AM335x UBIFS Problem (u-boot-2013.01.01-psp06.00.00.00)

Hi Davi,

I see you have been following this guide: http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/UBIFS_Support

What seems odd is your calculated LEB size. It should be:

LEB = PEB - 2*(min I/O) = 128K - 2*2K = 124K = 126976

and I can see that you have passed -e 129024 to the mkfs.ubifs command when creating the image.

If you have used the wrong LEB size when calculating the UBI overhead later, then the other calculations are wrong as well. Please make sure the values are correct before creating the UBI image.

Davi Evangelista said:

this u-boot does NOT have the nandecc command anymore...

Since a few SDK versions ago, the default ecc scheme in U-Boot is BCH8 and you don't need to change that.

Best regards,
Miroslav

Well, 129024 is the value u-boot prints when ubi part rootfs is used after nand erase. The command also prints the available PEBs and the total number of reserved PEBs based on 129024, so I was using the available PEBs for the -c option in mkfs.ubifs. You can see this at the end of my first post.

Anyhow, I changed the value to 129676 and it didn't work either. Another complication is the -c option: now I don't know how much space should be left out.

There are 2 new scenarios now and I will change their color to separate them. They all use the images I get from

$ ~/mtd/install/sbin/mkfs.ubifs -F -r rootfs/ -o ubifs.img -m 2048 -e 129676 -c 950
$ ~/mtd/install/sbin/ubinize -o rootfs.img -m 2048 -p 128KiB -O 2048 ubinize.cfg

usb reset
fatload usb 0 0x81000000 rootfs.img
nand erase 0x00780000 0x7880000
nand write 0x81000000 0x00780000 ${filesize}
run nand_boot

Kernel log:

[ 1.255674] UBI: attaching mtd7 to ubi0
[ 1.259833] UBI: physical eraseblock size: 131072 bytes (128 KiB)
[ 1.266497] UBI: logical eraseblock size: 126976 bytes
[ 1.272248] UBI: smallest flash I/O unit: 2048
[ 1.277248] UBI: VID header offset: 2048 (aligned 2048)
[ 1.283651] UBI: data offset: 4096
[ 2.381407] UBI: max. sequence number: 0
[ 2.404985] UBI error: vtbl_check: volume table check failed: record 0, error 9
[ 2.413475] UBI error: ubi_init: cannot attach mtd7

usb reset
fatload usb 0 0x81000000 ubifs.img
nand erase 0x00780000 0x7880000
ubi part rootfs
ubi create rootfs
ubi write 0x81000000 rootfs ${filesize}

U-Boot output:

(Re)start USB...
USB0: scanning bus 0 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found
scanning usb for storage devices... 1 Storage Device(s) found
reading ubifs.img
22347776 bytes read in 18756 ms (1.1 MiB/s)

NAND erase: device 0 offset 0x780000, size 0x7880000
Erasing at 0x7fe0000 -- 100% complete.
OK
Creating 1 MTD partitions on "nand0":
0x000000780000-0x000008000000 : "mtd=7"
UBI: attaching mtd1 to ubi0
UBI: physical eraseblock size: 131072 bytes (128 KiB)
UBI: logical eraseblock size: 129024 bytes
UBI: smallest flash I/O unit: 2048
UBI: sub-page size: 512
UBI: VID header offset: 512 (aligned 512)
UBI: data offset: 2048
UBI: empty MTD device detected
UBI: create volume table (copy #1)
UBI: create volume table (copy #2)
UBI: attached mtd1 to ubi0
UBI: MTD device name: "mtd=7"
UBI: MTD device size: 120 MiB
UBI: number of good PEBs: 964
UBI: number of bad PEBs: 0
UBI: max. allowed volumes: 128
UBI: wear-leveling threshold: 4096
UBI: number of internal volumes: 1
UBI: number of user volumes: 0
UBI: available PEBs: 951
UBI: total number of reserved PEBs: 13
UBI: number of PEBs reserved for bad PEB handling: 9
UBI: max/mean erase counter: 1/0
No size specified -> Using max size (122701824)
Creating dynamic volume rootfs of size 122701824
22347776 bytes written to volume rootfs

U-Boot# ubifsmount rootfs
UBIFS error (pid 0): validate_sb: LEB size mismatch: 126976 in superblock, 129024 real
UBIFS error (pid 0): validate_sb: bad superblock, error 1
UBIFS error (pid 0): ubifs_mount: Error reading superblock on volume 'ubi:rootfs' errno=-22!

ubifsmount - mount UBIFS volume

Kernel log:

[ 1.255728] UBI: attaching mtd7 to ubi0
[ 1.259886] UBI: physical eraseblock size: 131072 bytes (128 KiB)
[ 1.266548] UBI: logical eraseblock size: 126976 bytes
[ 1.272300] UBI: smallest flash I/O unit: 2048
[ 1.277297] UBI: VID header offset: 2048 (aligned 2048)
[ 1.283697] UBI: data offset: 4096
[ 1.294095] UBI error: ubi_io_read: error -74 (ECC error) while reading 64 bytes from PEB 0:0, read 64 bytes
[ 1.304597] UBI error: validate_ec_hdr: bad VID header offset 512, expected 2048
[ 1.312489] UBI error: validate_ec_hdr: bad EC header
[ 1.317856] UBI error: ubi_io_read_ec_hdr: validation failed for PEB 0
[ 1.324941] UBI error: ubi_init: cannot attach mtd

This problem with ubi write and ubifsmount is specially bad because I would like to load uImage via an UBIFS partition and see if ubifsload is faster that nand read.

