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[#1]

i.MX95 Boot ROM does not fall back from eMMC Boot0 to Boot1 after AHAB container corruption

Hello Experts,

On the i.MX95, does the Boot ROM support automatic failover between eMMC Boot0 and Boot1 when the selected boot partition contains an invalid AHAB container?

I programmed the same flash.bin into both Boot0 and Boot1. After setting BOOT_PARTITION_ENABLE = Boot0, I corrupted the first 4 KB of Boot0 (destroying the beginning of the AHAB container). The board reports:

Boot stage: Primary
Image set: 0
Parse seco container failed -14
SPL: failed to boot from all boot devices

If I manually switch BOOT_PARTITION_ENABLE to Boot1, the board boots normally.

Based on some older i.MX8 forum discussions, I expected the ROM to automatically try Boot1. Is automatic Boot0→Boot1 fallback supported on i.MX95? If so, what conditions trigger it? If not, what is the recommended redundancy mechanism for bootloader recovery?

Steps for reproduction:

1. Flash the same imx-boot-imx95-19x19-verdin-sd.bin-flash_all to eMMC Boot0 and Boot1. Following is the script that I have used to flash both banks of emmc (attached in attachments)
2. Verify both partitions contain the same image.

3. Set:

   mmc partconf 0 0 1 0

   (Boot0 selected)

4. Corrupt the first 4 KB of Boot0:

   dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk0boot0 bs=512 count=8 conv=fsync

5. Reboot.

6. Observe:

   U-Boot SPL 2025.04-g99518e6b6f20 (Feb 02 2026 - 05:52:54 +0000)
   SYS Boot reason: por, origin: -1, errid: -1
   SYS shutdown reason: por, origin: -1, errid: -1
   Normal Boot
   Trying to boot from MMC1
   Boot stage: Primary
   Image set: 0, offset: 0x0
   Parse seco container failed -14
   Load image from MMC/SD 0x0
   mmc_load_image_raw_sector: mmc block read error
   Error: -38
   SPL: failed to boot from all boot devices
   ### ERROR ### Please RESET the board ###
   

7. Change PARTITION_CONFIG to Boot1:

   mmc partconf 0 0 2 0

8. The board boots successfully from Boot1.

In short, I would like to get clarification on the following 
Does the i.MX95 Boot ROM support automatic eMMC Boot0↔Boot1 failover, or is the redundancy mechanism expected to be implemented differently (e.g., via image sets, software updates, or an alternate boot device)?

BR,

Arun Kumar

Re: i.MX95 Boot ROM does not fall back from eMMC Boot0 to Boot1 after AHAB container corruptionThank you @ Zhiming_Liu, I would like to understand
Under what conditions does the i.MX95 Boot ROM set boot_stage = Secondary for eMMC Boot0/Boot1?

BR,
Arun KumarRe: i.MX95 Boot ROM does not fall back from eMMC Boot0 to Boot1 after AHAB container corruption

Hi @arun16598 

The i.MX95 support it, but need SPL support this feature.

Based on what you've described, it appears that the version of U-Boot you're using does not include the following patch.

LFU-890-1 imx: image-container: Support iMX95 and iMX94 secondary boot · nxp-imx/uboot-imx@02d75ab ·...

Best Regards,
Zhiming