HDMI problems on initial boot with RPi4B

ARM Installation
1

Hello,
I am trying to install EOS ARM on a 32GB SD card. Flashing with gnome-disk-utility runs fine.
After inserting the SD card in the RPi4B I can see all startup messages. In the middle of the startup the HDMI signal stalls and the screen goes in sleep mode. No matter how long I wait, the screen does not turn on again. It does not make a differene which HDMI port of the RPi4B I am using, the result is the same. I remember that I had a similar problem with a former RPi4B installation. I then inserted hdmi_force_hotplug=1 into the config.txt. But this time this did not help.
I found that SD card with the former EOS installation (KDE). This starts up as expected.

Any hints where to search?

2

This is probably a silly Question, did you use the latest RPi4 image dated June 2, 2026?

If gnome-disk-utility loaded OK, then there is the possibility that the uSD card itself is defective. Especially if another uSD card works.

An obscure problem might be obsolete firmware. To check, on your working uSD with KDE:

sudo pacman -Syu rpi4-eeprom

Don’t accidentally install rpi5-eeprom, that would probably be a disaster so double check.
This will install the app for checking and updating the onboard firmware on the eeprom.
To check for updates run with sudo or as root

rpi-eeprom-update

updates will be listed if any exist. To install latest firmware

rpi-eeprom-update -a

Then reboot. This will take a little while to reboot.
Of course flashing your eeprom is at your own risk.

Pudge

3

Yes, I made the download right this morning. My link was not from the github page but from the EOS website, but both are absolutely the same.

This was my thought too, but two things don’t match to that. First, the 32GB SD was right out the package. Second I tried a different 16GB SD card to flash the image on and this didn’ t work either.

I checked this one too. Because working installation is rather old and I did not start it during the last 2 years I did create a SD card with the latest bootloader update. But this did not help either.
Updating the firmare with those rather old installations is pretty tough, but I will try. One other try will be a short installation of RaspiOS.

4

That is a very good idea. Let me know how it goes.

Pudge

5

After dinner, I will try a test install on a 16GB uSD card to see if 16GB is enough.
What Desktop Environment are you installing?

Pudge

6

Result is the following:

$ sudo rpi-eeprom-update
BOOTLOADER: up to date
[...]
VL805_FW: Dedicated VL805 EEPROM
VL805: up to date
CURRENT: 000138c0
LATEST: 000138c0

$ sudo rpi-eeprom-update -a
BOOTLOADER: up to date
[...]
VL805_FW: Dedicated VL805 EEPROM
VL805: up to date
CURRENT: 000138c0
LATEST: 000138c0

Two times the same result that everything is up to date.

7

Even the latest RaspiOS it not working. I think it might be a problem with the monitor. Will try a different one.

8

I want to install KDE. The 32GB is mandatory :wink: because I will make experiments with rustdesk inside docker.

9

Tried a different one with the same result. I think my Raspi has problems with HDMI on DELL monitors. At the moment I don’t have different ones from other vendors. :face_with_peeking_eye:

10

As active as you are on the forum, you probably already know this. But here goes.

To speed up RPi 4b and KDE you must do two things.

Click on System Settings then Quick Settings and set Animation Speed to instant.

Disable baloo

balooctl6 suspend
balooctl6 disable
balooctl6 purge
balooctl6 status

Pudge

11

In the early months of this year, I had Wayland working on my Odroid N2 and a Samsung 32 inch TV that was 720p only. Then after updating mesa, Wayland would not work at all. I trouble shot that for literally weeks to no avail. To keep this short, I tried trouble shooting on a different TV. Samsung 55 inch LED which was 1080p.

Lo and behold, Wayland worked fine. It looks like at some some point mesa dropped 720p (1366 x 768) support for Wayland for the Odroid graphics chip. So I bought a cheap Hisense 32 inch with 1080p and Odroid N2 on Wayland works perfect.

Yes, monitors and TVs do make a difference sometimes.

Pudge

12

Both are standard on my KDE installations, even on bare metal … :wink:

13

I tried a lot of parameters in the config.txt which I found in the Raspi documentation. None of them helped me.
I then tried a installation of Arch Arm itself. But even this does not work. It does not start and does not recognize the root-partition.
After trying all this for several hours I have to abandone for now … :smiling_face_with_tear:

14

Did you try un-commenting this line in config.txt?

#Don’t have the firmware create an initial video= setting in cmdline.txt.
#Use the kernel’s default instead.
#disable_fw_kms_setup=1

15

This is already un-commented and active.

16

Try this as a last resort. I have in the past done this on different TV brands and it worked. I used to have issues with not getting edid info from monitors and provided edid info manually. You really need to boot up and generate the edid.dat when it boots up properly on some device with your monitor though but try my file.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1z1LXND6QSvAvZODwT5udSQh_wDBrcOmW/view?usp=sharing

Put edid.dat in /usr/lib/firmware. Then edit cmdline.txt and add this at the end:

drm.edid_firmware=HDMI-A-1:edid.dat video=HDMI-A-1:D
If that does not work try this:
drm.edid_firmware=HDMI-A-1:edid.dat video=HDMI-A-1:1920x1080@60

17

Thanks a lot for your suggestion. I will try this and report back to you.

20

Reopened at the request of the thread creator.