First things first, I still can't boot my Linux with the image ubinize creates (blue text above)... How do I get the number that should be used in the -c option when mkfs.ubifs is called? I think maybe that is what's wrong with it, alongside the configuration file used in ubinize...

DAVI

Here is why u-boot uses 129024 instead of 129676:

In the file drivers/mtd/ubi/build.c, line 620, LEB_size is calculated as follows:

ubi->leb_size = ubi->peb_size - ubi->leb_start;

So I changed this line to

ubi->leb_size = ubi->peb_size-(2*ubi->min_io_size);

And now u-boot is able to guess the correct LEB_size and ubifsmount works again, everything with LEB_size = 124K.

The Kernel still gives the same error messages, including the ECC error, though...

DAVI

What NAND part are you using? I've done some ubifs work last year and I can try to help out.

Steve K.

The NAND is the MT29F1G08ABBDAH4-IT

DAVI

Thanks. I'm still gathering hardware to test with. I did see something strange in your logs. From u-boot I see

UBI: sub-page size: 512
UBI: VID header offset: 512 (aligned 512)

But from the wiki,

• subpage-size should set same as page-size
• offset-of-vid-header should also be set same as page-size

Can you use -s 2048 and -O 2048 when you ubinize?

Steve K.

There is another winner: again, in drivers/mtd/ubi/build.c, line 546, there was this line:

ubi->hdrs_min_io_size = ubi->mtd->writesize >> ubi->mtd->subpage_sft;

That I changed to

ubi->hdrs_min_io_size = ubi->min_io_size;

And now we have u-boot printing the following;

UBI: attaching mtd1 to ubi0
UBI: physical eraseblock size: 131072 bytes (128 KiB)
UBI: logical eraseblock size: 126976 bytes
UBI: smallest flash I/O unit: 2048
UBI: VID header offset: 2048 (aligned 2048)
UBI: data offset: 4096

Anyway, I got the ubinized image to boot.

The problem was the line vol_size in the configuration file I use in ubinize. Reducing the partition size from 120MiB to 100Mib with the following commands

$ echo "[ubifs]
mode=ubi
image=ubifs.img
vol_id=0
vol_size=100MiB
vol_type=dynamic
vol_name=rootfs
vol_flags=autoresize" | tee ubinize.cfg > /dev/null
$ ~/mtd/install/sbin/mkfs.ubifs -F -r rootfs/ -o ubifs.img -m 2048 -e 126976 -c 800
$ ~/mtd/install/sbin/ubinize -o rootfs.img -m 2048 -p 128KiB -O 2048 ubinize.cfg

gives me an image that nand write is able to flash into the chip and the Kernel stops complaining.

Now I lost 20MiB, but I have a partition that boots...

I'm still trying to solve this new issue.

In the other side of things, I still can't use the UBIFS image and flash it via ubi write. Right after I use ubi part to set up the kernel partition, ubi create to create the volume name and ubi write to write the kernel (inside a UBIFS image) I'm able to use ubifsmount. Once I reset the board, I can't mount it anymore. Here is what's happening:

usb reset
fatload usb 0 0x81000000 uImage.img
nand erase 0x280000 0x500000
ubi part kernel
ubi create kernel
ubi write 0x81000000 kernel ${filesize}

Output:

USB0: scanning bus 0 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found
scanning usb for storage devices... 1 Storage Device(s) found
reading uImage.img
4063232 bytes read in 3441 ms (1.1 MiB/s)

NAND erase: device 0 offset 0x280000, size 0x500000
Erasing at 0x760000 -- 100% complete.
OK
Creating 1 MTD partitions on "nand0":
0x000000280000-0x000000780000 : "mtd=6"
UBI: attaching mtd1 to ubi0
UBI: physical eraseblock size: 131072 bytes (128 KiB)
UBI: logical eraseblock size: 126976 bytes
UBI: smallest flash I/O unit: 2048
UBI: VID header offset: 2048 (aligned 2048)
UBI: data offset: 4096
UBI: empty MTD device detected
UBI: create volume table (copy #1)
UBI: create volume table (copy #2)
UBI: attached mtd1 to ubi0
UBI: MTD device name: "mtd=6"
UBI: MTD device size: 5 MiB
UBI: number of good PEBs: 40
UBI: number of bad PEBs: 0
UBI: max. allowed volumes: 128
UBI: wear-leveling threshold: 4096
UBI: number of internal volumes: 1
UBI: number of user volumes: 0
UBI: available PEBs: 34
UBI: total number of reserved PEBs: 6
UBI: number of PEBs reserved for bad PEB handling: 2
UBI: max/mean erase counter: 1/0
No size specified -> Using max size (4317184)
Creating dynamic volume kernel of size 4317184
4063232 bytes written to volume kernel

U-Boot# ubifsmount kernel
UBIFS: mounted UBI device 0, volume 0, name "kernel"
UBIFS: mounted read-only
UBIFS: file system size: 3047424 bytes (2976 KiB, 2 MiB, 24 LEBs)
UBIFS: journal size: 1142785 bytes (1116 KiB, 1 MiB, 8 LEBs)
UBIFS: media format: w4/r0 (latest is w4/r0)
UBIFS: default compressor: LZO
UBIFS: reserved for root: 0 bytes (0 KiB)

U-Boot# reset

U-Boot# ubifsmount kernel
UBIFS error (pid 0): ubifs_get_sb: cannot open "ubi:kernel", error -19
UBIFS error (pid 0): ubifs_mount: Error reading superblock on volume 'ubi:kernel' errno=-19!

ubifsmount - mount UBIFS volume

So, why doesn't u-boot keep the partition working after a reset?

DAVI