Black screen on upgrade to 10.3 on pinebook

Troubleshooting
1

Creating a bug report/issue

I have searched the existing open and closed issues

Required Information

  • DietPi version | cat /boot/dietpi/.version
  • G_DIETPI_VERSION_CORE=10
    G_DIETPI_VERSION_SUB=3
    G_DIETPI_VERSION_RC=3
    G_GITBRANCH=‘master’
    G_GITOWNER=‘MichaIng’
    G_LIVE_PATCH_STATUS[0]=‘applied’
    G_LIVE_PATCH_STATUS[1]=‘applied’
    G_LIVE_PATCH_STATUS[2]=‘applied’
  • Distro version | echo $G_DISTRO_NAME $G_RASPBIAN trixie
  • Kernel version | uname --all boot/vmlinuz-6.18.23-current-sunxi64
  • Architecture | dpkg --print-architecture arm64
  • SBC model | echo $G_HW_MODEL_NAME or (EG: RPi3) Pinebook (aarch64)
  • Power supply used | (EG: 5V 1A RAVpower) built in.
  • SD card used | (EG: SanDisk ultra) Amazon basics 256G

Additional Information (if applicable)

  • Software title | (EG: Nextcloud)
  • Was the software title installed freshly or updated/migrated?
  • Can this issue be replicated on a fresh installation of DietPi?
    ← If you sent a “dietpi-bugreport”, please paste the ID here →
  • Bug report ID | echo $G_HW_UUID

Steps to reproduce

  1. … Upgrade (from 10.2 ?) to 10.3 (using dietpi-update, I think)
  2. …

Expected behaviour

  • …Should upgrade and boot into dietpi 10.3.

Actual behaviour

  • … uboot prints “booting kernel” and the screen goes black.

Extra details

  • … I don’t have an audio jack serial cable so I don’t know how far the kernel got. (I guess I gotta get the cable before the next update) Anyhow, I manually swapped the old 6.12.73 kernel files from /mnt/dietpi-backup and that brought it back to life.

    6.12.73-current-sunxi64 #1 SMP Mon Feb 16 16:09:13 UTC 2026 aarch64 GNU/Linux

  • Google AI hints at allwinner issues with the 6.18 kernel, but I can’t tell if it’s fixed yet.