Pioneer device stopped working

Pioneer Support
1

The Pioneer was purchased in February, 2025 - a few weeks ago. It is plugged into a surge protector and connected via ethernet to my wifi router. All connection to the device was lost and the ethernet port does not light up.

I tried to connect directly to the device, but my computer didn’t recognized it. I unplugged the device, unplugged the battery, plugged the device back in, reconnected the ethernet cable and still nothing. The red and green lights are on and there is one green light on the ethernet cable, but it doesn’t show up on the router.

Do I need to try a new install or get a different SD card? I’m not sure what to do next.

2

Hi
Can you dial in to your router? There you should see the IP of your FreedomBox. Try to use your IP adress, somthing like 192.168.x.x. Enter this adress in to your Browser and try it this way: https://192.168.x.x.

3

Hi,
Thank you. I tried that yesterday, it wasn’t registering on the router at all (either connected or unconnected). The ethernet port didn’t light up on the Pioneer and the router did not show a network connection. I unplugged the battery and power and reconnected everything, but it still didn’t come back to life. I removed the SD card, downloaded the software and flashed it using Balena Etcher. I’m trying to set it up again.

4

Now, I cannot get apps to install. Each one has an error. I tried to join the debian github, but my request was rejected, so I can’t submit the error or the code. I spend hours each day trying to get this device to function and it doesn’t.

5

Hi @Jaw
FreedomBox is awesome! But I’ve had some troubles in the beginning, similar to yours.
First, use the standard setup for your FreedomBox. You mentioned a surge protector: to close out sources of failures, just use the standard power supply. Once you have everything running you can add extra stuff.
I try to give you some steps to go:
1. Start all over again. Go to: https://ftp.freedombox.org/pub/freedombox/hardware/pioneer/stable/
there download the image:
freedombox-stable_pioneer_a20-olinuxino-lime2-armhf.img.xz
3. Burn this image to your microSD with Balena Etcher or another tool
4. Insert the microSD in your FreedomBox (battery disconnected)
5. Reconnected the ethernet cable connected with your router
6. Plug in the power supply (5V, 2A)
7. After one minute or so the green light should turn on (you’ve already had the light on previously)
8. Now, this is important: wait half an hour before you try to login to: https://freedombox.local/
9. As soon as you are there (after half an hour waiting), create your account. Configure the network as good as you know. Tick automatic software updates and then press update.
10. Now, this is Important: as soon as you see the blue arrow spinning, close your browser and wait at least 2 hours. This is where I was impatient and messed up the boot and update process.
11. After this you can login and my recommendation is to first restart your FreedomBox before you start to install apps.

This is how it should work.

I always have a configured SD spare card at hand. Maybe you can clone the SD card, so you do not have to start all over again in case you mess up something.
Personally I copy the btrfs partition to a SSD with gparted (after this delete the btrfs partition on the SD card).

Greetings from Switzerland
David

6

Hello,

Thank you so much!
I was able to set it up and am installing apps now!

Salutations
Jaw

7

I am so frustrated. There is no step-by-step for anything.
The web GUI manual, PDF, and Debian/Freedombox manuals all give conflicting information. The domain from GnuDIP isn’t working (can’t get certificates) and without those, services are unavailable except for locally.

8

Marking thread as solved. Please comment to further discuss the issue.

9

It is not solved at all. Name Services will not update and sync to NTP. I don’t think anything is updating properly because the error says unable to resolve deb.debian.org and security.debian.org, so Dynamic DNS, Let’s Encrypt are not working which means the device is still inaccessible remotely (outside local network). I haven’t tried to install any additional apps because I couldn’t use them until those errors are resolved.

10

Apologies, misunderstood due this post. Solved removed.

11 
It's slightly different depending on the app.


Error running action: plinth..install(app_id="tor", packages=["tor", "tor-geoipdb", "obfs4proxy"], skip_recommends=false, force_configuration=null, reinstall=false, force_missing_configuration=false): RuntimeError("Apt command failed with return code: 100")
Stdout:
│ freedombox set on hold.
Stderr:
║ Initialized apps - apache, api, names, avahi, storage, backups, cockpit, firewall, config, datetime, diagnostics, dynamicdns, first_boot, help, letsencrypt, networks, power, privacy, security, snapshot, ssh, sso, upgrades, users, bepasty, bind, calibre, coturn, deluge, ejabberd, email, featherwiki, gitweb, gnome, ikiwiki, infinoted, janus, jsxc, kiwix, matrixsynapse, mediawiki, minetest, minidlna, miniflux, mumble, nextcloud, openvpn, pagekite, performance, privoxy, quassel, radicale, roundcube, rssbridge, samba, searx, shaarli, shadowsocks, shadowsocksserver, sharing, sogo, syncthing, tiddlywiki, tor, torproxy, transmission, ttrss, wireguard, wordpress, zoph
║ E: Failed to fetch http://deb.debian.org/debian/pool/main/o/obfs4proxy/obfs4proxy_0.0.14-1%2bb4_armhf.deb  Temporary failure resolving 'deb.debian.org'
║ E: Failed to fetch http://security.debian.org/debian-security/pool/updates/main/t/tor/tor_0.4.7.16-1_armhf.deb  Temporary failure resolving 'deb.debian.org'
║ E: Failed to fetch http://security.debian.org/debian-security/pool/updates/main/t/tor/tor-geoipdb_0.4.7.16-1_all.deb  Temporary failure resolving 'deb.debian.org'
║ E: Failed to fetch http://deb.debian.org/debian/pool/main/t/torsocks/torsocks_2.4.0-1_armhf.deb  Temporary failure resolving 'deb.debian.org'
║ E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with --fix-missing?
Action traceback:
╞   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/plinth/actions.py", line 398, in _privileged_call
╞     return_values = func(*arguments['args'], **arguments['kwargs'])
╞                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
╞   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/plinth/privileged/packages.py", line 70, in install