]

Hi,
So I use a Lenovo T14 laptop for a fair bit of the development and I've never run into this issue. I suspect this may be to do with TB as I use only AMD machines.
Screen flashing like that is the upstream port forcefully power cycling the device as a hard reset.

Can you confirm (a) this is reproducible on the English build (not multilingual) of 2.17, (b) test on 2.16 to check it doesnt occur.

Would be good to try and make a guess as to the issue, as I dont have any thunderbolt capable devices to test on available at the moment.

[dmitrygribenchuk]

Hello. I have the same issue with Lenovo E14 (Intel Core) and plugin into type C socket.
I use a Ubuntu 20.04 on my laptop.
Looks like a boot loop.
I found it on 2.17
Also have it on 2.18, 2.16 RC2, 2.15 RC1.
Check the cable and socket on my phone - quick charge works correctly.
Connect to another power supply (or USB port of this laptop) - all working fine.

UPD: I check it on 2.15 - all working fine

VID_20220328_142433.mp4

[dmitrygribenchuk]

UPD. All working fine on 2.15

[adokitkat]

Any update on this please?

[Ralim]

I have not been able to reproduce the issue.
Further diagnostics would require a pd trace of what the laptop is rejecting.

Most likely cause is the laptop is trying to get the Pinecil to negotiate something that it's refusing to.

[dmitrygribenchuk]

@Ralim I can provide my laptop via Anydesk to investigate this issue for example.

[Ralim]

It requires hardware to capture the USB PD transaction that your device is rejecting.

[cbagwell]

I am seeing same reboot behavior on a 2018 MacBook Air USB-C. It wouldn't reboot when hooked to laptop when using stock Pinecil firmware but started rebooting after upgrade to 2.18.

Similar behavior as videos but I do not get the double blink of first video and just a reboot every 1s. Voltage toggles between 5.0V and 5.1V. If I hold + button, I see it print PD State 6 just long enough to read and then switches to state 11. That print lasts about about 0.5 second and then reboots.

I upgraded my firmware because the stock firmware would constantly reboot when using my 30W MacBook Air power adapter and that was much more importable issue for me to solve; and it did solve it btw.

[Ralim]

Solving compatibility to the macbook chargers is what happened before these issues with thunderbolt usb-c ports showed up.
I haven't been able to borrow a macbook to test this with so I dont have any further information on this at the moment.

[damex]

It requires hardware to capture the USB PD transaction that your device is rejecting.

what hardware is needed for that and what are we looking for?
could 'usb tester' like https://www.chargerlab.com/power-z-kt001-usb-power-tester-with-pd-qc-trigger-and-mfi-identification/ suffice? or we need something else? (I will need to get something compact and obtainable from Aliexpress)

[BF3000]

Pinecil v1 updated to 2.19. Constantly reboot itself after 10s in qc or simple usb 5v modes.
Work in qc mode if I enable tip heating, until heating stops .
Work normally with pd or barrel jack.

[BF3000]

Looks like Power pulse 0.2w or higher can partially fix the problem.

[Ralim]

@BF3000
That sounds more like a power supply issue. What power adapter are you using?

[BF3000]

Baseus GaN 65w
One of the best available.
And the problem is, it work the same way if connected to PC.
Looks like my PInecil constantly wakes itself with that option.

[River-Mochi]

My Lenovo Legion 5P laptop, both of the USB-C ports cause pinecil to reboot continuously so I can not use them to do firmware updates.
Solution: I have to use the USB-A ports on the laptop to update Pinecil V2.
Another Pine64 member reported the same behavior on the exact same laptop.

[Ralim]

@River-Mochi

Can you capture the USB PD traffic please for a failed negotiation?

[River-Mochi]

Can you capture the USB PD traffic please for a failed negotiation?

1. KM002 software and firmware is updated now so it's slightly different from past. Legion 5P reboots pinecil constantly if plugged into the C port so it should not take long for log to catch it I think.
2. could you tell me what settings would be best for "Data Recorder" mode? I'm still a novice on this analyzer tool.
3. Do you also want the PD Analyzer recorded which is separate?

question 2 (Data Recorder settings):

question 3 (PD Analyzer view: sample image and Not from the Legion 5P laptop)

[Ralim]

Only need the raw PD messages; which show in the PD analyzer tab.

[Patronics]

I'm getting the same issue with my M1 Macbook Pro's USB C connection, sometimes (but not always) when plugging it in. For me I didn't see this issue when first plugging it in ((with firmware 2.20 preinstalled), but that may have just been the randomness since it doesn't always happen). I tried both updating to 2.21 and to 2.22 RC2, the issue was the same on both of them.

Plugging it in while holding - to do the update seems to consistently work, at least (and after reinstalling the firmware update the interface is usable). The USB C cable I'm using is 6 feet long, but the pinecil (with "detailed idle screen" enabled) reports 5.2 volts so it doesn't seem to be a voltage drop issue.