Rebooted VenusOS on a RPi and now I'm stuck at a command prompt - How to fix?

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1

I’ve had a perfectly working setup with VenusOS running on a Raspberry Pi 3B+ for the last four years. I have a touch display connected to the RPI. This morning I brought up the VenusOS menu, then Settings, General, then Reboot. I’ve done this a few times over the years without issue. But today, it’s not completing the full boot process and returning me to the standard VenusOS GUI.

At the moment the display is showing a blue graphic with the Victron Energy logo. This is taking up about 60% of the width and 50% of the height in the upper-left quadrant. Then there is terminal text showing some commands. The last few lines show:

[    7.709099] watchdog: watchdog0: watchdog did not stop!

Last login: Fri Jan 23 17:26:01 +0000 2026 on /dev/ttyAMA0
root@trailer:~#

Occasionally I see a yellow lightning bolt appear in the upper-right portion of the screen.

How do I get this to return to the usual VenusOS interface? I’ve power cycled the RPi a couple of times (unplugged and plugged in the power cable) to no avail.

My WiFi router shows that the RPi is connected to its usual IP address but any attempt to ssh into the device from my macOS laptop is giving me a “Connection refused” error on the Mac. But I have no problem pinging the iP address.

I’m in a desperate situation here. I’m leaving the country for a month starting tomorrow and I absolutely must have this system working again today.

If anyone can point me in the right direction to get this resolved I would really appreciate it. I have so many other errands to do today I can’t spend hours researching this on my own. I never imagined a simple reboot would fail for the first time ever. Since it’s been 4 years since I got this all setup, I’ve forgotten a lot about how to make this work.

Thanks for any help

2

do you use some special software like dbus-serialbattery?

although some here say not possible - my system did updates by itself - then i got a non-functioning system

But - maybe important informamation - the lightning bolt is a Raspberry notation, not enough power

Did you try to use another power supply?

ssh login - if vicrtron updates the OS, credentials often have to be reentered

3

Thanks. The lightening bolt is no longer appearing. It only appears while unplugging the RPi and again for a few seconds after reconnecting. Power is not the issue.

I do not believe I am using dbus-serialbattery.

How do I update the ssh login if I can’t login to the RPi as I usually do (from my laptop which is on the same WiFi network)?

4

Do you have access over VRM?

5

No, it says it’s offline.

I can ping the RPi’s IP address (obtained via its WiFi connection) but VRM says it’s offline. The Victron Connect app on my phone says it’s offline. Entering http://venus.local into my web browser on my Mac (same WiFi network) shows a Remote Console page but only an error that it failed to connect.

Is there any way for me to use my laptop’s keyboard to control the RPi? I can connect my laptop to the RPi via ethernet cable.

6

easiest would be, especially as you are short of time, to reinstall it completely

Most important, if you are away, to have control and reach the system

7

I ended up doing that (full reinstall). I lost a lot of important customizations and scripts that I wrote. But I managed to limp it together enough for my trip. I have lots to fix when I get back. What terrible timing. Oh well. Thanks for the help. Off to the airport.

8

next time try to copy the folder /data before - this is where all your software sits