Flashing Firmware#

Overview#

Most Beaglebones have a built in 4 GB SD card known as a eMMC (embedded MMC). When the boards are made the eMMC is “flashed” with some version of the BeagleBone OS that is usually outdated. Therefore, whenever receiving the BeagleBone it is recommend that you update the eMMC with the last version of the BeagleBone OS or a specific version of it if someone tells you otherwise.

Required Items#

Micro sd card. 4 GB minimum
Micro sd card reader or a built in sd card reader for your PC
BeagleBone image you want to flash.
Etcher utility for your PC’s OS.

Steps Overview#

Burn the image you want to flash onto a micro sd card using the Etcher utility.
Boot the BeagleBone like normal and place the micro sd card into the board once booted.
Update the micro sd card image so its in “flashing” mode.
Insert micro sd card, remove power from the BeagleBone, hold sd card select button, power up board
Let the board flash

Windows PCs#

Download the BeagleBone OS image you want to use.
Use the Etcher utility to burn the BeagleBone image you want to use on the micro sd card you plan on using.
Make sure you don’t have the micro sd card plugged into your board.
Boot the board
Connect to the board via serial or ssh so that your on the command prompt.
Plug the micro sd card into the board.
Type dmesg in the terminal window
The last line from the output should say something like (the numbering may differ slightly):
- "[ 2805.442940] mmcblk0: p1"
You want to take the above and combine it together by removing the : and space. For the above example it will change to “mmcblk0p1”
In the terminal window enter the following commands:

mkdir sd_tmp
sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 sd_tmp
sudo su
echo "cmdline=init=/opt/scripts/tools/eMMC/init-eMMC-flasher-v3.sh" >> sd_tmp/boot/uEnv.txt
exit
sudo umount sd_tmp

Now power off your board
Hold the update button labeled SD (the one by itself) to boot off the sdcard.
Restart (RST button) or power up (while still pushing SD button).

Flashing can take some minutes.

Linux/Mac PCs#

Download the BeagleBone OS image you want to use.
Use the Etcher utility to burn the BeagleBone image you want to use on the micro sd card you plan on using.
On the SD card edit the file /boot/uEnv.txt in order for the SD card contents to be flashed onto the firmware eMMC. (Otherwise the BBBL will do no more than boot the SD image.) Uncomment the line containing init-eMMC-flasher-v<number>.sh either manually or using these commands substituting X with what your SD card shows in /dev/:

sudo mount /dev/emmcblkXp1 /mnt
cd /mnt
sed -i 's_#[ ]*\(cmdline=init=/opt/scripts/tools/eMMC/init-eMMC-flasher-v[0-9]\+.*\.sh\)_\1_' boot/uEnv.txt

Eject the sdcard from your computer.
Put it into your BeagleBoneBlue.
If your board was already powered on then power it off
Hold the update button labeled SD (the one by itself) to boot off the sdcard.
Restart (RST button) or power up (while still pushing SD button).

Flashing can take some minutes.

How to tell if it is flashing?#

At first a blue heartbeat is shown indicating the image is booted. On flash procedure start, the blue user LEDs light up in a “larson scanner” or “cylon” pattern (back and forth).

When finished, either all blue LEDs are on or the board is already switched off.

If the LEDs are on for a long time then it may indicate failure e.g. wrong image. Can be verified if boot fails, i.e. board turns off again shortly after power up.

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