Cortex A9 vexpress MMC I/O problems.

Tue Oct 12 10:17:42 UTC 2010

On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 7:21 AM, Jamie Bennett <jamie.bennett at linaro.org> wrote:

[...]

>>> On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 01:13:40PM +0100, Harry Liebel wrote:
>>>> I've had mixed results. When the box completes the boot the basic systems seem to work ok (I can get an IP and poke the filesystem). It still takes several minutes to get to a prompt as mentioned on the wiki page.
>>>>
>>>> It happens quite often that the box does not get to a prompt at all. It fails to read the MMC properly. Below is two separate cases where reading the partition table fails. In the first case it finds one partition and in the second case it fails to find any partitions. The boot monitor has no problem reading uboot, kernel or initrd from the MMC when writing to internal FLASH.
>>>>

Sincle I believe this is a known issue with the hardware, it could be
wise to streamline the putting of bootloader and filesystem on
separate devices.

Manually at least, this wasn't too hard: I ran linaro-media-create,
copied the boot images onto a separate SD card to install them, then
booted with the real card in a card reader attached via USB -- this
works much better+faster than straight booting from the on-board MMC
slot, and has the advantage that SDHC cards (or USB stick / HDD etc.)
can be used.  Especially if we configure the root device into the
bootloader as root=UUID=<uuid>, Linux should be able to find the root
fs wherever it is.

Is this feasible?

Cheers
---Dave

>>>> I've also tried a different SD card with similar results. Sometimes it works fine and other times it reports I/O errors. I've tried the daily builds for 6, 8 and 10 October. Is this a known issue?
>>>
>>> I can't fix your problem but for extra brownie points you could
>>> register this in launchpad as a bug and we can push for the right
>>> people to investigate.
>>>
>>> Please file a bug at:
>>>
>>> http://bugs.launchpad.net/linux-linaro
>>>
>>> (sounds like a kernel related issue) and we will take it from there :)
>>
>> We've already opened a bug on this issue:
>>
>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-linaro/+bug/632798
>
> Great, thanks.
>
>> --Matt
>
> Regards,
> Jamie.
>
>>>
>>>> -----
>>>>
>>>> mmc0: host does not support reading read-only switch. assuming write-enable.
>>>> mmc0: new SD card at address 8fe4
>>>> mmcblk0: mmc0:8fe4 SD02G 1.84 GiB
>>>> mmcblk0:
>>>> Freeing init memory: 160K
>>>> p1ding, please wait...
>>>>    p2
>>>> udev[497]: starting version 163
>>>> port 1 high speed
>>>> Begin: Loading essential drivers ... done.
>>>> Begin: Running /scripts/init-premount ... done.
>>>> Begin: Mounting root file system ... Begin: Running /scripts/local-top ... done.
>>>> usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using isp1760 and address 2
>>>> port 1 high speed
>>>> usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0471, idProduct=3526
>>>> usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
>>>> usb 1-1: Product: ISP1520
>>>> usb 1-1: Manufacturer: Philips Semiconductors
>>>> mmcblk0: retrying using single block read
>>>> mmcblk0: error -5 transferring data, sector 0, nr 8, card status 0xb00
>>>> hub 1-1:1.0: USB hub found
>>>> hub 1-1:1.0: 3 ports detected
>>>> end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 0
>>>> Buffer I/O error on device mmcblk0, logical block 0
>>>>
>>>> -----
>>>>
>>>> mmc0: host does not support reading read-only switch. assuming write-enable.
>>>> mmc0: new SD card at address 8fe4
>>>> mmcblk0: mmc0:8fe4 SD02G 1.84 GiB
>>>> mmcblk0:
>>>> TCP cubic registered
>>>> NET: Registered protocol family 10
>>>> lo: Disabled Privacy Extensions
>>>> NET: Registered protocol family 17
>>>> port 1 high speed
>>>> VFP support v0.3: implementor 41 architecture 3 part 30 variant 9 rev 0
>>>> Registering SWP/SWPB emulation handler
>>>> rtc-pl031 mb:rtc: setting system clock to 2010-10-11 10:49:28 UTC (1286794168)
>>>> usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using isp1760 and address 2
>>>> Freeing init memory: 160K
>>>> port 1 high speed
>>>> mmcblk0: retrying using single block read
>>>> Loading, please wait...
>>>> usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0471, idProduct=3526
>>>> usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
>>>> udev[493]: starting version 163
>>>> Begin: Loading eusb 1-1: Product: ISP1520
>>>> mmcblk0: error -5 transferring data, sector 2, nr 6, card status 0x900
>>>> end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 2
>>>> ssential driversusb 1-1: Manufacturer: Philips Semiconductors
>>>> ... done.
>>>> Begin: Runnimmcblk0: error -5 transferring data, sector 3, nr 5, card status 0x900
>>>> ng /scripts/initend_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 3
>>>> -premount ... done.
>>>> Begin: Mounting root file system ... hub 1-1:1.0: USB hub found
>>>> hub 1-1:1.0: 3 ports detected
>>>> Begin: Running /scripts/local-tommcblk0: error -5 transferring data, sector 5, nr 3, card status 0xb00
>>>> p ... done.
>>>> end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 5
>>>> unable to read partition table
>>>>
>>>> -----
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Harry
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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