I have six Raspberry Pis (three Pi Zero Ws, two Pi 3s, and one Pi 4). Tonight I tried to upgrade some of them.
- My CoCo-Pi 3 unit booted and I was able to update it and install the latest CoCo-Pi emulator package.
- My second Pi 3 booted to a kernel panic, and I am having to reinstall.
- My first Pi Zero W got stuck on the Rainbow screen so I’ll have to reinstall it.
- My second Pi Zero W has a different operating system running on it that I did not touch.
- I also have a Pi 4 that is a retro game system, but I did not check it.
What makes these systems, when they just sit here idle (not powered on, haven’t been touched in months) not work? Anyone know?
I’ve had many Pis since the very first one came out, and I’ve had many issues with them over the years.
But I still buy more. Dunno why.
If you are powering them through USB, then each of the models has it’s own quirks, but the common problem is the USB circuitry on the 2 & 3 is poor: additionally, the regulation circuitry on the 2 and Zero is flakey. Finally, especially on Raspbian-based systems, Raspbian tends to randomly eat the file system, frequently at shutdown.
That would be the common factor to all the different boards you have: the power supply. I have taken to using 2A supplies of good quality, rather than just commonplace wall-warts of unknown pedigree and poor ripple and regulation characteristics. I haven’t found a solution to Raspbian Suicide yet, though, but you must do a formal shutdown when using it, rather than just a pull-the-plug at the end of session.
Very useful! I now always do the shut down after seeing the corruption that was happen. I’m using a 2.5 amp Pi power supply from Vilros, though I suspect there is a chance I powered there up from a power port on a USB hub in the past. I also noticed my 3 was giving me the lightning bolt low power indicator and message last night, using that 2.5amp supply, so maybe it’s flaky!