New Pi-Top 3 - problems with hub and battery

[StuartC]

Hello everyone, I hope one of you can help with this issue I am having with my new Pi-Top 3.

Things that ARE working:
Start-up / settings / automatic updates / GPIO pins on the Proto+ when running a python script / screen dimming and brightness / volume control - in short all of the normal RPi functions

Things that ARE NOT working:

The Terminal command ‘sudo i2cdetect -y 1’ returns nothing, the same is the case for the Speaker v2.

The command ‘pt-battery’ or ‘sudo pt-battery’ return ‘command not found’.

However, the command ‘ls /dev/i2*’ does return ‘/dev/i2c-1’.

The command ‘sudo apt install pt-devices’ (from the Knowledge Base) returns ‘unable to locate package pt-devices’.

The Pi-topOS Updater says everything is up to date.

There is no battery icon on the Desktop (though I am sure it was there at first…)

Everything looks to be well connected: both sides of the cooling hub; the hub to the Pi; I have the right thermal pad

When I pull out the power cable, the Pi-Top immediately dies, so no battery either. I charged the battery overnight, but the same thing happened.

pi-top support health_check returns ‘Error on pitop.run: Resource temporarily unavailable’

cat /etc/os-release returns ‘PRETTY_NAME=“Raspbian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)”’

If this sounds familiar to you and you found a solution, I’d be very grateful, so that I can get things like the Speaker v.2 / Pulse / shields working.

Many thanks in advance!
Stuart

[StuartC]

Update:
‘pi-top devices hub’ returns ‘Error on Pitop-devices.run: Unable to get devices type from pi-topd. Resource temporarily unavailable’

‘pi-top battery’ returns a similar message.

It’s going back in the box for now…

Grateful if anyone has a solution
Thank you

[aBUGSworstnightmare]

Which OS do you use?

I ran below commands on Raspberry Pi Bullseye to get the battery icon and ‘special keys’ working

> echo "deb http://apt.pi-top.com/pi-top-os sirius main contrib non-free" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pi-top.list &> /dev/null
> curl https://apt.pi-top.com/pt-apt.asc | sudo apt-key add
> sudo apt update
> sudo apt install --no-install-recommends -y pt-device-manager

[StuartC]

Thanks for this information. I am using Bullseye, so it should just work, I think, out of the box. I’ll see what Tech Support has to say, but thanks for letting me know your solution
Stuart

[aBUGSworstnightmare]

It works out-of-the box when using Pi-Top OS - https://www.pi-top.com/resources/download-os

When using Raspberry Pi Bullseye (as I did) - https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/operating-systems/ - you will have to install pt-device-manager manually.

[StuartC]

You might just be the genius I was looking for! Thank you. I’ll try that out tonight after work.
All the best,
Stuart

[StuartC]

Unfortunately, no luck. With a new version of Pi-Top OS, and after the set-up and updates process, the battery doesn’t charge, the hub and the speaker v.2 are not recognised, and after reboot, none of the Pi-Top functions are available anymore (I did it three times yesterday). I also have no luck with adding the Pi-Top functions to Raspberry Pi OS. I have written an update to Tech Support. Thank you anyway
Stuart

[pi-topJorge]

hi @StuartC …

can run these commands in a terminal and provide their output?

sudo systemctl list-units | grep -i failed
systemctl status pi-topd

Also, note that pt-device-manager was renamed to pi-topd in bullseye.

[StuartC]

Hi @pi-topJorge,
Thanks for your reply,
I’ll do a new SD card at the weekend and start from scratch again, and then run these commands.
Thanks,
Stuart

[StuartC]

Hi @pi-topJorge
I took these pics a couple of minutes ago, and am now away from the computer. The Pi-Top hub and battery continue to be unavailable after a new SD card, boot up, updates etc.
Any advice?
Thanks and have a great weekend!
Stuart

[StuartC]

Hi again @pi-topJorge, were these pics helpful? Could you please let me know what the next step is to get my Pi-Top up and running?
Thanks,
Stuart

[pi-topJorge]

hi @StuartC ! yes, apparently pi-topd can’t detect your pi-top’s hub, meaning it can’t interact with other pi-top peripherals such as the battery.

To confirm this theory, can you please run these commands and let me know the results? They’ll attempt to communicate directly with your hub and fetch some data. Doing this will let us know if the hub is at fault or if it’s a higher level issue.

This is a python script, so you can either copy it into a new file in your pi-top and then execute it in a terminal (e.g.: python3 filename) or open a python interpreter in a terminal by running python3 and then pasting the script directly in it:

from pitop.common.i2c_device import I2CDevice


try:
    i2c_device = I2CDevice("/dev/i2c-1", 0x10) 
    i2c_device.set_delays(0.001, 0.001)
    i2c_device.connect()
except Exception as e:
    print(f"Unable to read from hub over i2c: {e}")
    exit(1)

sw_maj = i2c_device.read_unsigned_byte(0xE0)
sw_min = i2c_device.read_unsigned_byte(0xE1)
sch_maj = i2c_device.read_unsigned_byte(0xE2)
sch_min = i2c_device.read_unsigned_byte(0xE3)
rev = i2c_device.read_unsigned_byte(0xE4)
i = i2c_device.read_signed_word(0xB3)
v = i2c_device.read_signed_word(0xB2)
w = int(i * v * 0.00001)

print(f"""
Software Version: {sw_maj}.{sw_min}
Hardware Version: {sch_maj}.{sch_min}
Board revision: {rev}
Battery Current: {i} mA
Battery Voltage: {v} V
Battery Power: {w} W 
""")

[StuartC]

Hi @pi-topJorge, and thank you for your reply. Here is the result of running the Python3 script:

Unable to read from hub over i2c: [Errno 121] Remote I/O error

Thank you
Regards,
Stuart

[pi-topJorge]

Interesting; can you run this for me, please?

sudo i2cdetect -y 1

[StuartC]

@pi-topJorge, thanks for your reply.

sudo i2cdetect -y 1 returns the same things as it did two weeks ago when I first posted about the problems I am having. The hub is not detected, nor is the speaker v.2:

pi@pi-top:~ $ sudo i2cdetect -y 1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f
00: – -- – -- – -- – --
10: – -- – -- – -- – -- – -- – -- – -- – --
20: – -- – -- – -- – -- – -- – -- – -- – --
30: – -- – -- – -- – -- – -- – -- – -- – --
40: – -- – -- – -- – -- – -- – -- – -- – --
50: – -- – -- – -- – -- – -- – -- – -- – --
60: – -- – -- – -- – -- – -- – -- – -- – --
70: – -- – -- – -- – --
pi@pi-top:~ $

Things are the same as they were when I posted on the 26th August.
Thank you for your help.
Regards,
Stuart

[pi-topJorge]

Yeah, it’s definitely a hub communication issue. You might want to make sure that the device is assembled correctly, sometimes a loose connection can cause this behavior.

Otherwise, go to https://www.pi-top.com/resources/product-support?hsLang=en and fill the contact support form. If you already did, please be patient, we’ll get back to you!

[StuartC]

Thank you,
This is incredibly frustrating, as I contacted support weeks ago, but received no reply. I’ll do so again.
Stuart

[alvinconcha]

I have a similar problem, and I contacted support many, many times, but I never got any reply. You are right—this is super-frustrating. Not sure if a few more emails will elicit a reply.

[AkiAfroo]

same, im asking for to buy a Hub 2.0 since weeks and nobody respond.

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