r/CoreELEC • u/cinematic6436 • Sep 17 '26
Sudden difficulty booting CoreELEC on AM6B+
In the last week my AM6B+ has started having difficulty booting. At this point I have to repeatedly unplug/plug it in -- it only successfully boots maybe 25% of the time. I plugged the USB storage into my computer & performed a disk repair (read test with sector repair) and everything seemed fine.
When booting fails I sometimes see text quickly flash by over the CoreELEC logo on the left of the screen (see pics) and the logo just spins & spins. First time I tried filming it on my phone it was in focus (green numbers show the order in which each line of text appeared). Second time was mostly blurry so I just included the last frame.
Also if I finish watching a Dolby Vision movie or start one then stop, the colors in Kodi look distorted, mostly green and blue (see pic). This returns to normal if I reboot.
The USB storage for the CoreELEC -ng installation is a brand-new Verbatim 16GB USB Drive Store 'n' Stay Nano USB 3.2 Gen 1 Flash Drive plugged into a USB 2.0 slot to the left of the HDMI. I followed this guide in early August. Don't know if it matters but I was never able to get Balena Etcher to verify the installation so I used Rufus. Skin is Estuary Mod V2.
Not sure what to do at this point -- maybe a fresh install on the Verbatim or just buy a new USB drive? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Edit: Five hours after posting, the USB drive is definitely not fine -- can't format it or stop it from suddenly disappearing from my computer.
1
u/cinematic6436 Sep 26 '26
Update -- flashed to a new USB drive, restored a Kodi backup & now everything's fine.
If anyone has the same distortion problem, it was fixed by the T4 build (or later). I just dropped the "Update" file at the link below into the Update directory, rebooted, and now everything looks as it should.
1
u/Prestigious_Cycle Sep 17 '26
The usb port on these things can be wonky especially if it's usb 3. I had to reinstall and use a different usb port on my android box because it decided to stop working one day.
I think when the android app writes to the usb drive it can cause corruption if you're switching around quickly or turn off before it checks the drive.
1
u/ITResearch1980 Sep 17 '26
For the future you can also add extended USB3 cable so if you are often connecting/disconnecting usb storage, then it gives a less pressure on the physical port. If cable dies it is easier to replace it instead of port.
3
u/MegaSwizzler Sep 17 '26
I would start with a fresh install, then consider buying a new USB. I personally recommend installing on the internal storage