Can I get working sources of U-BOOT 2013.07, nand?

[kef2]

Hi

I downloaded it here http://git.timesys.com/cgi-bin/cgit.cgi/u-boot.git/snapshot/u-boot-2013.07-mvf-ts1.1.tar.bz2 ,

did make vybrid_nand_config , did make u-boot.imx. did cat 1024zeros u-boot.imx > u-boot.nand. Unfortunately it doesn't work. Do I need to  add something else than ARCH=arm and gcc prefix to make command?

Thanks

Edward

[timesyssupport]

Hello Edward,

Did you follow this procedure for writing U-Boot to NAND for Vybrid Tower:

https://linuxlink.timesys.com/docs/projects/engineering/wiki/NAND_Boot_for_Vybrid_Tower#Writing-a-U-...

Also, did you bridge the Boot Config jumpers 1-2 and 9-10 on the Vybrid Tower module?

If you are still having issues, can you try flashing the following U-Boot 2013.07 image, which we have confirmed boots from NAND on Vybrid Tower:

www.timesys.com/vybrid/u-boot-nand.bin

Thanks,

Timesys Support

[kef2]

Hello Timesys,

Yes, I'm able to use u-boot.nand image 2013.07, downloadable from timesys.com, so yes, I'm following your booting procedures and am setting Tower jumpers correctly. The problem is I can't rebuild u-boot 2013.07. It doesn't work, even if I pad produced u-boot.imx with zeros, as instructed. IVT, DCD and image vectors table are at  the same address as in working u-boot.nand, but it doesn't work. Looks like either sources are not working or some setting is missing.

I fixed Linux driver so that HW ECC can be used. I'd like to try making u-boot able to flash rootfs properly. This is why I need working u-boot sources.

Thanks

Edward

[kef2]

Timesys,

Some debugging with DS5 revealed bugs in clock init routine. At least wait for PLL lock loop is missing.

Do you have somewhere fixed version or is it just an toolchains difference, perhaps one you compiled your u-boot.nand was producing slower code and it was producing long enough to lock delay?

Regards

Edward

[timesyssupport]

Hi Edward,

I am not aware of any bugs in U-Boot's clock init routine or toolchain-related issues pertaining to U-Boot (assuming you are using a Timesys cross-compile toolchain. The toolchain I am using has gcc version 4.8.3.).

I downloaded the sources above (ts1.1 release), and was able to build a NAND-configured U-Boot image and boot from NAND successfully using this image. I used the following procedure, if you want to try this as well:

# make CROSS_COMPILE=/fully/qualified/path/to/toolchain distclean

# make vf610twr_nand_config

# make CROSS_COMPILE=/fully/qualified/path/to/toolchain u-boot.imx

# dd if=/dev/zero of=u-boot-pad bs=1024 count=1

# cat u-boot-pad u-boot.imx > u-boot.nand

I attached the resulting u-boot.nand file. If you are still experiencing issues, please send me your full build log and let me know if you are able to boot from the U-Boot image I have attached.

Thanks,

Timesys Support

[yibinjin]

hi ,

   I can not boot your image from nand on my custome vybrid board (2k page x8 nand),

yet I can boot the image from the zip file :vybrid MFG tool, which means the bootmode setting

is correct ,and FCB is burned ok.

please check the attachment

do you have any clues about this issue？i am totally confused ,

[timesyssupport]

Hello Yibin,

We have followed up on the ticket you have in our own Support queue regarding these issues.

Thank you,

Timesys Support

[kef2]

Dear All and Timesys

First of all sorry for long message.

Regarding U-boot clock init routine. Perhaps there is some MCU on the Earth, which works well clocked by unstable clock, but as a general rule in order to prevent runaways, MCU clock switching should be done only from stable clock to stable clock. Once PLL is set up and going to stabilize and lock, there must be some delay waiting for PLL lock, switch to PLL clock should happen only after locked. clock_init() in vf610twr.c looks suspicious.

