ExtRoot trouble with 21.02

[agarg]

Folks

I have a wndr4700 that I use as a VLAN switch with Samba4 in the rev 19 era.
I upgraded to 21.02 using tftp to load factory image. Then
I loaded the sysupgrade and configured 802.1Q with eth0.1 (lan), eth0.3 (guest), and eth0.4 (iot) and disabled firewall.

Then I used to install the extroot on USB and using a USB3 diver.
Then I rebooted, and it worked fine. I saw my software space around 8GB.

I then attached a 2.5 in drive and loaded mqtt, and samba4
and it still worked fine.

I then took it to its designated location and restarted. And even though it says USB is attached to /overlay, the space in software has reverted back to 9MB (meaning its not mounting correctly)
Also the luci-app-samba as well as mqtt server is missing.

I booted again and it went back to normal with samba and mqtt present and expanded rootfs.

What gives this erratic behavior? And what file should I save to share with the guru here so that a root cause can be applied?

Please let me know.

Anil

What gives?

[agarg]

So, I have a SWAO (Scientific wild ass observation)!!
The extroot fails to boot from the USB flash drive when booted cold.
But, if I ssh and issue a reboot command and then it boots properly from the usb flash overlay partition.
Even in the cold boot, the swap partition is identified and mounted correctly.

Thanks
Anil

[tmomas]

Checkout option delay_root -> https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/additional-software/extroot_configuration#troubleshooting

[agarg]

Thank you so much sir. This looks like what will do the trick. Every day I learn something new and cool!
Thanks again.

[tmomas]

If your problem is solved, please consider marking this topic as [Solved]. See How to mark a topic as [Solved] for a short how-to.

[agarg]

the usb wasn't seated properly and yes the 15 second delay has worked

[agarg]

Thank you so much.