Troubleshooting - Troubleshooting - 2026.1 English - UG1144

PetaLinux Tools Documentation: Reference Guide (UG1144)
Document ID
UG1144
Release Date
2026-06-23
Version
2026.1 English

This section describes some common issues you can experience while booting a PetaLinux image on hardware with SD card.

Table 1. PetaLinux Image on Hardware Troubleshooting
Problem / Error Message Description and Solution

Wrong Image Format for boot command.

ERROR: Can’t get kernel image!

Problem Description:

This error message indicates that the U-Boot boot loader is unable to find kernel image. This is likely because bootcmd environment variable is not set correctly.

Solution:

To see the default boot device, print bootcmd environment variable using the following command in U-Boot console.

U-Boot-PetaLinux> print bootcmd

If it is not run using sdboot flow, there are a few options as follows:

  • Without rebuilding PetaLinux, use setenv command to set bootcmd to boot from your desired media. For SD card boot, set the environment variable as follows.

    U-Boot-PetaLinux> setenv bootcmd ’run sdboot’ ; saveenv

  • Run petalinux-config to set to load kernel image from SD card. Rebuild PetaLinux and regenerate BOOT.BIN with the rebuilt U-Boot, and use the new BOOT.BIN to boot the board. See Generate Boot Image for Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC on how to generate BOOT.BIN.
Error string observed while booting

[ systemd[1]: File System Check on Root Device was skipped because of a failed condition check (ConditionPathIsReadWrite=!/).

 Error message indicates that the file system devices have read and write permissions. Since this have no functional impact, you can ignore it.
Tip: To learn more about U-Boot options, use the command: U-Boot-PetaLinux> printenv.