I'm also using Timesys gcc toolchain 4.8.3. I had a hope that your newly compiled u-boot.nand will work on my Tower. Unfortunately or fortunately it doesn't. I tried flashing it twice and nand dump'ing around to verify if it really went to flash and FCB is there at offset 0. Your new U-boot.nand doesn't give any signs of life. But your old u-boot.nand (www.timesys.com/vybrid/u-boot-nand.bin, compile date May 08 2014 - 11:56:21, filesize 253488) works well! Do you know gcc version, working u-boot was compiled with? Perhaps there's also Tower card difference? My Vybrid card is labeled SCH-27442 REV G1 and 700-27422 REV J. U-boot claims Vybrid family revision is 1.1.

Day ago I also tried zero padding u-boot.imx, that came with my most recent copy of Timesys SDK. It doesn't boot as well from nand. I remember some older u-boot.imx padded with zeros was booting fine from nand, but it was just complaining about missing SD card.

  I was able to build working image. But something still is wrong. First thing I tried was changing optimization level in config.mk file. Please find there OPTFLAGS = setting. Changing it from -Os to anything else like -O3 or -O2 or -Os -Og led to advice to use -fPIC option:

armv7l-timesys-linux-gnueabi-ld.bfd: arch/arm/cpu/armv7/libarmv7.o: relocation R_ARM_MOVW_ABS_NC against `a local symbol' can not be used when making a shared object; recompile with -fPIC

arch/arm/cpu/armv7/libarmv7.o: error adding symbols: Bad value

make: *** [u-boot] Error 1

So I tried adding -fPIC. Image builds with -fPIC. With original clock_init(), DS-5 debug stops at BKPR instruction somewhere in DDR RAM, some boot time strings are printed to UART. With modified clock_init() it even works, and I'm able to boot kernel and use root FS in NAND. The only problem I see is that target resets when I enter "boot" at U-boots command prompt. Strange thing is that after U-boot resets, also at power on reset, U-boot is able to autoboot... If it matters, bootcmd is set to 'nand read 0x80010000 0x100000 0x300000; bootm 0x80010000'

  So what do you think, is it toolchain 4.8.3 issue?

  Few words about Linux fsl_nfc.c driver mods. By default you configure it for SW ECC. Since SW ECC over 512 byte subpages used in Linux differs from HW ECC over 2048 physical pages used in U-boot, it is not possible to tftpboot and nand write root FS from U-boot. Both U-boot and Linux should use the same ECC to make working U-boot NAND FS flashing. HW ECC in Linux fsl_nfc.c is broken as you know, and SW ECC for some reason uses different than U-boots ECC and page layout. I didn't find where and how Linux decides to split 2048 physical pages into 512 subpages, but I managed to fix HW ECC in fsl_nfc.c driver. Unfortunately once HW ECC in Linux started to work, I somehow failed to flash root FS from old u-boot.nand for the first time and started claiming U-boot for this. This is why I dived into U-boot's code and why I made you involved in these problems. Sorry. In fact Timesys u-boot.nand dated May 08 2014 flashes everything almost very well. What should be improved in U-boot is - missing one or two extra backup FCB's with at least two U-boot instances for improved NAND boot reliability. nandinit and nandwrite commands initialize only primary FCB at offset 0. FW1 and FW2 in FCB @0 are made to point to the same and single U-boot copy. It should be improved, isn't it?

  Now back again to my fsl_nfc.c mods. This thread VF6xxx NFC (NAND) module clocking was big help .  Timesys Support 's patch was close, though driver still was just printing ECC error messages and not updating error counters as required, also there was a bunch of false positives.  Bill Pringlemeir was close to the truth saying about un-needed if(!(page%0x40))  in fsl_nfc_command().  I believe one, who coded these !(page%0x40) cases perhaps was worrying about Manufacturer marked bad blocks, which are on each 0x40th page (true for flash used in Vybrid card). Maybe real story is different, but those %0x40 have to be removed, I'm surek it is a bug. Once buggy %0x40 code pieces are removed, there still are false ECC errors, which are caused by erased and not yet programmed flash pages. Of course HW ECC fails on this. Once uncorrectable error occurs, driver has to check if page is erased and report error only in case page is empty. See attached fsl_nfc.c with fixes if you are interested.

  There's one more problem to notice. Micron, who is manufacturer of NAND flash on my Tower card, say that bad block mark is first spare location in bad block. I tried to verify where in NFC RAM buffer one should check for first spare location. Do you think it should be at offset 2048? I doubt it. MQX has interesting NAND example. Instead of reading whole page with OOB to check if block is marked bad, MQX attempt to read just few bytes from OOB, and write just few bytes to mark block as bad. Bad block mark according to MQX NAND example is at offset 2048+3. I did

1) write 0x12345678 to NFC RAM buffer and programm it to flash with NFC_SECSC register set to 2 (two bytes instead of four), then

2) read bytes back from flash and got 0x1234FFFF.

Machine is low endian, 0x12 is at offset +3. Looks like first spare location is not at offset 2048, but at offset 2048+3. There must be some internal byte swap HW in NFC, which makes high order byte programmed first. I think MQX is right nad Linux with U-Boot are wrong regarding bad block marker position using Vybrid NFC controller.

  Even if you don't agree regarding first byte location, reading erased block with HW ECC you should note a gap in ECC bytes locations. I think it is again NFC internal change of byte order. Experiments show also that odd bytelength ECC modes use even number of bytes in NFC RAM buffer. That is 45, 23 and 15 byte ECC modes respectively use 46, 24 and 16 bytes in NFC RAM buffer. Easy to verify again. Erase flash block and try reading it with all possible ECC modes. And if my observations are correct, then Linux driver nand_ecclayout struct for HW ECC is not initialized properly. Due to byte order swap first free spare byte I think should be not at offset 2 (first byte part 2 byte bad block marker), but at an offset 0. With 45/46bytes ECC, there's also two gaps in free spare bytes area , 45 bytes OOB layout should be as follows:

  byte 0,1 - free

  2,3-bad block mark

  4-15 - free

  16,17 ECC

  18,19 - free

  20-63 - ECC.

Regards

Edward

[timesyssupport]

Hello Edward,

I was using a Rev G3/Rev J Vybrid module to do the testing on. I tried switching to match your Rev G1/Rev J card, but was still able to boot the attached image from yesterday.

The working U-Boot NAND image for you was based on the ts1 release - while the U-Boot images/sources that have not worked for you have all been based on the ts1.1 release. There were some changes made to DDR controller configuration in ts1.1 to fix a boot in cold environment issue as well. Do you want to try building the ts1 release, and let me know if that works for you?

http://git.timesys.com/cgi-bin/cgit.cgi/u-boot.git/snapshot/u-boot-2013.07-mvf-ts1.tar.bz2

You can also see the differences between each release here, if you are curious:

https://linuxlink.timesys.com/git?repo=u-boot.git&view=log&h=2013.07-mvf

Thanks for attaching the changes you've made to the NFC Linux driver. If these are suitable to be applied to the 3.0 kernel tree, and if you can writeup some short notes about the changes, I can commit these and mark you as the author.

Thanks,

Timesys Support

[kef2]

in Hello Timesys,

I tried building ts1 release. You may call it a wonder, but it also didn't work :-). I don't know how your old u-boot.nand image worked, maybe toolchain difference, maybe *.bs2 file missed latest changes, I don't know.

I made ts1.1 working the same like your u-boot.nand image. It works with original optimization settings and modified clock_init() routine. See attached modified files with matching directory structure, please don't ask for patch, I'm not familiar with it. clock_init routine now doesn't assume oscillator working and/or initial settings mad be boot ROM to CCM and ANADIG registers. U-boot's code is fine now to reset and debug from entry point. If it works on new boards and newer Vybrid chips, fell free to use it if you wish.

Regarding Linux driver. I added few #if-#else's to make modified driver compatible with SW ECC in kernel config, also compatible with MPC and other big-endian targets, that could use fsl_nfc driver.
Changes are as follows:

- remove !(page % 0x40) lines, which were disabling HW ECC for 0x40 aligned flash pages.

- enable ecc failure counters update so that nandtest and other tools will see current error counters

- different 45bytes ECC OOB layout for low endian machines like Vybrid

- changed some printk levels, probably bad idea, please ignore.

Someone should try and review it, provided as is.

I don't know if it is a known nandtest -k issue. I guess it is, but driver is not compatible with "nandtest -k". -k keep switch restores flash contents, but it should not write erased pages with all-0xFF. UBI assumes free space erased, of course first write to nandtest -k modified page is likely to make UBIFS not bootable.

Regards

Edward

[karina_valencia]

timesyssupport can you help to attend this case?